"Divi d

JOSEF IEER

''Divine Madness
Plato 5 Case against Secular Humanism

Tanslad by oha Kah

IGNATIU RE AN tfRANCICO

 Title of the Gemun original:
"Cttcher Wls
e Ptrprtt
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 Contents

stabshng the
Theme 7

Prophecy


Catharss"


oesy
29

ros
37

Concuson
57

ransator's
Note 59
 ESTLISHING THE THEME

" THE HGHEST GOODS coe to US n the

anner of the mni, nasuch as the sae s
bestowed on us as a dvne gft" Ths
pronounceent by Socrates wth ts centra
ter mi reanng untransated for
nowcontans an entre word vew t pro-
cas above al a fundaenta opnon about
the
eanng of huan exstence t shows that
an s
ndeed of such a nd as to possess hs own
self in freedo and sefdeternaton that he
s abe and aso obged to exane crtcay
everythng he en counters that he s above a
abe and obged to deterne based on
nsght hs own fe Yet it fur- ter ndcates
tat an at te sae te s n s persona
seood ntegrated nto te whoe of rea-
ty n such a way that he can very we be
shaen
out of hs sefpossesson and ts not ony
n te for of forced oppressn but possby
so ong as
7
8 
DIVINE MADNESS  

man on his pat does not baicade himself in

efu-
sal, also in such a fom that  th v l f

 p thee is bestowed on him a fullment
not achieved in any othe way.
This concept of man, with the tension of
its stuctue, can of couse neve be captued in
some smooth fomula; its inheent explosive
potential indicates, athe, an implacable and
distubing chal- lenge And this concept of
man, in a unique way, occupied Plato's mind
all his life. Yet he was fa fom placing his
emphasis on the same aspect. Like evey tue
philosophe, he was conceed not so much
with nding some satising and handy fo-
mula as with not ovelooking anything. Thus
he neve denied o disegaded the fact that
bth apct ae essential to man, selfpossession as
well as its loss though the iuption of a highe
powe. But he was not always disposed to
intepet such loss of self diected autonomy
as a gain.
In his earlier writings, he seems inclined to
a the state of
beingbesideoneselfinenthusiasm" a
sickness", even though he would have
consideed it a wose sickness t to be able
to be sick" in such a way. (The sicness
that consists in the ina- bility to be
sick"this expession of moden psy- chology
comes to ind.)
 STABSHN G TH TH M 9

The foowng reectons are an attempt to

nter pret prmary the ate Daogue Phadru
In ths Daogue Socrates dscusses four derent
forms of the tha aa, by whch he means
precsey ths godgven state of
bengbesdeonesef
 PROPHECY

T IRST DISCUSSION concens pophetic

cstasy
divination" in the stict sense the tprt
prp t qu Thee es ae identied by
name: the pophetess at elphi the piestesses of
odona and the Sibyl They all have in
common that, while they wee in a state of
ecstatic fenzy they accom- plished eat
thins thoh thei tteances, bt when they
wee of clea mind and calm self- possession
they we nable to say anythin impo- tant
At the time of Socates, elphi had been a
sanc- tay fo moe than a thousand yeas,
etendin its
nence a into Asa and ypt. eadess o
te
ntepetation of details we now know that
the eects of the elphian Oacle, especialy
when aimed at the political aena can hadly
be oveesti mated Its oacles contaned
eliios and etical
I I
12  DVNE MADNESS 

demands found practically nowhere else in the

pre- Christian world formulated with such
consistency and intensity For example not only
is the inviola- ble right to asylum proclaimed
here and not only is the custom of the blood
feud denounced but the earliest rules for a
more humane conduct of war indeed for
some ind of international law" can also be
traced bac to the elphian Oracle
The most ancient folaic hymnic wisdom
of the Gree religion originated with the
priestesses of
odona in northern Greece Zeus was Zeus is and
Zeus will ever be0 Zeus thou art most
power ful!" Al too easily do we tend to
overloo such things in favor of those
entertaining stories about the gods of the
Homeric mythology stories that Plato dismisses
as a perversion of the true divine doc
trineaccording to the Grk conception of
course And naly the Sibyl The most ancient
testi- mony nown to us derives from one of
the great preSocratic philosophers Heaclitus it
is itsel cast in Sibyline obscurity The Sibyl
with raging lips uttering things unamusing and
unadorned and unanointed resounds through
the millennia driven
by the god"
Plato's contemporaries are so familiar with al
this that the text states explicitly Let us not
tal at
 PRO PHCY 1 3

length about things nown to eveybody. And

then ecapituating the text says it woud be
good to eect on the fact that the ancients
who gave names to al things assigned to this
oacula at of the seepiestess and the Sibyl
the name aa as a name of hr A few
lines ate this tite is con-
med once again the ancient ones testied
that moe veneabe than human easonabeness
is the tha aa, the godgiven and
enthusiastic state of beingbesideonese
We atteday eades of Pato ae at st
incined to connect the Patonic commentay
on the po- phetic tance ony with Delphi
Dodona and the Siby theefoe with the
histoy of Gee ei gion"and thus to et
it est Suveying the aca- demic iteatue on
Plato we ae lagey conmed and encouaged
in this appoach But in doig this we depive
ouseves of the genuine gain we might vey
wel deive fom studying Plato's wods o even
simpy eading them attentivey.  am e
minded hee of C S ewis' Scrwtap Lttr
A devil caled Scewtape" gown wise"
though extensive expeience ipats instuctions
and ad- vice to his nephew inexpeienced in
the ways of humans n ettes expessng a
philosophica antho- poogy atogethe as
huoous as t is pofound but
 4 "DIVINE MADNESS 

of couse, uned usde down One of Scewae's

lees deals wh sudyn he ancens
Ony he leaned ead old books, and we
he uned demons of hel] hae now so
deal wh he leaned ha hey ae of all
men he leas lkely o acque wsdom by
don so We hae done hs by
nculcan he Hsocal Pon of Vew Pu
bey, he Hsocal Pon of Vew means
ha when a leaned man s esened wh any
saemen
n an ancen auho, he one queson he nee asks
s whehe  s ue He asks who nuenced
he ancen we, and how fa he saemen
s conss-
en wh wha he sad n ohe books, and
wha
hase n he we's deelomen, o n he
eneal hsoy of houh,  lusaes, and how
 aeced lae wes, and how ofen  was
msundesood (secaly by he leaned man's
own colleaues)
  , and so foh
Bu as soon as I, n ew of Plao's commens
on
he s fom of enhusasc
benbesdeoneself,
ose he queson whehe somehn s saed
hee
 ha descbes he ealy of a suaon;
whehe somehn comes o he foe hee ha
n acual fac
s found n he ealy of he human
essencehen
 mmedaely becomes mossble o conne
Plao's esmon meel o the hso of
Geek
 PRO PHECY 1 5

religion Such a quesion righ away sweeps

aside
he arrw catgry of being merely somehing of
he pas.
For example alhough he modeday
hrisian has encounered he Sibyl in he
sequence D !ra, righ in he middle of he
hurch's [former] funeral liurgy where she is
menioned in one breah wih
he biblical king David boh propheicay
esiing
o he caasrophic end of hisory (tt Davd
cu Sbyl/a), his connecion may si be aken
as a quain owery ornamen wihou any
paricular implicaion. In order o address
seriously he ques-
ion of he ruh of i all we have o
ranslae Plao's words and meaning more
resoluely ino our own menal framework.
Incidenally here does exis such a
ranslaion" daing from prehrisian imes
ino a language closer o ours: he language of
he Romans Lain. In he sixh book of he
Ad, which conains a descripion of Aeneas
consuling he Sibyl of
umae he tha aa is indeed presened as
sacred renzy": n e enormous cavern o
umae perforaed a hundred imes and having
a hundred mouhs ha carry wih rushing
voices" he responses of he Sibyl here she
herself sood a e enrance and as she spoke
6 
DVN MADNSS  

..neither her face

Nor hue went untransformed, nor did her hair
Stay neaty bound; her breast heaved, her wild heart
Grew arge with passionTaer to their eyes
And sounding now no onger ike a mortal
Since she had fet the god's power breathing near
Apolo
Pulled her up raging, or ese whipped her
on, Digging the spurs beneath her breast.

Even so,  wold not yet call ths a

tanslaton
nto tems famla to s nstead, ths s
accom- plshed thogh one sngle wod sed
by Vgl t appeas n the rst verses of the
same book, whee
t s sad abot the Sbyl that the Delan god
Apollo
beathed nto her the chness of the spt" .
The name fo ths breath", of cose, s prat,
nsp- raton!
n efeence to ths wod we ae now able to
take
 eon foun n e Pon Doue
Phae
dru and efomlte t n contempoary and
moe specc tems Hman nate s so
postoned wthn ts exstental ealm as to be
essentally open towad the sphee of the dvne
an s constted
n sch a way tht, on the one hand, he
needs o be
forced thoh nspraon, out of the sef
 PRO PHEY 7

sucency of hs thnngthrough an event

therefore that les beyond hs dsposng power
an event that comes to hm only n the form
of some thng unpredctable On the other
hand t s pre csely n ths oss of ratonal
soveregnty that man gans a wealth above all
of ntuton lght trth and nsght nto realty
all of whch would other- wse reman beyond
hs reach ere we are explc
tly loong not at the results of human
genus bt at the eects of a derent a
lofter a dvne power . Such overwhelmng
nspraton s possble not only
n the abstract t really happens every now
and then. Whenever t does happen t
happens n such a way that the phr}
selfpossesson as well as everythng mpled
by t s beng forcefully sus pended no
matter how much the dgnty of the human
person s ordnarly based on t nspraton as
an event occurs n the form of bengbesde-
oneself a thia  a nia hence that nspraton le
-

wse appears to the mlttude" as madness

t s mmedately obvous that such a
statement
nvtes dscsson of the etaphyscal structre
of man' natre whch les all but beyond the
grasp of
scence" e who would dscuss the truth
of ths dscourse has to be prepared to declare
hs ultmate convctons That s to put t
brey and n blnt
!8 "DIVINE MADNE 

erms a hrsan confroned wh such

saemens
and pursun a phlosophcal nerpreaon of Plao,
canno easly escape he necessy of ncludn
n
he dscusson eachns of he hrsan fah
hese eachns, for her par, clearly aree
wh Plao ha, ndeed, he lmaons of
mans naure, as well as s nne openness
and capacyboh
oeherare manfes n he occurrence of
revela-
ory dvne nspraon
he queson remans, of course, wheher
hs areemen mh also end o he
specc ways and means of revelaon and
nspraon ould a
hrsan heoloan really accep Plaos alk
of enhusasc benbesdeoneself or even hs
alk of
aa, no maer how ofen  be declared a
"dv madness"? How, n any case, does
hrsan heol- oy conceve of revelaon
and nspraon as an even happenn o he rs
recpen?
I have o adm ha I epeced, compared
wh Plaos descrpon of he ta aa, an
answer much more composed and, as  were
more de
ached, more raonally unmpassoned Bu
hen I encounered, o my surprse, almos
lerally he same descrpon of he revelaory
even as found n Plaos Padru, n homas
Aqunas, whom no one could accuse of a lack of
sobre
 PRO PHECY 9

Thomas dscusses the nstance of evelaton

and
nspaton unde the headng of prphta and
raptu The vey tem raptu, havng a clealy
dscenble connotaton of somethng ntusve
and volent, s obvously not fa emoved fom
tha aa Ths connecton s conmed
mmedately by Scholast csm's denton,
quoted by Thomas beng lfted up though a
hghe powe, away fom those thngs that petan
to natue, and towad those thngs that ae
aganst natue" ( d ud t ctra atura)
Pophecy as well, seen as an event n the
mnd of the one who expeences evelaton
and nspaton,
s descbed by Thomas n tems not only
of pa but even of falue, gvng way" He
asks, fo
nstance, whethe  prpha s a habtu, belongng
to the pophet" lke a possesson, a talent, a
skll He answes No, the pophetc lght
appeas n the pophet's soul as a ecepton o
a eetng engav
ng    Pophecy, nsofa as t efes to the
seeng
on the pat of the pophet, s n a cetan
sense admttedly a mental acton but n
efeence to the lght that s eceved suddenly
and n the manne of somethng passng
though (lke the sun's lght n the
atmosphee), t s somethng eceved  
In the pocess of pophetc evelaton, the
pophet's mnd s beng moved by the Hol
Spt
20 DIVINE MADNESS 

le an nstrument that submts . . . ." And naly

t
s an entrely unexpected dscovery that
Thomas the accepted model of the most
unmpassoned ratonalty declares cognton
durng sleep to be more powerful as regards
receptvty than the cog nton of one who s
awaethus postonng hm- self by one
sngle surprsng step squarely on Plato's sde.
Ratonalsm however because t dstorts the
entre realty of human lfe necessarly nds
both thners equally ncomprehensble and
naccessble.
 ''CATHARSIS

T   of divinely caused

beingbeside oneself discussed by Socrates has
been characterized as cathartic mania" Any
comparison and connec tion with certain tenets
we ourselves deem true is possible of course,
only if we hod an opinion at all regarding
the topic considered here At rst sight we
seem not to have such an opinion What
then is meant by the term cathartic mania"?
First of all, what does the text say? The
passage in the ialogue Phadru reads thus:
Again, for hose sore pagues and dire aicions,
which o ae aware ineed in ceain famiies a
he wraih of some od ancesra ui, mania devised
a remed afer i had enered ino he hear of he
proper persons and o he proper persons
reveaed is secres; for i ed for refuge o praer
and ser- vices of he ods, and hence oaining
puricaions

22 DIVINE MADNE 

n tonng rtes me ts possessor wole or tme

present n tme to come, by sowng m te
wy o escpe rom te evls tt encompsse
m,  only e were rgtly renze n
possesse
On this point, the iteate on Plato oes
only some etemey meage and stammeing wods.
Wil- amowitz candidly declaes this to be not
nde- stood" as yet Nowhee did I nd an
eplanation, and I am at a oss myself." Of cose,
one cod po- pose simpy to disegad this
matte altogethe if it wee not athe veing
that we shold be so ttely incapable of
ecognizing as meaninl, that is, as connected
to eality, a thesis pononced by Plato with
obviosy seios intent. his wod be distb- ing
not so mch becase of the gap in intepetation,
iking to the histoian and phiologist, bt
athe becase we wold have eason to
sspect that we have developed a blind spot as
egads eality, if we in factconfonted with
sch a specic pononce met, whh to
evdty demd dm do ot ndestad
at al what he is taking abot.
At this point, two qestions shold be
asked. Fist Looking at o cent total
knowedge of man, is thee in t something
that coesponds to what Plato caled those
soe plages and die acto", ooted 
ome od et t "
 CATHARSIS  23

Some ranslaions (eg K Hildebrand) also say

owing from an ancien crse"; a,
indeed means boh gil and (divine) wrah
The mos appropriae erm combining boh
elemens may be
he German Vrhg [doom] The second
qes-
ion: Looking a or knowledge of man is
here in i somehing ha corresponds o wha
Plao says abo he divinely appoined aa,
which he declares o be alon able o relieve
man of sch an ancien brden Oy if sch
corresponding ele- mens eis wil we be a
all prepared o ndersand wha Plao is
alking abo here; above al ony
hen can we apply Plao's discorse o hose
noions we orselves deem re
oncerning he rs qesion we shold
recog- nize a once ha he ailmens brdens
aicions plages and miseries menioned by
Plao are obvi- osly no or no primarily o
be seen as physical inrmiies serings and
wonds b raher as br dens of he sol which
oppress and darken he hear One conemporary
commenary on he Phadru Daoge hods that
Pato probaby was hinng of somehing like
the sory of Oreses who is haned by he
avenging specers he Eud [rinnyes] B i
is no only in he ragedies of antiqiy ha we
enconer hese Eud The odernday
24 DVN MADNSS 

spectator can watch them appear in T S. liot's

Faly Runn, as the chorus stepping out of
the window alcoes of a contemporary nglish
country manor :
And weter in Argos or England,
Tere are certain inexible laws
Unalterable, in te nature of music

It is of course less important to nd agreement

in
ocabulary than in the matter itsel
Regarding the subject matter here we should
recall for instance the ndings of modern
psychoanalysis. These
ndings indeed did not bring to light any
totally independent and new insights On the
contrary they simply conrmed to a large extent
those things already nown and uttered since
ancient days by renowned authorities on the
human heart and in sapiential traditions of
nations. These ndigs con
rm this too: In the life of the soul there
are indeed burdens tribulations and ailments
that can be shown to ow from ancient
doom in which the aicted idiiduals
themseles as well as preceding generations
are caught up in some unspecied par-
ticipation and in which moreoer a certain
inner corruption impossible to dene coincides
with an inescapable ad fateful external destiny In
short any
 cATHARSS  2 

reecton on the totaty of mans exstence

wll even today ead to the nsght that such
burdens
owng from such roots are rea
Furthermore ths nsght suggests that man s
unable to free hmself from these burdens by
eans of mere ratona technque that, on the
contrary, such an attempt would render the burden
even more burdensome Lberaton can occur
only through a process of healng characterzed,
at least negatvely, by the necessty for the one
desrng healng to reln- qush temporarly the
steerng wheel of ratonal self- control and
selfpossesson ndeed t s not some busly
pursued actvty that s here n order but, on
the contrary, a wngness to submt to beng led and
aectedfor nstance, by delvng to the
doman of the unconscous and of dreams
Plato was no doubt aware that Asclepus
healng
art orgnally had a magca character, oerng
the supplcant advce and healng n dreams A
dream, however s somethng we do not
orgnate our- seves We suer a drea" hs
sentence s not an ancen ponouncemen s
auo s none ote than C. G Jung Le
Plato, he too mentons te necessty for the
sae of heang and restoraton, of abandonng
oneself to a state of bengbesde- oneself of
mi; and he quotes hee the ancent
2 DIVIE MADESS 

oracle Let o of what you possess and so

you shal
receve'  he ift of receivn, then, has
been
iven the same name in modern psycholoy as
n Platonc teachn the ift of cleansin, cathar
Aanst ths attempt to draw an analoy
beeen Plato on the one hand and modern
psychoanalyss on the other, one could certanly
obect as follows
o matter how much the lberaton of the
sub- conscious in modern parlance mht
resemble the
benbesdeoneself of the Platonic aa,
the decsve pont for Plato conssts n ts
ben a dvly caud benbesdeoneself, a
tha aa and reardn ths the theory of
the subconscous does not utter a word
As much as ths objection s usted in
vew of the eplcitly declared or, rather,
eplctly unde- clared poston of modern
psychoanalyss,  would try to counter it wth
this question nasmuch as the soul tself
certainly knows its wants and needs, does not
ths sou's eistential foundation, lyin beyond
any ratonal calculaton, at least slently ntmate
the possblty of a superatural, divinely created
orin also of the healin process? an, by
lettn o of hmself, does not at al abandon
hmef nto the realm of what is merely
irratonal. He enters the hean darkness of his
own divne orin.
 "cATHAS S 
27

One more aspect should be mentioned here.

Plao if he reay had in mind the story of
Oreses the matricide could have understood
the burden
rooted in ancestral guilt" specically as guilt
in the literal sense of the word or at least
as including such personal guilt n that case
his thesis would asser that guilt crime and
sin canno be undone and that we cannot get
rid of such burdens simply through a rational
program of inner discipline or through some
external regimen no matter how sublime
Gult is wiped out by means of the tha
aa
Contemporary man however f he s a
Christian (once again here the ultimate
existential roots have to be brought into the
discourse and not only when agreement prevails
but also in the face of disagree- ment!) can
hardly avod taing Plato's side and speaing
of his own conviction whch liewise asserts
that gult can be absolved only through
ta, through repentance and converson
Mta means rst that one surrenders and
aban
ons t ssny o  mn tt ms
tot
ndependence Mtna s precisey the opposite
of the attitude dened by Seneca and spanning
the centuries tht t s th frit of phosophy
never to regret anything" Second the noton
of ta
 "D V  MADSS 

impies ha sch conversion can never be fy

decided by a mere ac of he wi; raher, i is
besowed on man as a divine favor.
 POESY

TH TH D R M of dvnely prompted

beng besdeoneself dscussed by Socrates s
the poetc
aa, the ecstasy nspred by the uses and
sezng
upon a tender and vrgn soul strrng t to
raptur ous frenzy" And a clear note of
cauton s added
mmedately Genune and grand poetry s not poss-
ble uness born out of dvne madness
Whosoever wshes to be a poet by hs own
devces wll never experence the blessed ntaton
The poetry of those who are reasonable and
sensble fades nto obscury before the poetry
of those who spea n the ecstasy of
bengbesdeonese
ow can ths econton o poetr  
stand sde by sde wth the condemnaton
found n the Rpubc, whch would ban
omer and Traged from the deal
commonwealth" Ths obsevaton (by
Wlamowtz) appear agan and agan n the
lt
9
3 "D V N MADNSS 

erature on Plato in dierent variations. There

may be no real problem lurking here at a 
along, as
in the ialogue M, which was written much ear-
lier than the Rpublc, Plato distinguished between
divine poets" and those who have no claim
to this title Among those other, nondivine,
poets, he evi-
dently counts also omer, because omer
attrib- utes ungodly things to the gods
Genuine poesy, then, originates with divine
in- spiration it ows from a condition of the
soul closer to a state of beingbesideoneself
than possessing- oneself and this
beingbesideoneself is not the result of wine,
poison, or some other drug but is caused by
some higher power Poesy, if it is true poesy,
ows from enthusiasm" in the strict sense of
the word
Can we moderns look at this Platonic thesis
in
any way other than merely historicay? After
we consider everything we know scienticaly
about psychological requisites and other relevant
condi- tions for poetic creation and artistic
production as such, can we still seriously assert
that poetry ows from divine inspiration?
n this context, we" does not mean simply
con- temporary ma in general but, above all,
the Chris- tian. Can a Christian accept a
thesis that puts poesy
 PSY 3 

on the same level as revelaton and nspraton?

In a bogaphy on Rle we read: Rle s
the quntes- sental gure of a poet n the
smple sense of beng a vessel for dvne
nspraton One necessarly has to beleve ths n
order to do justce to Rle" You do not have to
lac a poetc nclnaton after a or be
speccally unsympathetc toward Rle to
consder such words as at the least romantc
exaggeraton f not smply blasphemy And yet
does not Plato say the very same thng?
The reecton here ponts out the sad
decency of our not havng avalable any
theologcal or phlo- sophcal doctrne on the
nature of the ne arts whch would provde
the framewor for dscussng Plato's thess n
more adequate crtcal terms Such a theology
or phlosophy of poetcs ncdentally mght
have to be reconstructed ever anew accord-
ng to the derent sprtual condtons of
each epoch and ths would probably turn out
to be le theology and phlosophy n genera
a tas becom
ng ever more dcut
Reinhod Schneider shorty before his death
stated that he never ceased searchng for the
ature of poesy but that n hs experence as
the years go by t becomes more and more
dcut to d an answer" To purue ths
queston ere s of course
32 "D V  MADSS 

mpossble At ths pont of our Phad

nterpreta-
ton however we must emphasze one partcular
aspect In spte of all scentc" analyses of
poetry;
n spte of all the supercal popular success of man-
fest pseudopoetry (no matter wheter t
presents
tself as lterary art or poltcally engaged propaganda
or entertanment") n spte of the fact that
we no longer have any llusons when we
consder erson- ages such as Brecht or
Bennn short wthn the framewor of our
spontaneous atttude towrd poetry there
remans nevertheless one element entrely
unaected an element clearly tendng to sde
wth Plato and hs thess. Ths element obv
ously cannot be attaced and elmnated ether
through our acquantance wth degenerate
poetry or through any dose of analytcal and
caustc crt cs In all the reectve
medtaton on poetry even as ts result ts
element every now and then coms to the
fore. Ths fact ndeed must most rcefully be
called to mnd to prevent us from gvng n
to our mmedate reacton of tang Platos
thought as merely hstorcal and thus dsmssng
t.
Ths partcular element s attested hundreds
of tmes n the wors of such poetc masters as
Nvals or Hlderln It s so selfevdent tat
we see no need to beabor t at any length. It
s approprate at
 P SY 33

any rate to consder the unromantc precson

of the foowng sentence n derlns
Comments on Antgone: t s of great
benet to the sou workng n secret that at
the heght of conscous- ness t moves away
from conscousness  But t
s altogether more surprsng to hear a ratona
thnker such as essng decare about hs own
crea- tons that t woud be too much of an
honor to ca them poetry and hmsef 
poet: Tht lvng sprng do not fel t
nsd msef    Smlar utterances came
from Adalbert Stfter aways so
eveheaded he says that at no tme dd [he]
regard [hs] own wrtngs as poety nor would
he
ever presume    to ca them poety There
are vey few poets n ths word The
mpressve rea-
sm of Goethe the great wrter of etters s
not content wth such merey negatve
characterza- tons e oers al but Patonc
formuatons: The poet s n fact out of hs
senses and n keepng wth the humbe truth
he has to admt that hs con- dton s
atogether a trance between wakng and
dreamng n eect  do not ny that many a
thng appears to me e a dream    As
the man pre- requste for true poesy he
sts an overwhelmng nature an rresstbe
urge an nsstent passon s not al of ths
smpy another descrpton of the
 "D V  MADSS 
34

same poetic aa discussed by Plato m his Pha

dru?
nd yet, there is no need to dig into the
past. Een a poet such as Gottfried Benn, who
clearly loed to destroy, with a heay hand
and with his Berlinesque diction, any romantic
atmosphere (a poem ery rarely comes about;
a poem is made"), een Benn is completely
aware of the compulsion inoled in poetic
creation, a compulsion that can neither be
controlled rationally nor aoided. Many eplicit
remarks to the contrary notwithstanding he
epresses in specic words the ery elements
of the tha aa, the beingbesideoneself
rooted at least beyond the human sphere The
essence of poetry is perfection and fascination . .
. that such perfection eists in and of itself, this
 do not afrm." t sounds rather grotesque,
really, when Ma ychner de clares, in his
epilogue to Gottfried Benns Slctd Lttr .
. . his eening ritual of walking to the
neihbohood taen, with its owl popuous one
liness, resuted in some kind of incantation, when he
totally absorbed into hiself became a mystic,
and his beer stein a chaice." Neethees, 
think this is probably an accurate description of the
inner reality
fter al, this is an expeence that might
happen to anbod at the er moment we
are touched
 PSY 5

and oved by the voice of genuine poesy m

the creations of Gottfried Benn, or Franz
Kaa, or Georges Bernanos, we now that it
is not the two insurance agents Kaa and
Bernanos to who we ascribe any such
authority The cichstae by nowof saying
according to the poet" is not entirey
istaen! Of course, who woud this
poet" be, if not the deratoogist Dr Benn?
We wi certainy not go so far as to cai a
divine voice speaing sipy and directy
through the ediu of the poet And yet,
woud we consider ourseves to be copetey
correct if we ared that the intense
eotiona power of great poetry is entirey
without any connection to the utiate, a-
ebracing divine foundation of the word?
This precisey is the question Pato chaenges
us to face when he speas of the poets divine
mni.
 EROS

FINALLY, ocAS S PAKS of the erotc

experence through whch we humans f
crcumstances are rghtly ordered and favorable can
also encounter and expect somethng healng
enrchng even dvne
hs means not that every nfatuaton
between
any Jac and Jll s eo ipso a dvne gft but that
n every erotc emoton there s contaned the
possbl
y the context and the promse of
somethng reachng nntely beyond ts
mmedate sgn-
cance Yet man wll truly partae of the
promsed gift oly on condton that when
recevng the
mpetus born of emoton he accepts and
sustans t
n tn pur n t ontet te
pote o corrupton adulteraton
dsmuaton pretenson and pseudoactualzaton
le dangeroul closeas they do ncidentally
n the case of the prophetc the cathartc and
the poetc mania.
3
 "DIVINE MADNESS 

Much wose, of couse, and moe hopeless

than
an honest No" is a faked Yes", when
pehaps the semblance of inne emotion is
being deceptively upheld, pechance even
deceiving one's own think ing, as if thee
wee enchantment with beauy wheeas in
ealiy thee is nothing but totay un-
emotional, calculating caving fo pleasue
None- theless, Plato holds that fo the tue
love a gift awaits that is entiely compaable
to what man
eceives in divine evelation, in catar, and
in poetic inspiation
Goethe, afte having discussed, in Dctug
ud
Wart [Poety and uth] , his own eotic
epei- ences, states the same he sincee loving
yeanings of uncoupted youth take quite a
spiitual tun Natue seems so to aange things
that one gende would sensibly peceive in the
othe whateve is good and beautiful hus
when I beheld this maiden, when my heat
yeaned fo he, a whole new wold of
beauty and ecellence unfolded befoe me" t
is an evil thing when lustful desie comes
befoe eotic emotion, suocating it! As soon
as lust intudes, love cannot claim pema
nence"so wote And Gide in his diay
o make this point evident is the intent of the dis-
couse that now foows in Plato's Padru At
the
 OS 9

outset however he states that ths dscourse wl

deed soud covcng to the wse yet uncovc-
g to the clever" The Greek term employed
here
s d6, whch  our dctonares s redered
as
dreadful terrble tremendous" as well as
power ful ecent exceptonal" Obvously
somethng s meant here that s at one and the
same tme admra- ble astoshg ad
terrg; and such ca deed be ascrbed
justably to the purely ratoal md" A
clever man Socrates states wl always cosder
unconvcng the noton that true lovers
 ther bengbesdethemselves are promsed
ad mght receve a dvne gft
But then Socrates starts al over agan ad
the theme of Eros" seems at rst to get
hopelessly lost
Before anythng else" he says we must
vest-
gate the truth wth regard to the nature of the
soul by observg ts condtons and powers"
Someone else had once begun a dscourse on Eros 
the same manernamely Arstophanes 
Plato's Syp siu: Before anythng else" that
s before you ca say anythg substantal about
Eros you must kow the nature of man and
reect on al that has aected
t (pathata)
 To aswer the questo rased here can
ever be easy Ad Plato's multlayered
explaato makes
4 "DIVIE MADESS

use of course of the ancent lore" preservd n the

mythcal tradton Thus do  begn my demonstra-
ton" we read n Phadru; every sprtual
beng s
mmortal" The thngs we are famlar wth
do not prepare us for Plato's noton of
mmortalty whch refers not only to the
future but to the past as well The human
soulths s hs meanngs not only wthout
end but also wthout begnnng agt
We are wont to dsregard ths dea for t
appears alen to us and outsde our customary
thnkng as somethng above all ncompatble wth
the Chrstan and Western concept of the
human soul. And yet does not the Chrstan
doctrne n the end agree wth ths Platonc
noton? We too conceve of the sprtual soul
as somethng that strctly speakng does not
become". The theologcal teachng that the
human soul lke every sprtual beng comng
nto exstence s drectly created" contans
wthout doubt the correct nsght that unlke
everythng ese which eveops" and "unfolds,
te sou oes not actually orgnate" A
geness" of the soul would be nconcevable.
Ths thess by the way has a drect
contemporary relevance t oes not merely
approxmate Plato's concept t obvously
expresses the very same thought! This saeness
is being underlined here ot
 S

for the purpose of forcing it into some modern per-

tinency but in order to prevent the
contemporary student of Plato from thining
that such reading eercises perhaps dealt with
to the point of weari- ness are by now ony
of historical interest and hence no longer
relevant Plato's genius manifests itself in the
very fact that his insights cannot easily be
dismissed even though their verbal epression
may seem questionable They have ept their
rele vance and we are unable to replace
them with insights more pertinent
The same applies to Plato's philosophical
dictum that the natural habitat of the soul is
the universe of all that eists ven though
we do not appropriate Plato's formulation that
the soul reigns throughout the entre cosmos"
we cannot on the other hand bring ourselves to
understand and describe the spirit as anything but
an essence whose nature includes eisting within
the universal horizon of all there is
To be endowed with spirit" means specically this
to be dealing with all there is As Thomas
Aquinas formulated t: te nature of tis spirit
is manifested
rst and foremost in its cnvnire cum mni nt
(anity with all tat is)
Plato tried to gain some insight into the
primor dial accidents and fates that befell the
soul by
 42 "DIVI MAD 

employing severa illstrations, which, in the end, al

bring ot the same idea that man has lost,
throgh his own oense, the perfection
originaly reseved for him as part of his
spernatra destiny and that, in conseqence,
he is now incessanty chasing after the original
ideal form The primordial condition, being at
the same time the tre goal and end of
hman eistence, constittes the object of
man's rmmbc as wel as his lgg
However, both remembrance and longing can
nfold ony if man, be it ever so briey,
eaves behind the bsyness of his activities and
steps otside the concerns of his workaday
world
And so, naly, we shal speak of r, the
rtc m, the basic form of man's
beingbesidehimself occrring specicaly in his
enconter with sensal beaty For beaty,
specically physica beaty, if man approaches it
receptivey, can aect and strike him more than
any other vae", can psh him osde e
ream o s famr ad coroed
environment, otside his neaty eplained
world", in which he deems himsef rather
condenty at
ome, as ike pts it
ommon angage inorms s, frtermore,
that beaty is above al attractive" Attracted",
then, is
e who as ost, be it on for a momet, the
cam
 EROS 43

contentedness of his selfpossession; he is as we

say
moved" by something elsehe has to sue"
al this This state in which al odely
familiaity (togethe with one's selfpossession)
vanishes Plato descibes again and again with
eve new epes- sions: a desie t soa on
wings whie being uttely unable to do so;
being beside oneself whie not
nowing what is going on; fement
estlessness helplessness We also nd athe
unpoetic" com- paisons; fo instance Socates
speas of the uncom- fotable condition of a
child who is teething The lovesthis we ead
in Aistophanes' speech in the Sympium-
not now what they ultimately desie of each
othe; it is athe evident that thei souls yean
fo something othe than the mee pleasues
of love This othe" howeve the soul is
unable to name: t has only some vague idea
about the tue object of its desie and its
own eplana tions ae but iddles"
At this point something impotant comes
into view the dieence beteen desie and
love He who desies nows clealy what he
wants; at eat he is calculating entiely
selfpossessed Yet desie is not the same as
love; the one being loved is in a stict sense
not the one who is being desied but the one
fo whom something is desied He who
44 "DIVIE MADESS 

loves in such a nondesiring way, however, does

not
determine his actions or initiatives al by
himself; rather, he is being moved" whe
contemplating the beloved. Whatever is being
loved most and moves us most, as Plato states,
is beauty, for which reason those who love
beauty are caled siply
lovers".
We latterday, enlightened readers of Plato
are all too ready to consider such a discourse
to be overly emotional, unrealistic, and
romantic. Yet I believe this would be a
mistae. Plato's discourse is entirely rational; he
has no ilusions about the fact that much, if
not most, of what generally passes for
love" is nothing but desire. He nows that
true rapture enticed by beauty occurs only
rarely. Plato insists, however, that this rare
event alone actualizes the essential purpose of
all human encounter with beauty. Few there
are who remember the
sacred things they once beheld."
Nothn evoes ths remebrance more
ntensely than beauty; this is a specic
characteristic ofbeauty. In its power to lead
toward a reality beyond the ere and now,
beyond immediate perception, it cannot be
compared to anything in this world. Anyone who
has some understanding of Plato's philosophy
wil
now that, in his conception, whatever we
eper
 ES 45

ence m ths word as rea true and good s

but a reecton that s somethng pontng to
an arche type not drecty observabe Stl we
may encounter embodments of goodness justce
or wsdomno matter to what degree of
perfecton perhaps n the person of a just
ruersuch that t woud be amost
mpossbe not to react wth admraton and
devo ton Such experences nonetheess do not
have the power to enrapture us they do not
transport us beyond the here and now eauty
aone can accom- psh ths ony the encounter
wth beauty evoes remembrance and yearnng
promptng n the one so touched the desre to get
away from the course of all those thngs that
usualy absorb the human mnd
hs dstnctve essence of beauty s descrbed
by
Pato on two leves the eve of otherworldly
expe- rence (beauty beyond" ths space and
tme) and the leve of the present exstence (
beauty here and now)
Plato s obvousy unwng to conceve of
the utmate perfecton n store for man n
terms other than the encountr wth dvne
buty, not as encounter wth the dea of the
good" or of
beng" or of anythng ese To lustrate ths pont
we have ony to quote a few nes from
Dotma 's speech n the Syrposiu: Toward ths
end of hs
 "DVE MADESS 

 jour ney, he wll see a wondrous vson,

beautful n
ts nature  "; beautful not n the guse of
a face or of hands or any other porton of the
body   ", but as prmordal beauty, estng
ever n sngular
ty of form ndependent by tself .  . ! Are you
not convnced that at that pont he s
destned to become the beloved of the gods"?
And n the a- logue Phadrus we read: At
that tme" (lngust- cally, ths epresson
denotes the past, ncludng the prmordal past,
as well as the future, ncludng the
eschatologcal future), at that tme, we, for
our part, followed n ths band of Zeus   
and beheld that blssful sght and spectacle,
and were ntated
nto that mystery, whch by eternal rght s
pro-
nounced the most blessed of all mysteres  
. beauty, beheld at that tme n ts shnng
splendor"
Even on the level of our earthly estence, beauty
s somethng ncomparably eceptonal. It s
the one thng most emnently vsble; we
perceve beauty thouh ou eyes, the most
lhtlled of ou senses Pulchrum s qud visu
beautful s that whch pleases the eye
of the beholder. Ths s a straght- forwad
answer; nethe a scent, nor a taste, nor any-
thn tanble, not even a specal sound can
n the strct sense, be called a thng of
beauty" No other sptual real comes
before ou eyes wth such
 EROS 7

mmedate vsblty. Wsdom, for nstance,

cannot be seen" Plato adds here, f wsdom were
as vsble to our eyes as beauty s, then a
fearsome love would ngh be enkndled", a
love apt to upset and destroy our exstental
structure, to transport us n total rapture
outsde our earthly exstence. Nether wsdom
nor anythng else worthy of love but only
beauty was destned to be most vsble and
most lovable at the same tme".
Plato, to repeat, does not hold that beauty
moves man's ner core nevtably and, as t
were, automat
caly, wthout fal; not even that ths happens
wth
regulartyhe s very much aware that beauty
may well awaken an rreverent, selsh desre
Only those who open up to remembrance wll
be shaken to ther core. Lke gentle ran passng
through the wn- dows of the eyes, beauty
prompts the soul to sprout wngs agan, to
soar to the dwelng of the gods, from where
the soul orgnated. n ths very exper- ence, n
the opnon of Plato's Socrates, the nature of
ros s experenced and actvated For ths reason
o the gos ca os no e wnge one but
te
wnggver", an expresson Plato quotes from
an ancent poem.
he essence of beauty, therefore, f wat has
been sad here s true precsely does not
consst n pro
 DIIE MADESS 

v dng satsfacton, lke somethng that

grates" ,
no matter how hghly sprtual a gratcaton
t may be Goethe, rather surprsngly, captured
ths Pla- tonc noton n an admrably succnct
sentence:
Beauty s not so much a fulllment as
rather a promse." In other words, by absorbng
beauty wth the rght dsposton, we
experence, not grat-
caton, satsfacton, and enjoyment but the
arousal of an expectaton; we are orented
toward some-
thng notyethere" He who submts
properly to the encounter wth beauty wl be
gven the sght and taste not of a fullment
but of a promsea promse that, n our
bodly exstence, can never be fulled
Ths last formulaton n turn closely echoes a
quotaton found n Paul Claudel's wrtngs:
Woman
s the promse that can never come to pass:
ths
very fact consttutes my grace" Claudel's
statement, as wel as Goethe's, seems to express
accurately the thouht of Plato who holds
that the deep erotc emoton ted to the
encounter wth beauty s a form of hia
mania, the godgven bengbesde- oneself,
nsofar as the actual occurrence does not
produce a fulllment"any satsfacton n
dwell-
ng here and nowbut instead entces our
nner exstental space to reach for some
nnte ful
 EROS 49

llment not avalable here and now except by

way of yearnng and remembrance He who n
contem- platon of earthly beauy remembers
the one true beauty agan sprouts wngs . . "
and thus the true lover long before our
common exle has lapsed s trasported nto
communon wth the gods
And ths ndeed s sad not only of the
lover but of the phlosopher! Ths connecton
at rst sght rather puzzlng s found also n
the Sympsium Ths
s not the place to dscuss t n detal yet at
the very least we must notce that Plato here
s not thnkng
at all of somethng noncommttal and poetc
on the contrary he envsons somethng very
specc. Lovers and phlosophers are connected
by specal tes nsofar as both erotc
exctement and genune phlosophcal quest
trgger a omentum that n ths nte
exstence can never be stlled n an encounter
wth sensual beauy f man opens up totally
to the object of the encounter a passon s
born that n the realm of the senses whch at
rst would seem to be the only adequate
realm can never be satsed. The same holds
true for the rst moment of phlosophcal
wonder the wonder that
rses from our contact wth realy") a
queston arses that n our nte worldwhch
may mean
for example wth the tools of scence"wll
also
50 "DIINE MADNESS 

never receve an answer. The phlosopher and

the true lovernether wl nd fullment
ecept through a dvne favor
f, n retrospect, you consder the core of what
has been sad, you may be tempted to
conclude that al ths, whle admttedly
mpressve, s at the same tme an deal"
concept that hardly apples to the realy of
any lvng and breathng human beng. t s
pont- less to argue wth such an mpresson.
verythng depends on how one dees human
realy" and a
genune" human beng.
ncdentaly, Plato does not n fact mae a seres
of apodctc assertons. He smply descrbes a
possblty Hs own convcton, however, s
clear Man has the capacy to eperence n
erotc emoton, accepted and sustaned wth
puryand possbly n no other conteta
unque promse pontng to a fullment more
deeply satsng than any fulllment n the
realm of the senses. And ths, too, s asserted n Platos
haus as ndsputable act ony when ths
happens
has the true meanng o eros" become manfest .
How lttle danger there s for Plato to stray
and lose touch wth real lfe s shown, n the
haus, n the closng passages of Socrates'
speech Ths tet s so astonshng that
lamowtz hmself s at a loss
or words to epress hs surprse these closn
pas
 ROS 

sages he says smply represent a cotradcton

to everythng Plato has otherwse taught
A close scrutny of the text shows that
Socrates ( Plato) speas of four derent
experences n whch
ros s gured or dsgured
The rst form he mentons s the brutalty
of the many who desre nothng but pleasure
n the most vulgar sense of the word No trace
here of romant- czng and dsregardng realty!
In second place he dscusses the rened
sensualty
of a ratonal hedonsm whch n essence ams
at pleasure alone
The thrd form s an s that renounces
pleasure beng love's heroc fullness and ts
most blessed real-
ty Those whose love s of ths nd wll upon
ther death leave ths earthly lfe as f on
wngs and wthout oppressng burden" they
wll be able to rse at once aloft to the
dvne sphere agan to par- tcpate n the
heavenly processon and the great banquet of the
gods
Most astonshng however s the Pars'
ds cusson of te fourt form of ros Socrates
speas of love that s not entrely contnent
yet at the same tme s not mere cravng but
true lovng yearnng enchantment selfgvng
and noncalculatng rap ture Those possessed by
ts nd of love we are
 "DIVINE MADNESS 

told will gain no mean victory trophy thanks

to
their maa, their readiness to rise above their
own selshness. When they die the soul will
leave the body not with perfect wings but at
least with sprouting ones Because the soul had
already set foot on the path of the heavens it
will not get lost in darkness. Most clearly this
is meant in an eschato- logical sense; the
notion of salvation" is involved; and salvation"
takes place onlybut also always in
circumstances where true love is present. Cast
into perdition into darkness is that form
ofration ality" which greedily calculating
assigns earthly and imperfect things to the
soul thus breeding in it only vulgarity".
he learned literature on Plato asks in
amazement where else in the Platonic Dialogues
we can nd such leniency toward the
weaknesses of the esh".
his question I think entirely misses the
substance of the discussion. he point is not that
Plato would he eue here  emm rom
the wee of the esh. Rather it is stated
that such weakness can be compensated even
transformedthrough the winggiing power of
true love.
Modern man a Christian especially may at rst
nd it rather strange that the powers attributed
to
rue love"mely the abilty to remember" and
 OS 53

the winggvg capacity o f eros eading bac

t o the dweling of the godsshould reside in
such coseness to what is physical sensua
even bioogi ca And yet this Patonic
thought is not reay for- eign to Christianity's
traditiona moral notions on the contrary we
nd there its cear parale Thoas Aquinas is
equay convinced that neither eevated" nor
spiritua" loveneither dilci, resuting from a
conscious choice of the wi nor caias, based
on divine gracecan become a iving reality
without the  passi amis, that is without the
sou's being moved by a concrete sensory
presence. True this view does not necessarily
impy that elevated and spiritua ove is no
more than the progression or
subimation" of the erotic  passi without
doubt Thomas woud insist rather that an
eevated and spiritua ove is capabe of
puriing and controing this  passi amis. Stil
this great magis of Chris- tianity not unie
Pato is of the opinion (dicut to expain to
a Christian" consciousness prone to embrace
Manichaeism and spiritualism) that caitas, when
cut o from the vita root of the  passi
amis, can neither come about as a truy
hman act nor endure in iving expression
This conviction is by no means ony of
theoreti
ca iportance for a conceptua dnition of
human
 4 "DIVIE MADESS 

natue. ndeed, t nds ts clea ecaton tme

and
agan n the expeences of the
psychoanalytcal pofesson. Such expeences, fo
nstance, eeal that the aggesse suppesson
of a peson's poten- tal fo sensual, eotc
emotons makes loe  u
mpossble and also suocates dilti and rit
Smlaly, the ntoleance, the hashness, and
the stubbonness often found n people who
clam to be ey sptual could well be the
esult of an unnatual suppesson of the i
mri Man, een
n hs most sublme sptualty, s always an
nca- nate beng. hs bodly ealty, whch
makes each peson ethe a man o a woman,
een on the hgh- est leel of sptual lfe,
does not consttute smply a bae and a
lmtaton; t s at the same tme the beautful
wellspng of all human actty On ths,
homas Aqunas and Plato thooughy agee
One othe dscepancy, much dscussed,
be- tween Plato's concept of r and what the
hstan sees as the uh us ou o be,
whe cose examned, of no consequence
Platos noton of r,
t s sad, amounts n ths end to nothng
moe than a selshness that ams to ench
ad sats the self, whle the hstan dea of
rit and g, n con tast, means a loe
that s geeous, unselsh, and
v o su such  cos,  se eady
 EROS 55

an almost nadmssble smplcaton nvtes

ready challenges from both sdes of the
queston For one
ros, ascendng to the contemplaton of
archetypal beauty wll also n Plato's
concepton be trans formed nto an atttude
that leaves far behnd all selsh desres and s
most approprately called a form of worshp"
The concluson of Dotma's dscourse n the
Smposum can hardly be nter- preted derently
bove all moreover t s questonable
whether
man s at all capable of a totally unselsh"
love Chrstan theology too denes the hghest
form of caras as that state n whch God s
loved as the source of all blss Such blss
however whch ult- mately s the quest of all
love s nothng other than the nal quencng
of man's most profound thrst Man s by
nature a beng that thrsts and yearns and not
only because he moves n the world of the
senses" as Kant has t but precsely nsofar as
he s sprt To be so uselsh" as to be
ready to re- nounce the ultmate fulllment
eterna blss s
ry mo o us u w as homas
qunas has formulated many tmes s uable 10f
to desre such blss
 CONCLUSION

I S EASY to see that our dscusson here

covers questons of strng relevance To
apprecate ths pont one has only to focus on
a certan under- standng of man that already
appears on the horzon of our possbltes a
type of man who says: We do not need any
supernatural answers; we ourselves tae care of
any psychologcal probems that cal for ree
any art" that nether satses a specc need
even f ths need s only entertanment nor
serves the potca and technoogca control of
the world
s not wecome; and above al sexualty must not
be hndered n ts expressons or dealzed
romantcally
t s qute event that the present te
especay cres out for a eener awareness of
the Socratc Patonc wsdom as scusse n
ths essay It cres out for resstance to the
attempt an the temptaton to estabsh the
autocratc rule of man who deludes
5
 "D V NE MADNESS 

hmsef ha he possesses soveegn powes ove

he
wod and ove hmsef and hus squandes hs
ea esena pamony
Such pamony s acheved and peseved
ony
hough a wngy acceped openness openness
fo dvne eveaon, fo he saluay pan of
cthr, fo he ecoecng powe of he ne
as, fo he emoona shock bough abou by
r and crt
n sho, hough he aude ooed n he
myse ous epeence ha Pao called th
m