Obviously, this is the Classical Text Forum (on a RELIGIOUS website), and Kuhn's
Structure of Scientific Revolutions was about paradigm shifts in modern science long after Antiquity. We are explicitly backwards looking. So we can take this thread back to Alchemy's origins, or rather Jung on Zosimos and (Hermetic) paradigms of Philo Judaeus. Where does the paradigm concept come from, Plato or Egypt?
In Plato, an extraordinarily high value is set on the archetypes as metaphysical ideas, as “paradigms” or models, while real things are held to be only the copies of these model ideas. -- C. Jung, 1948.
Late Jung, more than a decade after the example(s) given above, and I won't treat this extremely important topic with anything but a passing note. Jung's understanding of the term 'paradigm' came
firstly from a medical-scientific standpoint, but he was later (c.1913, Age 36) drawn to Philo Judaeus and the Hermetica through G.R.S. Mead. (Zosimos, the Father of Chemistry, is likewise identified as a Hermeticist.) And so his famous 'Collective Unconscious' (1929, 1936) emerges from a decades-long study of Hermeticism/Gnosticism (i.e. Mead). Right or wrong -- Analytische Psychologie provided a paradigm shift and was undoubtedly hugely influential material in Western psychology of the 20th C. The argument can be made that Analytical Psychology was fundmentally gnostic/hermetic; the renovated paradigm is ancient and occult, even if others might call it psycho-babble. I don't believe a "paradigm" must be either "scientific" or "consensus" - but a systematic model must be coherent, recognizable, widely-employed (i.e. believable) within the framework of literate-intellectual culture. Mere opinion isn't a paradigm, but a popular heretical belief-system might be: Theosophy had emerged as a radical doctrine, then an alternative formalized movement by 1875. G.R.S. Mead was one of its more famous propagandists. Could a Theosophical historian create and popularize a new ("modern") paradigm in the occult sciences? Mead has been ignored by most 20th C. Gnostic scholars; only recently has that begun to change. But the Jungian paradigm was built upon that British (Occult) foundation.
It is therefore especially interesting to see what Mead has to say about The Paradigm, translating Philo Judaeus with an alternative citation ("Quod Deus Im., § 6; M. 1.277, P.298 [Ri. 2.72, 73]") in
Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1 [1906],
pp.229-230:
THE ELDER AND YOUNGER SONS OF GOD
The Cosmic Logos is not the sensible cosmos, but the Mind thereof. This Philo explains at length.
“It is then clear, that He who is the generator of things generated, and the artificer of things fashioned, and the governor of things governed, must needs be absolutely wise. He is in truth the father, and artificer, and governor of all in both the heaven and cosmos.
“Now things to come are hidden in the shade of future time, sometimes at short, and sometimes at long distances. But God is the artificer of time as well. For He is father of its father; and time’s father is the cosmos, which manifests its motion as the genesis of time; so that time holds to God the place of grandson.
“For that this cosmos 2 is the Younger Son of God, in that it is perceptible to sense. The Son who’s older than this one, He hath declared to be no one [perceivable by sense], for that he is conceivable by mind alone. But having judged him worthy of the elder’s rights, He hath determined that he should remain with Him alone.
“This [cosmos], then, the Younger Son, the sensible, being set a-moving, has caused time’s nature to appear and disappear; so that there nothing is which future is with God, who has the very bounds of time subject to Him. For ’tis not time, but time’s archetype and paradigm, Eternity (or Æon), which is His life. But in Eternity naught’s past, and naught is future, but all is present only.”
I'm not sure that translation is sufficient. Here is the Greek, and my own effort at sorting the muddle:
billd89 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 29, 2021 7:58 am
Quod Deus Sit Immutabilis
(30) ...ὁ δὲ θεὸς πατὴρ καὶ τεχνίτης καὶ ἐπίτροπος τῶν ἐν οὐρανῷ τε καὶ κόσμῳ πρὸς ἀλήθειάν ἐστι. ...(31) δημιουργὸς δὲ καὶ χρόνου θεός· καὶ γὰρ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ πατὴρ – πατὴρ δὲ χρόνου κόσμος – τὴν κίνησιν αὐτοῦ γένεσιν ἀποφήνας ἐκείνου· ὥστε υἱωνοῦ τάξιν ἔχειν πρὸς θεὸν τὸν χρόνον. ὁ μὲν γὰρ κόσμος οὗτος νεώτερος υἱὸς θεοῦ, ἅτε αἰσθητὸς ὤν· τὸν γὰρ πρεσβύτερον [οὐδένα εἶπε]– νοητὸς δ’ἐκεῖνος – πρεσβείων ἀξιώσας παρ’ ἑαυτῷ καταμένειν διενοήθη. (32) οὗτος οὖν ὁ νεώτερος υἱὸς ὁ αἰσθητὸς κινηθεὶς τὴν χρόνου φύσιν ἀναλάμψαι καὶ ἀνασχεῖν ἐποίησεν· ὥστε οὐδὲν παρὰ θεῷ μέλλον τῷ καὶ τὰ τῶν χρόνων ὑπηγμένῳ πέρατα. καὶ γὰρ οὐ χρόνος, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἀρχέτυπον τοῦ χρόνου καὶ παράδειγμα αἰὼν ὁ βίος ἐστὶν αὐτοῦ· ἐν αἰῶνι δὲ οὔτε παρελήλυθεν οὐδὲν οὔτε μέλλει, ἀλλὰ μόνον ὑφέστηκεν
...
My working trans.:
(30): “But [0] God is the [1] Father, and [2]Craftsman, and [3]Guardian {ἐπίτροπος} of all in Heaven and the Cosmos, in truth. […] (31) God is the Demiurge {δημιουργὸς} and God of Chronos also, for He is the Father of ‘Time’s father’ — that is, the Cosmos’ Chronos {χρόνου κόσμος} — who made the movements of one the origin of the other. Thus Chronos has this order unto God: for this Cosmos, as perceptible by the outward sense, is the younger Son of God. He {Demiurge-God} assigned the senior rank {i.e. over the congregations} of the Noetic Cosmos and purposed that it should remain in his own {i.e. Chronos’} keeping. (32) This Younger Son makes the Nature of Chronos rise and breathe, so that nothing is too late for the future and the boundaries of Chronos. For God is not Chronos but the 'Archetype of Chronos', and 'God's Life' is a 'Paradigm for Aeon' : He is neither Past nor Future in Aeon, but only present 'Being'.
There are two parts of this paradigm, separately understood.
A. Philo's initial definition of God seems quite deliberate but can be read two ways, numerologically.
As a Hebdomad: "And God (1) is
a) Father of those in Heaven.
b) Father of those in the World.
c) Maker of those in Heaven.
d) Maker of those in the World.
e) Overseer of those in Heaven.
f) Overseer of those in the World." (+6 = 7 Dunamis)
...or an Ogdoad (8) of both Divine and Cosmic Reality:
g) "And God (1) is Father (a), Maker (c), Overseer (e) of those in Heaven." (1+1+1+1= 4)
h) "And God is Father, Maker, Overseer of those in the World." (1+3 = 4)
B. And God is the ultimate Creator of Time (i.e. God is the Demiurge); and God is The Father of his father (i.e. Demiurge +Archetype +Time), where Demiurge (1) is Father of the Archetype (2), of Divine Time (3) and of Cosmic Time (4). A four-fold schema (God -Demiurge -Archetype -Time) might count as a triune God; this bit is murky. Is it Judaized Platonic theory, or Pythagorean?
1) God ....................................... 1) God + 2a)
2a) First Son / Demiurge ......... 2b) Second Son / Guardian
3a) Archetype Divine Time ...... 3b) Archetype Cosmic Time
4a) Divine Time ........................ 4b) Cosmic Time
= 4 ............................................ = 5
1) God ....................................... 1) Father
2) Demiurge .............................. 2) First Son
3) Archetype Chronos .............. 3) God's Life
4) Aeon ..................................... 4) Second Son
5) Time ..................................... 5) Being
Confusing or obscure?
This may help. I won't re-hash 4 or 5 prior posts I've made grappling w/ this peculiar Philonic exegesis of some unknown (Proto-Gnostic?) theology. It appears to be a rectification of several existing systems; although I don't think Philo himself 'Platonizes' God, others may disagree. How and what (Greek) Platonic schema it may be derivative from, or if an even older mystical (Judeo-)Egyptian (or Judeo-Phoenician?) formulation is involved remains uncertain in my mind. Some may see evidence of the nascent Xian triune God; I'm doubtful of that. I am convinced, however, that Philo Judaeus has repeatedly revealed the Sons-of-God/A. A. paradigm of divinization (perhaps: the Sethian cult), and again: the four-fold schema is very curious, no coincidence!
Abit further in the same chapter, Mead cites De Mund. Op., §6; M. 1.5, P.5 (Ri. 1.9):
“It is plain, moreover, that the Archetypal Seal, which we call Cosmos which is perceptible only to the intellect, must itself be the Archetypal Pattern, the Idea of ideas {παράδειγμα, ἀρχέτυπος ἰδέα τῶν ἰδεῶν}, the Reason (Logos) of God.”
Archetypal Seal -- Celestial Cross
Noetic Cosmos -- Celestial Universe
Archetypal Pattern -- Celestial Order
Logos of God -- Reason of Man
Intelligible Cosmos (i.e. Noetic Reality) = Paradigm = Archetypal Idea = Logos. As least it's clear that Paradigm=Archetype is the Supracosmic Pattern of Logos (God #2), even if the conflation of the Hermetica and the Philonica proves challenging/problematic.
What's extraordinary here, if not immediately obvious: there are multiple paradigms in the Chronos passage. First,
Paradigm is Logos (God). Second, Philo Judaeus is knowingly (re-)presenting a paradigm of the Divine Quaternity. Third, this logically represents an organizational paradigm (Founder-Architect-Administrator-Presbyter: order/roles of descending leadership) passing for the priestly chain-of-command in some cult's belief system. In so many writings, Philo alludes to the cult(s) without really naming them; these mystical Jewish brethren are re-creating the Divine Cosmos in their own paradigm
work. (There are at least four 'paradigm' interpretations evident here.) As such, their identity is key.
Jung surely knew; whether he assumed they were
Sethians I am unsure. He cited late this exact Philonic passage "the extension of heavenly motion is Time" in
CW 855 (1951?), but he certainly processed it much earlier. It is often difficult to see WHEN Jung first employed a borrowed concept. His 1940 Lecture 6 (
12/13/1940) connects Zosimos' Alchemy to "real psychology", Theosebia (= Therapeutide) w/ 'the servants of God', the daemonic Collective Unconscious, the Hermetica, the Divine Water which transforms (Sober Inebriety) and the Egyptian Thoth. The Jungian paradigm avails itself of so many intriguing themes and symbols - it may have been merely scientistic, but it came to dominate the field.
Why should it matter what
Carl Jung thought? L. Edelstein distained Jung's influence on his intimate friend and roommate of four years,
H. Zimmer; that is why "the celebrated physician" is portrayed a failure: "I have never been successful...". For his part, Dr. Jung (in a talk given
4/5/1939) was both aware of and sensitive to this
critical case in 1938.