First of all, you've really got to love the name: Olympiódorus, “Gift of the Olympian (or Olympians).” Gods, what a name to give your kid. Was this child loved, or what?

The Late Classical neo-Platonist philosopher Olympiodorus (c. 495–570)—known as the Younger to distinguish him from a famous older namesake—was the last pagan to head the School of Alexandria. A number of his writings survive, from which we can tell that he was a deep thinker indeed.

Thinking pagans have long organized their ethical thought around the virtues. (“An it harm none, do what thou wilt” is all very well so far as it goes, but—apart from telling you what not to do—it offers little, if any, guidance on what to do, on how to live well, or—maybe more importantly—on how to interact with others.) The virtues, though, give us ideals to which we can aspire. The Rede is lazy ethics: it doesn't offer much in the way of motivation to better, or surpass, oneself. The virtues, though, do. One can—and should—always become better, more virtuous.

Who can number the virtues? Certainly not me. But I can name some among the Many: Courage. Generosity. Love. Hospitality. Truth. Piety. Loyalty. Beauty. Temperance. (If “Temperance” rubs your fur the wrong way, think “Balance” instead.) Excellence. Responsibility. Duty. Honor. Wisdom.

Well, according to our friend, the well-loved Olympiodorus, the virtues all reciprocally imply one other. Though fully itself, each virtue contains all the others. There's Courage, which is Courage of Courage (Winston Churchill once said that Courage is the chiefest of virtues because it makes all the others possible), but there's also Beauty of Courage, Generosity of Courage, Hospitality of Courage, etc. It's a deep thought, staggering in implication.

Our man takes it further. As the virtues reciprocally imply one another, he says, so too do the gods. Each of the gods implies all the others.

Each of the gods implies all the others. Within each of the gods, all the others are contained. Ye gods. This isn't three-dimensional chess. This is nine-dimensional chess.

No doubt I'll have more to say on the topic once I've spent a little more time unpacking the implications.

I'll get back to you as soon as my head stops spinning.

For more on the virtues:

Ceisiwr Serith (2007) Deep Ancestors: Practicing the Religion of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. ADF Publishing.

See especially Chapter 5.

For more on the gods:

Gus diZerega (2021) God Is Dead, Long Live the Gods: A Case for Polytheism. Llewellyn.

See especially Chapter 9.