seira
(σειρα)
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| (Language: Greek) |
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| Short Description: |
chain, series; the term |
| Long Description: |
chain, series; the term, derived rom Orphism and Homer, refers to the vertical series, consisting of a single principle, monad or henad, and repeated at different levels of reality; seira and taxis are both transverse and vertical series; each level of seira (which may be compared to the ray of light) reproduces those above it, therefore the god’s names refer not only to the henad as the source of each procession, but also to all the members of that procession: ‘For each chain bears the name of its monad and the partial spirits enjoy having the same names as their wholes. Thus there are many Apollos and Poseidons and Hephaestuses of all sorts’ (Proclus In Remp.I.92.2ff); thus the manifsted reality is arranged as the hierarchy of chains that embrace divine, angelic, daimonic, heroic, human and irrational levels (including animals, plants and minerals), all dependent on their proper divine henad, in the sense of being in its seira; in some respect seira is tantamount to the Arabic Sufi term silsilah. |
| Example(s): |
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| Source(s): |
The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Platonic and Pythagorean Philosophy, by Dr. Algis Uždavinys |
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