Aristotle: New light on his life and on some of his lost works
Anton-Herman Chroust
University of Notre Dame Press, 1973

Note: Chroust seems to have been rather loose in some of his speculations, so the following should be taken with a grain of salt...

Chapter XVI: Aristotle's Religious Convictions

"It seems to be fully in keeping with Aristotle's ultimate attitude towards religion, piety and reverent awe when he is credited with having maintained that 'we should be nowhere more modest than in matters of religion. If we compose ourselves before we enter temples ... how much more should we do this when we are discussing ... the nature of the gods. In this latter case we must be on guard not to utter anything rashly and imprudently.' (fr 14)" (CHROUST, p. 223)

"It may also be conjectured, and it seems correctly, that in his On Prayer, Aristotle postulated that moral man should approach God only 'in spirit' and pray to Him only in and through the intellect which, as Aristotle so emphatically stressed in the Protrepticus, is the 'only thing divine dwelling in us,' and which alone endows mortal life with 'a certain element or aspect of the divine.' For, in keeping with the Greek notion that only like can communicate with like, the divine 'pure intellect' can be reached only through another intellect, that is, through 'spiritual' and intellectual truth - through the 'divine dwelling in us.' Essentially the same notion is brought out once more in Nicomachean Ethics 1179a23ff." (CHROUST, p. 226)

"Aristotle ... maintains that man can derive a knowledge of God's existence from two sources: from the inspired powers of the soul (revelation?), and from the starry heavens and the wonders of the visible world. According to Aristotle, 'also the heavenly bodies contributed to men's belief [in the existence of God]. Seeing by day the sun moving in its circular course, and by night the well-ordered movements of the other stars, men have come to think that there is a God Who is the cause of such movement and order.' (fr 12a) Pursuing the same argument further, Aristotle declares that 'some men, when they observe the unswerving and well-ordered movement of the heavenly bodies, say that in this realization the thought of gods had its origin.... Those who first looked up to the heavens and saw the sun running its race from its rising to its setting and the orderly dances of the stars looked for the [divine] Craftsman of this perfect design, and surmised that it came about not by chance, but through the agency of some mightier and imperishable nature, which was God.' (fr 12b) In consequence, Philo of Alexandria could insist that 'Aristotle was surely speaking in a pious and devoted manner when he insisted that the universe is ungenerated and imperishable; and when he charged with serious godlessness those who proclaimed the opposite, that is, those wh othough that the Visible God, Who contains in truth the sun and the moon and the remaining pantheon of planets and fixed stars, is no better than the work done by man's hands.' (fr 18)" (CHROUST, p. 227)

Chapter XVII: Aristotle's Self-Portrayal

"In his early work On Prayer, Aristotle declares that God is 'pure intellect' or 'something above the pure intellect.' Hence, we must approach God and pray to Him only through the intellect, that is, on the highest possible level of communication befitting the sublimity of the Supreme Being. Essentially the same idea becomes manifest in the statement ascribed to Aristotle, that 'we must not offer anything defective to gods, but things perfect and whole, and that which is complete is perfect, and garlanding oneself is a sort of completion.' [frs. 1-2] (CHROUST, p. 234)

"The prodigious scholarly output of Aristotle is in itself the most eloquent proof of the fact that he was an indefatigable as well as painstaking worker; and that he saw in intellectual work and scholarly effort the most profound meaning of life itself: the life of the 'doer' is the best life. (Politics 1325a21) For 'happiness is activity.' (Politics 1325a32) Hence, 'happiness, if not god-given, comes as a result of virtue, study and effort.' (EN 1099b15) 'We certainly should not spare any labor and expense in the pursuit of philosophic wisdom.' (fr 5)" (CHROUST, p. 235)

END