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the gods are not only distinguished from humans, but because they distinguish themselves in their own being from humans by holding themselves understandingly toward the death of mortals ...
HEIDEGGER: ... and because they experience themselves as perpetual beings only in their self-distinction from mortals.
FINK: Only because they have view of mortals can they experience themselves as perpetually being. The immortals are those who do not meet death; mortals are those who are bound to death. But Heraclitus converts this customary comprehension of Greek mythology, which lets mortals and gods be for themselves, and which lets them turn toward each other only occasionally. He makes this occasional relationship into a relationship constituting gods and humans in their own being. The immortal being of the gods is only possible if they relate themselves toward the mortal being of humans. The knowledge of human being bound to death constitutes the understanding of imperishable being proper, and vice versa, the knowledge of the perpetual being of the gods constitutes the understanding of mortal being proper. Gods and humans do not form two separated spheres. It depends on seeing not the chorismos [separation], but the intertwining of the godly and human understanding of self and of being.
HEIDEGGER: It is not a question of speaking in a blunt manner of gods and humans as of different living beings, of whom the former are immortal, the other mortal. Spoken in the terminology of Being and Time, immortality is no category, but rather an existentiale, a way that the gods relate themselves toward their being.
FINK: The godly knowledge of the being bound to death of humans is no mere consciousness, but rather an understanding relationship. With Athena, who appears as mentor to mortals in order to bring help to them, it is perhaps a matter of still another theme. The epiphany of the gods is no actual mortal being of the gods, but a masking. When Aristotle says that the life of θεωρία [contemplation], which exceeds φρόνησις (practical wisdom], is a kind of godly life, an ἀθανατίζειν (to be immortal] (whereby ἀθανατίζειν is formed like ἑλληνίζειν [to be Greek]), that implies that in θεωρία we comport ourselves like immortals. In θεωρία, mortals reach up to the life of the gods. Correspondingly, we must say of the gods, that their comportment toward humans is a "θανατίζειν" [to be mortal], presupposing that one could form this word. The emphasis lies in this, that the relationship of humans to gods cannot he described externally, but rather that they themselves exist as their alternate and counterrelationship, except that the gods, to a certain extent, have the more favorable existenz-ontology and humans, on the contrary, the less favorable. The godly and human understanding of self and being must project itself in mutual understanding.
HEIDEGGER: In the relationship of gods and humans, it depends on