XLIV. I have always wondered, that the enlightened Doctor Gabriel
Naudæus, should have taken no notice in his learned book, intituled,
_An apology for great men who have been suspected of magic_, of Lucius
Apuleius, against whom, the suspicions of magic are much more vulgarized,
and with a better foundation of reason, than they are against many others
he has mentioned. But let that omission have proceeded from what cause
it will, we will at present endeavour to supply the defect, so that this
essay may in some sense, be stiled an addition to Naudæus’s book.
XLV. The rumour of Apuleius being a magician, which began in his
life-time, and was propagated after his death, is still preserved in the
annals of vulgar literature. It is certain, that Apuleius was accused in
form of the crime of magic, before Claudius Maximus, the proconsul of
Africa; and also, that he acted as his own council and advocate through
the whole course of the prosecution; and being a learned and eloquent
man, defended himself admirably. This process, was instituted before
a Gentile tribunal, where the judge, the culprit, and the accusers,
were all pagans. After the death of Apuleius, the Gentiles spread the
report of his magic, and the fame of it insinuated itself secretly
and by degrees, among the Christians; by whom the tale has since been
propagated in books of vulgar literature; but has never gained credit
with learned men; who did not adopt the error, upon the assertions of
ordinary writers; although there is nothing surprizes me more, than the
learned Louis Vives, having made no scruple to affirm (_In lib. 18. de
Civit. cap. 18._) that the magic of Apuleius, was a certain, and well
established fact.
XLVI. Apuleius was a native of Africa, and studied first in Carthage,
afterwards in Athens; and last of all in Rome. He was a man of great
ingenuity, and made large advances in a little time; so that in the
flower of his youth, he returned to Africa an accomplished scholar, but
very poor, he having consumed all his patrimony, in the expences of his
travels and his education. His youth, his agreeable person, and his
discretion, opened him a door, that afforded him entrance into a life of
plenty and accommodation. A rich widow, named Prudentila, was captivated
with the wit, and genteel personal appearance of Apuleius, and invited
him to live in her house; which invitation ended in her marrying him.
The relations of Prudentila’s first husband, by whom she had two sons,
were much disgusted at this; and although one of the sons, who was named
Pontianus, and was nearly arrived at man’s estate, professed a great
friendship for Apuleius, and was assistant to him in bringing about the
match; he became afterwards the instrument of the indignation of his
relations, and joined with his brother and them, in accusing Apuleius of
witchcraft. Their first allegation against him was, that he with magic
arts, had seduced Prudentila, and won her heart; because that after
having lived nine years a widow, without giving the least occasion for
any suspicion of her continence, she, when advanced in years, and had
sons nearly men grown, would not have had a propensity to matrimony,
unless she had been excited to it by some unfair practices. They alledged
secondly, that Apuleius superstitiously kept a magical hobgoblin, very
carefully wrapt up in a piece of linen; and they alledged thirdly, that
he must be an enchanter, for that Prudentila had written him a letter, in
which she declared he had enchanted her; and this part of the letter they
exhibited, to prove the charge.
XLVII. The reply we shall make to these heads of accusation, is that
which Apuleius made himself to the court, and which is still preserved in
his works. He treated the first allegation with derision, saying that it
was unnecessary for a man possessed of the graces and accomplishments
they had assigned him, to practise magic arts, to captivate the heart
of a woman of forty years old, for that she was no older, although
his accusers had asserted she was sixty. To this he added, that her
physicians had advised her to marry, imputing to her continence, some
indispositions she laboured under; and said further, that her son
Poncianus had advised her, in case she did marry, to take his friend
Apuleius for her husband.
XLVIII. In reality, nothing could be more ridiculous than this part of
the accusation; but with all this, it was well received and much attended
to by the vulgar; who upon perceiving, that a person who in other
respects is prudent and cautious, has a passion for one of a different
sex, begin immediately in their gossiping conversations, to impute it
to magic potions; and this practice or notion is very antient. The same
sort of rumour was circulated in Macedonia, against a woman of Thessaly,
with whom, Philip the father of Alexander was greatly enamoured; but her
absolution from the sin of witchcraft, came from a quarter from whence
it might have been least expected, that is, from the injured Olympias,
the wife of Philip. This queen contrived means to have the concubine of
her husband brought into her presence; and upon viewing her beauty, and
the gracefulness of her person, she, without further enquiry, pronounced
sentence in her favour; and said to her, _Ah, my child, how unjustly have
you been calumniated, for you have no need of the arts of witchcraft, as
your personal charms, added to the sprightliness of mind with which God
has endowed you, are sufficient of themselves, to captivate the heart of
any man_.
XLIX. Nor is it of any avail to render probable a charge of witchcraft,
to alledge, that a person of whose judgment and circumspection we have
had long experience, should, in contradiction to the great opinion we
had formed of his chastity, have been hurried away by an excessive
passion of love, to act diametrically contrary to the former tenor of
his conduct; for such a change, without having recourse to the power of
magic, may be accounted for upon very rational and natural principles.
There are those, who, but here and there an individual, have sufficient
attraction to excite in them such a passion, and they go on to preserve
the reputation of being rigorously chaste people, till their fate
presents to their view, the steel, that is capable of striking fire into
their flinty breasts; nor, to produce those kind of effects, is there
any necessity for having recourse to sympathies, as these are things
which can’t be explained; and all this business is performed by an occult
mechanism, whose operations are not to be discerned, altho’ it causes the
impressions objects make on us at different times, to vary, and produce
different affections in us.
L. To the second article of accusation, he answered, that what he kept
wrapt up in the piece of linen, was a kind of relique, token, or sacred
symbol, of the mysterious worship of a certain deity, and that it had
been given to him by some priests in Greece; which he proved in such a
manner, as was satisfactory to the judge.
LI. In his reply to the third article of accusation, he loaded his
accusers with ignominy, and filled them with confusion. The fact was,
that the sentence of the letter of Prudentila, which they exhibited
against him, when detached from the context of it, had the meaning
which they alledged it to have, but when united to the other parts, and
restored to the place from whence it was taken, it had a quite different
signification. I shall insert the part of the letter from whence they
extracted the sentence. Prudentila, after expostulating with her son
Pontianus, and complaining that both he and his brother, incited to it
by their relations, had embroiled themselves in a vindictive dispute
with Apuleius, speaks thus to him: _I having determined to marry, for
the reasons I have recited to you, you yourself persuaded me to take
Apuleius for a husband, preferable to any other man; and you being also
a great admirer of his accomplishments, made him familiarly acquainted
with me, for the purpose of bringing about the match; but now that you
are stimulated to it by some vindictive and perverse persons, you insist,
that Apuleius has suddenly turned magician, and has enchanted me._ It is
clear, that this is a manifest irony, and contains a lively reproof of
their calumny; but the accusers exhibited no more than these last words
of the letter: _Apuleius has suddenly turned magician, and has enchanted
me._ Apuleius requested, that the whole letter might be read; and when
that was done, the infamous cheat appeared in its proper colours.
LII. These reports of the magic of Apuleius, which did not exceed mere
suspicions, and suspicions that were likewise ill founded, and which
when they were first raised, were dissipated and driven away by his
own masterly justification and defence of himself, revived after his
death, and were augmented to such a degree, that at the period in which
Christianity began to predominate, they came to be established almost
every where by general consent, and by the voice of common fame. This
appears from Lactantius, who in his refutation of the Pagan Hierocles,
that was governor of Alexandria, and who, in a treatise he wrote to
defeat the arguments of the Christians, which, in support of their
faith, they founded on the miracles of Christ, insisted, that Apollonius
Thyaneus, by the help of his magic, had done equal or greater things;
upon which, Lactantius observes, that he wonders he had not joined to
the miracles of Apollonius, those which were said to have been done by
Apuleius: _Voluit ostendere Appollonium, vel paria, vel etiam majora
fecisse. Mirùm quod Apuleium prætermissit, cujus solent, et multa, et
mira memorari._ So that in those days, it appears that many miracles were
said to have been done by Apuleius, and that he had the fame of being
a great magician, and one that could vie, or stand in competition with
Apollonius.
LIII. It appears also, that a century after the days of Lactantius,
the rumour of the feats of Apuleius and Apollonius still existed, and
seemed to have become more prevalent than they were before; and that the
Gentiles, to discredit the miracles of Christ, urged the prodigies that
had been done by Apollonius and Apuleius, and affirmed, that both the one
and the other of them, had done greater things than our Saviour. This
is evident, from the letter of Marcellinus to Saint Augustin, in which
he requests the Saint to answer the objections, the Gentiles made to
the miracles of our Saviour, and to refute the arguments they made use
of to discredit them, which were founded, on the wonders that had been
performed by those two magicians. He says to him: _Precator accesserim,
ut ad ea vigilantius respondere dignerit, in quibus, nihil amplius
Dominum, quam alij homines facere potuerunt, fecisse, vel gessisse
mentiuntur. Apollonium siquidem suum nobis, et Apuleium aliosque magicæ
artis homines in medium proferunt, quorum majora contendunt extitisse
miracula._ The same thing appears from the second letter of Saint Agustin
to Volussianus, and from his forty-ninth to the presbyter Deogratias.
LIV. But what man of any understanding, would conclude that Apuleius
was guilty of witchcraft, upon the depositions of the Gentiles; who,
seeing that the truth gained ground, were intent upon nothing, so much
as inventing tales and lies to preserve their ancient superstition?
They had before this, availed themselves of the history of the deceiver
Philostratus, and in order to eclipse the miracles of Christ, had made
use of the relations he gave of those of Apollonius; and as one crafty
deception generally begets another, they afterwards brought Apuleius upon
the theatre of the world as a rival of Christ; but with what foundation?
Why, with less, if it was possible there could be less, than they had
for introducing Apollonius; for, of the prodigies performed by this last,
there had been a history composed, such a one as it was; but of Apuleius,
they knew nothing more, than that he had been reputed a magician; and
upon the strength of this rumour, they began to form stories of his
portentous feats, for the truth of which says Saint Augustin, _Nullo
fideli auctore jactitant_, which is sufficient, to discredit all that has
been said of his magical operations.
LV. The arguments we have hitherto mentioned for supposing Apuleius to
be a magician, are sufficiently contemptible; but the one we are about
to recite, is much more so, because it is founded in gross ignorance;
but notwithstanding this, I am inclined to think, that those who at
this day believe in the sorceries of Apuleius, do it upon the credit of
the story we are going to relate. We find in the works of Apuleius, an
ingenious fable, intitled, _The Golden Ass_; in which, Apuleius recites
of himself, that when he was upon his travels, he was entertained in
the house of a woman of Thessaly, who was a famous witch, and who kept
many ointments, which had the virtue of transforming those who rubbed
themselves with them, into various shapes, and that he saw her one
night, from a place where he had secreted himself, anoint with one of
them, which transformed her into a screech owl, and that after this was
done, she flew immediately out of the window in quest of her gallant,
who lived a great way off. Apuleius, excited by a violent curiosity, was
tempted to try the effect of the ointment on himself; so he advanced to
the cupboard were the ointments were kept, and laying hold of one of
the gallipots, began to anoint himself, which he did very plentifully;
but as ill-luck would have it, instead of taking hold of the gallipot
which would transform him into a screech-owl, he laid his hand upon
one, whose contents converted him to a quite different species of bird;
upon this he seized on another, the ointment of which, instantly turned
him into an ass. The rest of the fable, consists in the recital of many
pleasant adventures that happened to him under the form of an ass; and
of his being sold and resold to many different masters, some of whom
were better, and others worse; and of his undergoing a great variety of
hardships; but at last, he was so happy as to meet with some roses, which
were the only things capable of restoring him to his natural state, and
upon eating a mouthful of them, he instantly recovered it. This is the
substance of the fable of _The Golden Ass_; under which figure, Apuleius
represents himself to have acted in _propria persona_, and gives an
account of many humourous and odd things that befell him, while he was
thus metamorphosed.
LVI. This fable then, either from having been read without proper
attention, or from people’s not having had any account of it but by
hearsay, but chiefly and principally for want of knowing from whence it
originated, has been supposed by many, to have been a true history; and
from a belief, that Apuleius had really practised magic arts, they went
on to credit that he had been a magician by profession. But there was no
mistake, which could have been more easily cleared up. The first sentence
of the writing, undeceives us, for the author says, I am going to relate
a Grecian fable: _Fabulam Græcanicam incipimus_; and in his preface
to the book wherein it is contained, he says; _Sermone isto milesio
varias fabulas conferam_; and in reality, the whole complex of accidents
and incidents in the tale, clearly shew, that it was a fabrication of
ingenious and pleasant fictions. But the strongest argument to acquit
Apuleius of magic, in this case, is, that he was not the author of
the fable; for the same tale, to which is prefixed the same title, is
to be found in the works of Lucian, who long before had written it in
Greek; and Apuleius only added to it, some new fictions and particular
relations; and in a long digression, he introduced into it, the loves of
Psyche and Cupid. Some learned men, have thought that Lucian was not the
original author of the fable of _The Golden Ass_; but that he abridged
it from the works of another Greek writer, called Lucius of Patras, which
I have never seen, nor do I know whether the book of Metamorphoses of the
person whose production they say this fable was, is now existing.
LVII. All we have recited being so clear and plain, is it not amazing,
that Saint Augustin should believe, Apuleius wrote the History of the
Golden Ass, and that he gave the relation, as of an event, that had
really happened to himself? (vid. _lib. 18. de Civit. cap. 18._) Louis
Vives excuses him, by saying, the Saint being little versed in Greek
authors, did not know that the same fable had been written before by
Lucian. But this observation cannot suppress our astonishment, because
from the words of Apuleius himself, without, to elucidate the matter,
having recourse to any other author, it is plain and evident, that
he related the story as a fiction, because he expressly says in the
beginning of it, what I am about to write, is not a history, but a fable.