FROM HIS SAYINGS AND SERMONS.
Apollonius believed in prayer, but how differently from the vulgar. For
him the idea that the Gods could be swayed from the path of rigid
justice by the entreaties of men, was a blasphemy; that the Gods could
be made parties to our selfish hopes and fears was to our philosopher
unthinkable. One thing alone he knew, that the Gods were the ministers
of right and the rigid dispensers of just desert. The common belief,
which has persisted to our own day, that God can be swayed from His
purpose, that compacts could be made with Him or with His ministers, was
entirely abhorrent to Apollonius. Beings with whom such pacts could be
made, who could be swayed and turned, were not Gods but less than men.
And so we find Apollonius as a youth conversing with one of the priests
of Æsculapius as follows:
"Since then the Gods know all things, I think that one who enters the
temple with a right conscience within him should pray thus: 'Give me,
ye Gods, what is my due!'" (i. 11).
And thus again on his long journey to India he prayed at Babylon: "God
of the sun, send thou me o'er the earth so far as e'er 'tis good for
Thee and me; and may I come to know the good, and never know the bad nor
they know me" (i. 31).
One of his most general prayers, Damis tells us, was to this effect:
"Grant me, ye Gods, to have little and need naught" (i. 34).
"When you enter the temples, for what do you pray?" asked the Pontifex
Maximus Telesinus of our philosopher. "I pray," said Apollonius, "that
righteousness may rule, the laws remain unbroken, the wise be poor and
others rich, but honestly" (iv. 40).
The belief of the philosopher in the grand ideal of having nothing and
yet possessing all things, is exemplified by his reply to the officer
who asked him how he dared enter the dominions of Babylon without
permission. "The whole earth," said Apollonius, "is mine; and it is
given me to journey through it" (i. 21).
There are many instances of sums of money being offered to Apollonius
for his services, but he invariably refused them; not only so but his
followers also refused all presents. On the occasion when King Vardan,
with true Oriental generosity, offered them gifts, they turned away;
whereupon Apollonius said: "You see, my hands, though many, are all like
each other." And when the king asked Apollonius what present he would
bring him back from India, our philosopher replied: "A gift that will
please you, sire. For if my stay there should make me wiser, I shall
come back to you better than I am" (i. 41).
When they were crossing the great mountains into India a conversation is
said to have taken place between Apollonius and Damis, which presents us
with a good instance of how our philosopher ever used the incidents of
the day to inculcate the higher lessons of life. The question was
concerning the "below" and "above." Yesterday, said Damis, we were
_below_ in the valley; to-day we are _above_, high on the mountains, not
far distant from heaven. So this is what you mean by "below" and
"above," said Apollonius gently. Why, of course, impatiently retorted
Damis, if I am in my right mind; what need of such useless questions?
And have you acquired a greater knowledge of the divine nature by being
nearer heaven on the tops of the mountains? continued his master. Do you
think that those who observe the heaven from the mountain heights are
any nearer the understanding of things? Truth to tell, replied Damis,
somewhat crestfallen, I _did_ think I should come down wiser, for I've
been up a higher mountain than any of them, but I fear I know no more
than before I ascended it. Nor do other men, replied Apollonius; "such
observations make them see the heavens more blue, the stars more large,
and the sun rise from the night, things known to those who tend the
sheep and goats; but how God doth take thought for human kind, and how
He doth find pleasure in their service, and what is virtue,
righteousness, and common-sense, that neither Athos will reveal to those
who scale his summit nor yet Olympus who stirs the poet's wonder, unless
it be the soul perceive them; for should the soul when pure and
unalloyed essay such heights, I swear to thee, she wings her flight far
far beyond this lofty Caucasus" (ii. 6).
So again, when at Thermopylæ his followers were disputing as to which
was the highest ground in Greece, Mt. Oeta being then in view. They
happened to be just at the foot of the hill on which the Spartans fell
overwhelmed with arrows. Climbing to the top of it Apollonius cried out:
"And I think _this_ the highest ground, for those who fell here for
freedom's sake have made it high as Oeta and raised it far above a
thousand of Olympuses" (iv. 23).
Another instance of how Apollonius turned chance happenings to good
account is the following. Once at Ephesus, in one of the covered walks
near the city, he was speaking of sharing our goods with others, and how
we ought mutually to help one another. It chanced that a number of
sparrows were sitting on a tree hard by in perfect silence. Suddenly
another sparrow flew up and began chirping, as though it wanted to tell
the others something. Whereupon the little fellows all set to a-chirping
also, and flew away after the new-comer. Apollonius' superstitious
audience were greatly struck by this conduct of the sparrows, and
thought it was an augury of some important matter. But the philosopher
continued with his sermon. The sparrow, he said, has invited his friends
to a banquet. A boy slipped down in a lane hard by and spilt some corn
he was carrying in a bowl; he picked up most of it and went away. The
little sparrow, chancing on the scattered grains, immediately flew off
to invite his friends to the feast.
Thereon most of the crowd went off at a run to see if it were true, and
when they came back shouting and all agog with wonderment, the
philosopher continued: "Ye see what care the sparrows take of one
another, and how happy they are to share with all their goods. And yet
we men do not approve; nay, if we see a man sharing his goods with
other men, we call it wastefulness, extravagance, and by such names, and
dub the men to whom he gives a share, fawners and parasites. What then
is left to us except to shut us up at home like fattening birds, and
gorge our bellies in the dark until we burst with fat?" (iv. 3).
On another occasion, at Smyrna, Apollonius, seeing a ship getting under
weigh, used the occasion for teaching the people the lesson of
co-operation. "Behold the vessel's crew!" he said. "How some have manned
the boats, some raise the anchors up and make them fast, some set the
sails to catch the wind, how others yet again look out at bow and stern.
But if a single man should fail to do a single one of these his duties,
or bungle in his seamanship, their sailing will be bad, and they will
have the storm among them. But if they strive in rivalry each with the
other, their only strife being that no man shall seem worse than his
mates, fair havens shall there be for such a ship, and all good weather
and fair voyage crowd in upon it" (iv. 9).
Again, on another occasion, at Rhodes, Damis asked him if he thought
anything greater than the famous Colossus. "I do," replied Apollonius;
"the man who walks in wisdom's guileless paths that give us health" (v.
21).
There is also a number of instances of witty or sarcastic answers
reported of our philosopher, and indeed, in spite of his generally grave
mood, he not unfrequently rallied his hearers, and sometimes, if we may
say so, chaffed the foolishness out of them (see especially iv. 30).
Even in times of great danger this characteristic shows itself. A good
instance is his answer to the dangerous question of Tigellinus, "What
think you of Nero?" "I think better of him than you do," retorted
Apollonius, "for you think he ought to sing, and I think he ought to
keep silence" (iv. 44).
So again his reproof to a young Croesus of the period is as witty as it
is wise. "Young sir," he said, "methinks it is not you who own your
house, but your house you" (v. 22).
Of the same style also is his answer to a glutton who boasted of his
gluttony. He copied Hercules, he said, who was as famous for the food he
ate as for his labours.
"Yes," said Apollonius, "for he was Hercules. But _you_, what virtue
have you, midden-heap? Your only claim to notice is your chance of being
burst" (iv. 23).
But to turn to more serious occasions. In answer to Vespasian's earnest
prayer, "Teach me what should a good king do," Apollonius is said to
have replied somewhat in the following words:
"You ask me what can not be taught. For kingship is the greatest thing
within a mortal's reach; it is not taught. Yet will I tell you what if
you will do, you will do well. Count not that wealth which is stored
up--in what is this superior to the sand haphazard heaped? nor that
which comes from men who groan beneath taxation's heavy weight--for gold
that comes from tears is base and black. You'll use wealth best of any
king, if you supply the needs of those in want and make their wealth
secure for those with many goods. Be fearful of the power to do whate'er
you please, so will you use it with more prudence. Do not lop off the
ears of corn that show beyond the rest and raise their heads--for
Aristotle is not just in this[116]--but rather weed their disaffection
out like tares from corn, and show yourself a fear to stirrers up of
strife not in 'I punish you' but in 'I _will_ do so.' Submit yourself to
law, O prince, for you will make the laws with greater wisdom if you do
not despise the law yourself. Pay reverence more than ever to the Gods;
great are the gifts you have received from them, and for great things
you pray.[117] In what concerns the state act as a king; in what
concerns yourself, act as a private man" (v. 36). And so on much in the
same strain, all good advice and showing a deep knowledge of human
affairs. And if we are to suppose that this is merely a rhetorical
exercise of Philostratus and not based on the substance of what
Apollonius said, then we must have a higher opinion of the rhetorician
than the rest of his writings warrant.
There is an exceedingly interesting Socratic dialogue between
Thespesion, the abbot of the Gymnosophist community, and Apollonius on
the comparative merits of the Greek and Egyptian ways of representing
the Gods. It runs somewhat as follows:
"What! Are we to think," said Thespesion, "that the Pheidiases and
Praxiteleses went up to heaven and took impressions of the forms of the
Gods, and so made an art of them, or was it something else that set them
a-modelling?"
"Yes, something else," said Apollonius, "something pregnant with
wisdom."
"What was that? Surely you cannot say it was anything else but
imitation?"
"Imagination wrought them--a workman wiser far than imitation; for
imitation only makes what it has seen, whereas imagination makes what it
has never seen, conceiving it with reference to the thing it really is."
Imagination, says Apollonius, is one of the most potent faculties, for
it enables us to reach nearer to realities. It is generally supposed
that Greek sculpture was merely a glorification of physical beauty, in
itself quite unspiritual. It was an idealisation of form and features,
limbs and muscles, an empty glorification of the physical with nothing
of course really corresponding to it in the nature of things. But
Apollonius declared it brings us nearer to the real, as Pythagoras and
Plato declared before him, and as all the wiser teach. He meant this
literally, not vaguely and fantastically. He asserted that the types and
ideas of things are the only realities. He meant that between the
imperfection of the earth and the highest divine type of all things,
were grades of increasing perfection. He meant that within each man was
a form of perfection, though of course not yet absolutely perfect. That
the angel in man, his dæmon, was of God-like beauty, the summation of
all the finest features he had ever worn in his many lives on earth. The
Gods, too, belonged to the world of types, of models, of perfections,
the heaven-world. The Greek sculptors had succeeded in getting in
contact with this world, and the faculty they used was imagination.
This idealisation of form was a worthy way to represent the Gods; but,
says Apollonius, if you set up a hawk or owl or dog in your temples, to
represent Hermes or Athena or Apollo, you may dignify the animals, but
you make the Gods lose dignity.
To this Thespesion replies that the Egyptians dare not give any precise
form to the Gods; they give them merely symbols to which an occult
meaning is attached.
Yes, answers Apollonius, but the danger is that the common people
worship these symbols and get unbeautiful ideas of the Gods. The best
thing would be to have no representations at all. For the mind of the
worshipper can form and fashion for himself an image of the object of
his worship better than any art.
Quite so, retorted Thespesion, and then added mischievously: There was
an old Athenian, by-the-by--no fool--called Socrates, who swore by the
dog and goose as though they were Gods.
Yes, replied Apollonius, he was no fool. He swore by them not as being
Gods, but in order that he might not swear by the Gods (iv. 19).
This is a pleasant passage of wit, of Egyptian against Greek, but all
such set arguments must be set down to the rhetorical exercises of
Philostratus rather than to Apollonius, who taught as "one having
authority," as "from a tripod." Apollonius, a priest of universal
religion, might have pointed out the good side and the bad side of both
Greek and Egyptian religious art, and certainly taught the higher way of
symbolless worship, but he would not champion one popular cult against
another. In the above speech there is a distinct prejudice against Egypt
and a glorification of Greece, and this occurs in a very marked fashion
in several other speeches. Philostratus was a champion of Greece against
all comers; but Apollonius, we believe, was wiser than his biographer.
In spite of the artificial literary dress that is given to the longer
discourses of Apollonius, they contain many noble thoughts, as we may
see from the following quotations from the conversations of our
philosopher with his friend Demetrius, who was endeavouring to dissuade
him from braving Domitian at Rome.
The law, said Apollonius, obliges us to die for liberty, and nature
ordains that we should die for our parents, our friends, or our
children. All men are bound by these duties. But a higher duty is laid
upon the sage; he must die for his principles and the truth he holds
dearer than life. It is not the law that lays this choice upon him, it
is not nature; it is the strength and courage of his own soul. Though
fire or sword threaten him, it will not overcome his resolution or force
from him the slightest falsehood; but he will guard the secrets of
others' lives and all that has been entrusted to his honour as
religiously as the secrets of initiation. And I know more than other
men, for I know that of all that I know, I know some things for the
good, some for the wise, some for myself, some for the Gods, but naught
for tyrants.
Again, I think that a wise man does nothing alone or by himself; no
thought of his so secret but that he has himself as witness to it. And
whether the famous saying "know thyself" be from Apollo or from some
sage who learnt to know himself and proclaimed it as a good for all, I
think the wise man who knows himself and has his own spirit in constant
comradeship, to fight at his right hand, will neither cringe at what the
vulgar fear, nor dare to do what most men do without the slightest shame
(vii. 15).
In the above we have the true philosopher's contempt for death, and also
the calm knowledge of the initiate, of the comforter and adviser of
others to whom the secrets of their lives have been confessed, that no
tortures can ever unseal his lips. Here, too, we have the full knowledge
of what consciousness is, of the impossibility of hiding the smallest
trace of evil in the inner world; and also the dazzling brilliancy of a
higher ethic which makes the habitual conduct of the crowd appear
surprising--the "that which they do--not with shame."