any more exact description than the paradoxical phrase, “a _viva-voce_
literature.” It had its birth and chief development in that part of the
Empire in which Christianity and Greek life came into closest and most
frequent contact. It was the product of the rhetorical schools which
have been already described. In those schools the professor had been
in the habit of illustrating his rules and instructing his students by
model compositions of his own.[144] Such compositions were in the first
instance exercises in the pleading of actual causes, and accusations or
defences of real persons. The cases were necessarily supposed rather
than actual, but they had a practical object in view, and came as close
as possible to real life. The large growth of the habit of studying
Rhetoric as a part of the education of a gentleman, and the increased
devotion to the literature of the past, which came partly from the felt
loss of spontaneity and partly from national pride,[145] caused these
compositions in the rhetorical schools to take a wider range.[146] They
began on the one hand to be divorced from even a fictitious connection
with the law-courts, and on the other to be directly imitative of the
styles of ancient authors. From the older Rhetoric, the study of forensic
logic and speech with a view to the actual practice in the law-courts,
which necessarily still went on, there branched out the new Rhetoric,
which was sometimes specially known as Sophistic.
* * * * *
Sophistic proceeded for the most part upon the old lines. Its literary
compositions preserved the old name, “exercises” (μελέται), as though
they were still the rehearsals of actual pleadings. They were divided
into two kinds, _Theses_ and _Hypotheses_, according as a subject was
argued in general terms or names were introduced.[147] The latter were
the more common. Their subjects were sometimes fictitious, sometimes
taken from real history. Of the first of these there is a good example
in Lucian’s _Tyrannicide_: the situation is, that a man goes into the
citadel of a town for the purpose of killing a tyrant: not finding the
tyrant, the man kills the tyrant’s son: the tyrant coming in and seeing
his son with the sword in his body, stabs himself: the man claims the
reward as a tyrannicide. Of the second kind of subjects, there are such
instances as “Demosthenes defending himself against the charge of having
taken the bribe which Demades brought,”[148] and “The Athenians wounded
at Syracuse beg their comrades who are returning to Athens to put them
to death.”[149] The Homeric cycle was an unfailing mine of subjects: the
Persian wars hardly less so. “Would you like to hear a sensible speech
about Agamemnon, or are you sick of hearing speeches about Agamemnon,
Atreus’ son?” asks Dio Chrysostom in one of his Dialogues.[150] “I
should not take amiss even a speech about Adrastus or Tantalus or
Pelops, if I were likely to get good from it,” is the polite reply. In
the treatment of both kinds of subjects, stress was laid on dramatic
consistency. The character, whether real or supposed, was required to
speak in an appropriate style.[151] The “exercise” had to be recited
with an appropriate intonation.[152] Sometimes the dramatic effect was
heightened by the introduction of two or more characters: for example,
one of the surviving _pièces_ of Dio Chrysostom[153] consists of a
wrangle in tragic style, and with tragic diction, between Odysseus and
Philoctetes.
This kind of Sophistic has an interest in two respects, apart from its
relation to contemporary life. It gave birth to the Greek romance, which
is the progenitor of the mediæval romance and of the modern novel:[154]
a notable example of such a sophistical romance in Christian literature
is the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions; in non-Christian literature,
Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana. It gave birth also to the
writings in the style of ancient authors which, though commonly included
in the collected works of those authors, betray their later origin
by either the poverty of their thought or inadvertent neologisms of
expression: for example, the Eryxias of Plato.[155]
But though Sophistic grew mainly out of Rhetoric, it had its roots also
in Philosophy. It was sometimes defined as Rhetoric philosophizing.[156]
It threw off altogether the fiction of a law-court or an assembly, and
discussed in continuous speech the larger themes of morality or theology.
Its utterances were not “exercises” but “discourses” (διαλέξεις).[157]
It preached sermons. It created not only a new literature, but also a
new profession. The class of men against whom Plato had inveighed had
become merged in the general class of educators: they were specialized
partly as grammarians, partly as rhetoricians: the word “sophist,” to
which the invectives had failed to attach a permanent stigma, remained
partly as a generic name, and partly as a special name for the new class
of public talkers. They differed from philosophers in that they did
not mark themselves off from the rest of the world, and profess their
devotion to a higher standard of living, by wearing a special dress.[158]
They were a notable feature of their time. Some of them had a fixed
residence and gave discourses regularly, like the “stated minister” of
a modern congregation: some of them travelled from place to place. The
audience was usually gathered by invitation. There were no newspaper
advertisements in those days, and no bells; consequently the invitations
were personal. They were made sometimes by a “card” or “programme,”
sometimes by word of mouth: “Come and hear me lecture to-day.”[159]
Sometimes a messenger was sent round; sometimes the sophist would go
round himself and knock at people’s doors and promise them a fine
discourse.[160]
The audience of a travelling sophist was what might be expected among a
people who lived very much out of doors. When a stranger appeared who
was known by his professional dress, and whose reputation had preceded
him, the people clustered round him—like iron filings sticking to a
magnet, says Themistius.[161] If there was a resident sophist, the two
were pitted together; just as if, in modern times, a famous violinist
from Paris or Vienna might be asked to play at the next concert with the
leading violinist in London. It was a matter not only of professional
honour, but also of obligation. A man could not refuse. There is a story
in Plutarch[162] about a sophist named Niger who found himself in a town
in Galatia which had a resident professor. The resident made a discourse.
Niger had, unfortunately, a fish-bone in his throat and could not easily
speak; but he had either to speak or to lose his reputation: he spoke,
and an inflammation set in which killed him. There is a much longer story
in Philostratus[163] of Alexander Peloplato going to Athens to discourse
in a friendly contest with Herodes Atticus. The audience gathered
together in a theatre in the Ceramicus, and waited a long time for
Herodes to appear: when he did not come, they grew angry and thought that
it was a trick, and insisted on Alexander coming forward to discourse
before Herodes arrived. And when Herodes did arrive, Alexander suddenly
changed his style—sang tenor, so to speak, instead of bass—and Herodes
followed him, and there was a charming interchange of compliments: “We
sophists,” said Alexander, “are all of us only slices of you, Herodes.”
Sometimes they went to show their skill at one of the great festivals,
such as that of Olympia. Lucian[164] tells a story of one who had
plucked feathers from many orators to make a wonderful discourse
about Pythagoras. His object was to gain the glory of delivering it
as an extempore oration, and he arranged with a confederate that its
subject should be the subject selected for him by the audience. But
the imposture was too barefaced: some of the hearers amused themselves
by assigning the different passages to their several authors; and the
sophist himself at last joined in the universal laughter. And Dio
Chrysostom[165] draws a picture of a public place at Corinth during the
Isthmian games, which he alleges to be as true of the time of Diogenes as
of his own: “You might hear many poor wretches of sophists shouting and
abusing one another, and their disciples, as they call them, squabbling,
and many writers of books reading their stupid compositions, and many
poets singing their poems, and many jugglers exhibiting their marvels,
and many soothsayers giving the meaning of prodigies, and ten thousand
rhetoricians twisting law-suits, and no small number of traders driving
their several trades.”
Of the manner of the ordinary discourse there are many indications. It
was given sometimes in a private house, sometimes in a theatre, sometimes
in a regular lecture-room. The professor sometimes entered already robed
in his “pulpit-gown,” and sometimes put it on in the presence of his
audience. He mounted the steps to his professorial chair, and took his
seat upon its ample cushion.[166] He sometimes began with a preface,
sometimes he proceeded at once to his discourse. He often gave the
choice of a subject to his audience.[167] He was ready to discourse
on any theme; and it was part of his art either to force the choice of
a subject, or so to turn the subject as to bring in something which he
had already prepared. “His memory is incredible,” says Pliny of Isæus;
“he repeats by heart what he appears to say extempore; but he does not
falter even in a single word.”[168] “When your audience have chosen a
subject for you,” says Lucian,[169] in effect, in his satirical advice
to rhetoricians, “go straight at it and say without hesitation whatever
words come to your tongue, never minding about the first point coming
first and the second second: the great thing is to go right on and not
have any pauses. If you have to talk at Athens about adultery, bring in
the customs of the Hindoos and Persians: above all, have passages about
Marathon and Cynægirus—that is indispensable. And Athos must always be
turned into sea, and the Hellespont into dry land, and the sun must be
darkened by the clouds of Median arrows ... and Salamis and Artemisium
and Platæa, and so forth, must come in pretty frequently; and, above
all, those little Attic words I told you about must blossom on the
surface of your speech—ἅττα (_atta_) and δήπουθεν (_depouthen_)—must be
sprinkled about freely, whether they are wanted or not: for they are
pretty words, even when they do not mean anything.”
It was a disappointment if he was not interrupted by applause. “A
sophist is put out in an extempore speech,” says Philostratus,[170] “by
a serious-looking audience and tardy praise and no clapping.” “They are
all agape,” says Dio Chrysostom,[171] “for the murmur of the crowd ...
like men walking in the dark, they move always in the direction of the
clapping and the shouting.” “I want your praise,” said one of them to
Epictetus.[172] “What do you mean by my praise?” asked the philosopher.
“Oh, I want you to say Bravo! and Wonderful!” replied the sophist.
These were the common cries; others were not infrequent—“Divine!”
“Inspired!” “Unapproachable!”[173] They were accompanied by clapping
of the hands and stamping of the feet and waving of the arms. “If your
friends see you breaking down,” says Lucian in his satirical advice to
a rhetorician,[174] “let them pay the price of the suppers you give
them by stretching out their arms and giving you a chance of thinking
of something to say in the interval between the rounds of applause.”
Sometimes, of course, there were signs of disapproval. “It is the mark of
a good hearer,” says Plutarch,[175] “that he does not howl out like a dog
at everything of which he disapproves, but at any rate waits until the
end of the discourse.”
After the discourse, the professor would go round: “‘What did you think
of me to-day?’” says one in Epictetus.[176] “‘Upon my life, sir, I
thought you were admirable.’ ‘What did you think of my best passage?’
‘Which was that?’ ‘Where I described Pan and the Nymphs.’ ‘Oh, it
was excessively well done.’” Again, to quote another anecdote from
Epictetus:[177] “‘A much larger audience to-day, I think,’ says the
professor. ‘Yes: much larger.’ ‘Five hundred, I should guess.’ ‘Oh,
nonsense; it could not have been less than a thousand.’ ‘Why that is more
than Dio ever had: I wonder why it was: they appreciated what I said,
too.’ ‘Beauty, sir, can move even a stone.’”
They made both money and reputation. The more eminent of them were among
the most distinguished men of the time. They were the pets of society,
and sometimes its masters.[178] They were employed on affairs of state
at home and on embassies abroad.[179] They were sometimes placed on
the free list of their city, and lived at the public expense. They
were sometimes made senators—raised, as we might say, to the House of
Lords—and sometimes governors of provinces.[180] When they died, and
sometimes before their death, public statues were erected in their
honour.[181] The inscriptions of some of them are recorded by historians,
and some remain: “The Queen of Cities to the King of Eloquence,” was
inscribed on the statue of Prohæresius at Rome.[182] “One of the Seven
Wise Men, though he had not fulfilled twenty-five years,” is inscribed
on an existing base of a statue at Attaleia;[183] and, beneath a
representation of crowning, the words, “He subjects all things to
eloquence,” are found on a similar base at Parion.[184]
They naturally sometimes gave themselves great airs. There are many
stories about them. Philostratus tells one of the Emperor Antoninus Pius
on arriving at Smyrna going, in accordance with imperial custom, to spend
the night at the house which was at once the best house in the city and
the house of the most distinguished man. It was that of the sophist
Polemo, who happened on the Emperor’s arrival to be away from home;
but he returned from his journey at night, and with loud exclamations
against being kept out of his own, turned the Emperor out of doors.[185]
The common epithet for them is ἀλαζών—a word with no precise English
equivalent, denoting a cross between a braggart and a mountebank.
But the real grounds on which the more earnest men objected to them were
those upon which Plato had objected to their predecessors: their making a
trade of knowledge, and their unreality.
1. The making of discourses, whether literary or moral, was a thriving
trade.[186] The fees given to a leading sophist were on the scale of
those given to a _prima donna_ in our own day.[187] But the objection
to it was not so much the fact of its thriving, as the fact of its being
a trade at all. “If they do what they do,” says Dio Chrysostom,[188]
“as poets and rhetoricians, there is no harm perhaps; but if they do it
as philosophers, for the sake of their own personal gain and glory, and
not for the sake of benefiting you, there is harm.” The defence which
Themistius[189] makes for himself is more candid than effective: “I do
make money,” he says; “people give me sometimes one _mina_, sometimes
two, sometimes as much as a talent: but, since I must speak about myself,
let me ask you this—Did any one ever come away the worse for having heard
me? Mark, I charge nothing: it is a voluntary contribution.”
2. The stronger ground of objection to them was their unreality. They
had lost touch with life. They had made philosophy itself seem unreal.
“They are not philosophers, but fiddlers,” said the sturdy old Stoic
Musonius.[190] It is not necessary to suppose that they were all
charlatans. There was then, as now, the irrepressible young man of good
morals who wished to air his opinions. But the tendency to moralize had
become divorced from practice. They preached, not because they were in
grim earnest about the reformation of the world, but because preaching
was a respectable profession, and the listening to sermons a fashionable
diversion. “The mass of men,” says Plutarch,[191] “enjoy and admire a
philosopher when he is discoursing about their neighbours; but if the
philosopher, leaving their neighbours alone, speaks his mind about things
that are of importance to the men themselves, they take offence and vote
him a bore; for they think that they ought to listen to a philosopher in
his lecture-room in the same bland way that they listen to tragedians
in the theatre. This, as might be expected, is what happens to them in
regard to the sophists; for when a sophist gets down from his pulpit and
puts aside his MSS., in the real business of life he seems but a small
man, and under the thumb of the majority. They do not understand about
real philosophers that both seriousness and play, grim looks and smiles,
and above all the direct personal application of what they say to each
individual, have a useful result for those who are in the habit of giving
a patient attention to them.”
* * * * *
Against this whole system of veneering rhetoric with philosophy, there
was a strong reaction. Apart from the early Christian writers, with whom
“sophist” is always a word of scorn, there were men, especially among
the new school of Stoics, who were at open war with its unreality.[192]
I will ask you to listen to the expostulation which the great moral
reformer Epictetus addresses to a rhetorician who came to him:
“First of all, tell yourself what you want to be and then act
accordingly. For this is what we see done in almost all other
cases. Men who are practising for the games first of all decide
what they mean to be, and then proceed to do the things that
follow from their decision.... So then when you say, Come
and listen to my lecture, first of all consider whether your
action be not thrown away for want of an end, and then consider
whether it be not a mistake, on account of your real end being
a wrong one. Suppose I ask a man, ‘Do you wish to do good by
your expounding, or to gain applause?’ Thereupon straightway
you hear him saying, ‘What do I care for the applause of the
multitude?’ And his sentiment is right: for in the same way,
applause is nothing to the musician _quâ_ musician, or to the
geometrician _quâ_ geometrician.
“You wish to do good, then,” I continue; “in what particular
respect? tell me, that I too may hasten to your lecture-room.
But can a man impart good to others without having previously
received good himself?
“No: just as a man is of no use to us in the way of
carpentering unless he is himself a carpenter.
“Would you like to know, then, whether you have received good
yourself? Bring me your convictions, philosopher. (Let us take
an example.) Did you not the other day praise so-and-so more
than you really thought he deserved? Did you not flatter that
senator’s son?—and yet you would not like your own sons to be
like him, would you?
“God forbid!
“Then why did you flatter him and toady to him?
“He is a clever young fellow, and a good student.
“How do you know that?
“He admires my lectures.
“Yes; that is the real reason. But don’t you think that
these very people despise you in their secret hearts? I mean
that when a man who is conscious that he has neither done
nor thought any single good thing, finds a philosopher who
tells him that he is a man of great ability, sincerity, and
genuineness, of course he says to himself, ‘This man wants to
get something out of me!’ Or (if this is not the case with
you), tell me what proof he has given of great ability. No
doubt he has attended you for a considerable time: he has heard
you discoursing and expounding: but has he become more modest
in his estimate of himself—or is he still looking for some one
to teach him?
“Yes, he is looking for some one to teach him.
“To teach him how to live? No, fool; not how to live, but how
to talk: which also is the reason why he admires you....
“[The truth is, you like applause: you care more for that than
for doing good, and so you invite people to come and hear you.]
“But does a _philosopher_ invite people to come and hear him?
Is it not that as the sun, or as food, is its own sufficient
attraction, so the philosopher also is his own sufficient
attraction to those who are to be benefited by him? Does a
physician invite people to come and let him heal them?...
(Imagine what a genuine philosopher’s invitation would be)—‘I
invite you to come and be told that you are in a bad way—that
you care for everything except what you should care for—that
you do not know what things are good and what evil—and that
you are unhappy and unfortunate.’ A nice invitation! and yet
if that is not the result of what a philosopher says, he and
his words alike are dead. (Musonius) Rufus used to say, ‘If
you have leisure to praise me, my teaching has been in vain.’
Accordingly he used to talk in such a way that each individual
one of us who sat there thought that some one had been telling
Rufus about him: he so put his finger upon what we had done, he
so set the individual faults of each one of us clearly before
our eyes.
“The philosopher’s lecture-room, gentlemen, is a surgery: when
you go away you ought to have felt not pleasure but pain. For
when you come in, something is wrong with you: one man has put
his shoulder out, another has an abscess, another a headache.
Am I—the surgeon—then, to sit down and give you a string of
fine sentences, that you may praise me—and then go away—the man
with the dislocated arm, the man with the abscess, the man with
the headache—just as you came? Is it for this that young men
come away from home, and leave their parents and their kinsmen
and their property, to say ‘Bravo!’ to you for your fine moral
conclusions? Is this what Socrates did—or Zeno—or Cleanthes?
“Well, but is there no such class of speeches as exhortations?
“Who denies it? But in what do exhortations consist? In
being able to show, whether to one man or to many men, the
contradiction in which they are involved, and that their
thoughts are given to anything but what they really mean.
For they mean to give them to the things that really tend
to happiness, but they look for those things elsewhere than
where they really are. (That is the true aim of exhortation):
but to show this, is it necessary to place a thousand chairs,
and invite people to come and listen, and dress yourself up
in a fine gown, and ascend the pulpit—and describe the death
of Achilles? Cease, I implore you, from bringing dishonour,
as far as you can, upon noble words and deeds. There can
be no stronger exhortation to duty, I suppose, than for a
speaker to make it clear to his audience that he wants to get
something out of them! Tell me who, after hearing you lecture
or discourse, became anxious about or reflected upon himself?
or who, as he went out of the room, said, ‘The philosopher put
his finger upon my faults: I must not behave in that way again’?
“You cannot: the utmost praise you get is when a man says to
another, ‘That was a beautiful passage about Xerxes,’ and
the other says, ‘No, I liked best that about the battle of
Thermopylæ.’
“This is a philosopher’s sermon!”[193]
I have dwelt on this feature of the Greek life of the early Christian
centuries, not with the view of giving a complete picture of it, which
would be impossible within the compass of a lecture, but rather with the
view of establishing a presumption, which you will find amply justified
by further researches, that it was sufficient, not only in its quality
and complexity, but also in its mass, to account for certain features of
early Christianity.