_Relation between Superstition and Atheism: Atheism an
intellectual error: Superstition an error involving the
passions: the DE SUPERSTITIONE—Moral fervour of Plutarch’s
attack on Superstition—His comparative tolerance of
Atheism—The greatest safeguard against both alike consists
in an intellectual appreciation of the Truth—The DE ISIDE ET
OSIRIDE—The Unity underlying national differences of religious
belief._
“The profoundest, the most essential and paramount theme of human
interest,” says Goethe, “is the eternal conflict between Atheism and
Superstition.”[330] Plutarch’s tract, “De Superstitione,” is a classical
sermon on this text, although in his presentment of the subject the
mutual antagonism of the two principles receives less emphasis than the
hostility which both alike direct against the interests of true Religion.
He has no sympathy with any notion similar to that current since his
days, in many religious minds, that Superstition is but a mistaken form
of Piety, deserving tenderness rather than reprehension, and he maintains
that absolute disbelief in God is less mischievous in its effects upon
human conduct and character than its opposite extreme of superstitious
devotion. With this hint of Plutarch’s point of view we proceed to a
brief analysis of the tract in which his view is mainly expounded.
At the very commencement he describes the two evils as springing from an
identical source. Ignorance of the Divine Nature has a twofold aspect:
in people of stern dispositions it appears as Atheism; in minds of more
yielding and submissive mould it shows itself as Superstition. Merely
intellectual errors, such as the Epicurean Theory of Atoms and the Void,
or the Stoic notion that virtue and vice are corporeal substances, are
unaccompanied by any passionate mental disturbance: they are silly
blunders, but not worth tears. But is a man convinced that wealth is
the highest good? or does he regard virtue as a mere empty name?—these
are errors that cannot be distinguished from moral disorders. Atheism
is an intellectual error: Superstition a moral disorder—an intellectual
error “touched with emotion.”[331] The moral disorder of Superstition is
depicted in a few paragraphs of striking power, opulent with historical
and literary allusion. The effect of the description is to leave a
conviction of the utter inability of the superstitious man to free any
portion of his life from the influence of his awful fear of the gods.
“He does not dread the sea who never sails; nor he a war who never goes
to camp; nor he a robber who keeps his home; nor he an informer who has
no wealth; nor he envy who lives retired; nor he an earthquake who
dwells in Gaul; nor he a thunderbolt who inhabits Æthiopia. But they
who fear the gods fear all things—land, sea, air, sky, darkness, light,
sound, silence, dream.[332] By day as well as night they live in prey to
dreadful dreams, and fall a ready victim to the first fortune-telling
cheat they come upon. They dip themselves in the sea: they pass all day
in a sitting posture: they roll themselves on dunghills: cover themselves
with mud: keep Sabbaths:[333] cast themselves on their faces: stand in
strange attitudes, and adopt strange methods of adoration.—Those who
thought it important to maintain the recognized laws of Music, used to
instruct their pupils to ‘sing with a just mouth’; and we maintain that
those who approach the gods should address them with a just mouth and a
righteous, lest, in our anxiety to have the tongue of the victim pure and
free from fault, we twist and defile our own with strange barbarian names
and expressions, and thus disgrace the dignified piety of our national
Faith.”[334] Not only is this life full of torture to the Superstitious,
but their terrified imagination leaps the limits of the Afterworld, and
adds to death the conception of deathless woes. Hell-gate yawns for
them; streams of flame and Stygian cataracts threaten them; the gloom is
horrid with spectral shapes, and piteous sights and sounds, with judges
and executioners, and chasms crowded with a myriad woes.
The condition of the Atheist is far to be preferred. It was better for
Tiresias to be blind than it was for Athamas and Agave to see their
children in the shape of lions and stags. The Atheist does not see God
at all: the superstitious man sees Him terrible instead of benign, a
tyrant instead of a father, harsh instead of tender. The troubles of
actual life are assigned by the Atheist to natural causes, to defects in
himself or his circumstances; and he endeavours to mitigate or remove
them by greater care. But to the victim of Superstition his bodily
ailments, his pecuniary misfortunes, his children’s deaths, his public
failures, are the strokes of a god or the attacks of a dæmon, and cannot
therefore be remedied by natural means, which would have the appearance
of opposition to the will of God.[335] Hence light misfortunes are often
allowed to become fatal disasters.[336] Thus, Midas was frightened to
death by his dreams; Aristodemus of Messene committed suicide because
the soothsayers had alarmed him about a trifling omen;[337] Nicias lost
his life and his great army because he was afraid when a shadow crept
over the moon. Let us pray to the gods, but let us not neglect reasonable
human endeavour. “While the Greeks were praying for Ajax, Ajax was
putting on his armour; for God is the hope of bravery, not the pretext
for cowardice.”[338] Participation in religious ceremonies, which should
be the most cheerful and happy act of life, is an additional cause of
dread to the Superstitious, whose case is worse than that of the Atheist
who smiles sarcastically at the whole business. The Atheist, true, is
guilty of impiety: but is not Superstition more open to this charge?
“I, for my part, would greatly prefer that men should say about me that
there was not, and never had been, such a man as Plutarch, than that
they should say that Plutarch is a fickle, irascible, vindictive fellow,
who will pay you out for not inviting him to supper, or for omitting to
call upon him, or for passing him in the street without speaking to him,
by committing a violent assault upon you, giving one of your children a
thorough caning, or turning a beast into your cornfield.”[339] The fact
of the matter is, that the Atheist believes there are no gods, while the
superstitious man wishes there were none;[340] the former is an Atheist
pure and simple, while the latter is an Atheist who professes to believe
because he has not the moral courage to utter his secret desires. And,
as in the individual mind Superstition involves Atheism, so historically
the latter has developed out of the former. The Epicureans were Atheists,
not because they did not perceive the splendour and perfection of the
universe, but because they desired to deliver humanity from the thraldom
which Superstition had cast about it—from its ridiculous passions and
actions, its spells of speech and motion, its magic and witchcraft, its
charmed circles and drum-beating, its impure purifications and its filthy
cleansings, its barbaric and unlawful penances and its self-torturings at
holy shrines. If these practices are pleasant to the gods, mankind is no
better off than if the administration of the world were in the hands of
the Typhons or the Giants.
But no disease is so difficult to cope with as Superstition. We must fly
from it, but we must so fly from it that we do not run into the other
extreme. “_Aussi y en a il qui fuyans la Superstition, se vont ruer et
precipiter en la rude et pierreuse impieté de l’atheisme, en sautant par
dessus la vraye Religion, qui est assise au milieu entre les deux._”
Such is a brief account of the contents of this famous tract. One thing
becomes clear from its perusal, the fact that the advantage is altogether
regarded as on the side of Atheism. Amyot, from whose translation we
have taken its concluding sentence, sounds a note of serious alarm in
a prefatory note to his version: “_Ce traicté est dangereux à lire, et
contient une doctrine fausse: Car il est certain que la Superstition est
moins mauvaise, et approche plus pres du milieu de la vraye Religion, que
ne fait l’Impieté et Atheisme._” Others have followed Amyot in his view
of this “dangerous” treatise; while Plutarch has not been without his
champions against those who have thus accused him of irreligion.[341]
So far as concerns the views expounded in the treatise, it appears to us
that the alarm of Amyot is justified. But Amyot, who knew his Plutarch
well, should have observed that there is a note of rhetoric in this
work which is totally different from the teacher’s usually quiet and
unimpassioned method of argument. There is an emphasis, an exaggeration,
of everything that tells against the victim of Superstition, a restraint,
a gentleness in minimizing the faults which could have been made into a
serious indictment against Atheism. This, as we know, is not Plutarch’s
favourite method of discussion. In ordinary circumstances an Epicurean
would have attacked Superstition, a Stoic would have inveighed against
Atheism, and an Academic friend of Plutarch’s would have taken the
judicial mean. As a matter of fact, however, Plutarch—and he connects
his own name with the argument in the most emphatic manner—assumes a
position in this tract scarcely discrepant from the peculiarly Epicurean
attitude. From this point of view, Wyttenbach’s epithet of _vere
Plutarcheus_ applied to the tract is incorrect, and even Wyttenbach
admits the possibility that Plutarch may have written another tract, “in
which the cause of _Superstition_ was defended against Epicurus.”[342]
How Plutarch could have accomplished a successful defence without going
back on all the arguments in the treatise “on Superstition” will not
be clear to a modern reader. It appears to us that Plutarch, having an
acute perception of the gross evils inherent in the many superstitious
practices of the day, has been disturbed from his usual philosophic pose,
and has been carried, by a feeling of almost personal resentment, to draw
a picture which was intended to be one-sided, because it was intended to
be alarming. Plutarch’s Philosophy, his Religion, here touch the vital
interests of life, and come to close combat with a gigantic moral evil.
What is lost in philosophic detachment is gained in moral fervour, a
change of balance which gives quite other than a theoretical interest
to those many short sermons in which Plutarch is _aux prises_ with the
sins and vices and follies of his day. The main importance of the “De
Superstitione” is its contact with practical affairs, and its translation
of philosophic and religious conceptions into terms of everyday life.
Philosophy and Religion have displayed to Plutarch the Purity, the Unity,
the Benevolence of God; it is a question of Ethics to expose and destroy
practices which are repellent to this conception of the Divine Nature.
Plutarch’s way of solving that question in one direction is expounded in
the tract “De Superstitione.”[343]
While Plutarch, in his anxiety to safeguard the emotional aspects of
Religion from the incursions of Superstition, departs in this tract
from his ordinary attitude of intellectual moderation, he reverts
very markedly to his usual manner in his treatise on the two Egyptian
divinities, Isis and Osiris. Knowledge of the Truth is here depicted as
the very heart of devotion, and the pursuit of this is regarded as the
only means of holding a middle path between the bog of Superstition and
the precipice of Atheism. The main object of this treatise is to show
how principles of rational inquiry may be applied to religious myths, so
that Reason and Piety may both be satisfied with the result. Wyttenbach
explains this purpose in a few words of terse Latinity which might
safely be quoted as descriptive of Plutarch’s attitude towards Religion
in general. “_Consilium scriptoris videtur fuisse, ut amicam de horum
Ægyptiorum numinum ortu et cultu saniora, quam quæ vulgo ferrentur,
doceret, religionemque fabularum deliriis cærimoniarumque ineptiis
mirifice deformatam et apud prudentiores homines in contemtum adductam,
istis quoad ejus fieri posset sordibus purgaret, omnique literarum et
philosophiæ instrumento ad historiæ fidem, naturæ rationem dignamque
divinitate speciem reformaret._” But while serving as an example of
Plutarch’s general method of inquiry, a particular motive for the choice
of this special myth as subject would doubtless be furnished by the great
prevalence and popularity of the worship of Isis during the Græco-Roman
Empire of this period. Its passionate excitements were hostile to the
calm cultivated by the Roman in matters of Religion, and Isis had
undergone a prolonged struggle before her temples were allowed to stand
erect in Rome. The patrician indignation of Lucan—_nos in templa tuam
Romana accepimus Isin!_[344]—expressed, however, rather the sentiment
of the Republic than the conviction of the Empire. Juvenal alludes to
the _Isiacæ sacraria lenæ_—the _fanum Isidis_—the temple of the goddess
in the Campus Martius, in terms which, however severe from the moral
standpoint, leave no historical doubt as to the established character of
the cult and its institutions. In the later romance of Apuleius, the hero
Lucius owes his re-transformation into human shape to the power of Isis,
and makes a pilgrimage of gratitude to the very temple to which Juvenal
makes so scathing an allusion.
The detailed description given by Apuleius of the ceremonies connected
with the worship of the goddess in so important a place as Cenchreæ, the
port of Corinth, bears emphatic witness to the established popularity
of her rites.[345] Even in Plutarch’s tract the fact is everywhere
indirectly evident. Clea, to whom it is addressed, was officially and
intimately associated with the worship of Dionysus at Delphi, but she
had also been instructed from her childhood in the rites appertaining
to the worship of Isis and Osiris.[346] It is only in accordance with
Plutarch’s well-known character that he should be anxious to explain
anything in the Isiac ceremonies and traditions, the misunderstanding
of which was likely to generate superstitious and licentious practices
and lead indirectly to Atheism. And if, by explaining absurdities,
excising crudities, refuting false interpretations, he could at the
same time demonstrate the unity of God, the identity of religious basis
lying beneath these various beliefs of other peoples, we can recognize
in the task one eminently suited to the character and aims of Plutarch.
In the “Isis and Osiris” Plutarch has, therefore, a twofold object. He
endeavours to explain, from a rationalistic point of view, the meaning of
Isiac and Osirian ceremonies and legends; and he develops his theories on
these matters into an exposition of his attitude towards Myth in general,
showing that the various beliefs of other nations are not, when rightly
understood, mutually destructive and opposite, but simply different ways
of envisaging the same essential and eternal truth. We proceed to explain
these assertions by an examination of the treatise.
Plutarch gives early indication of his point of view. “The philosophy
of the Egyptian priests was generally concealed in myths and narratives
containing dim hints and suggestions of truth.” It was to indicate this
“enigmatic” character of their theological wisdom that they erected
Sphinxes before their temples; that, too, is the meaning of their
inscription on the shrine of Athene-Isis at Sais, “_I am all that was,
and all that is, and all that shall be, and my veil hath yet no mortal
raised_.”[347] It follows from this that we must on no account attach a
literal significance to their narratives.[348] Thus they represent the
sun as a newborn child sitting on a lotus flower, but this is an enigma
teaching the derivation of the solar heat from moisture.[349] “It is in
this way,” says he, clearly indicating the twofold object he has in view
throughout this work, “it is in this way that you are to hear and accept
traditions of the gods, taking their meaning from such as interpret them
_in a spirit at once pious and philosophic_. This spirit of reverent
inquiry must be accompanied by a constant observance of the recognized
forms of worship, and by a conviction that no religious or other action
is more grateful to the gods than the acceptance of true opinions
concerning them. This harmonious co-operation of Piety and Philosophy
saves equally from Atheism and its cognate evil, Superstition.”[350]
It is in this spirit—the spirit in which every Religion justly claims
that it should be approached—that Plutarch gives an account of the
Egyptian myth “in the briefest possible terms, denuded of such
particulars as are quite useless and superfluous”; denuded also, as we
are told later, “of its most blasphemous features,”[351] “such as the
dismemberment of Horus and the decapitation of Isis.” Piety absolutely
rejects these tales concerning beings who participate “in that blessed
and eternal nature which marks our conception of the Divine”; although
Philosophy will not be equally severe on these legends, regarding
them not solely as unsubstantial tales and empty fictions spun, like
spiders’ webs, by poets and romancers out of their own imagination, but
also as indirectly reflecting the pure light of some ancient narrative
whose meaning has now been utterly broken up as are the sun’s rays when
reproduced in the multitudinous hues of the rainbow.[352] Plutarch
clearly regards it as a pious duty to accept the Osirian legend as
containing a substratum of truth, embodying the religious lore of the
Egyptian priesthood, but he reserves to himself the right of interpreting
the expression of this truth in the light of his own philosophy. His
attitude is identical with that assumed by the authors of the various
explanations of the myth which he reports as current in antiquity.
“These interpretations,” in the lively expression of Mr. Andrew Lang,
“are the interpretations of civilized men, whose method is to ask
themselves: ‘Now, if _I_ had told such a tale as this, or invented such
a mystery play of divine misadventures, what meaning could _I_ have
intended to convey in what is apparently blasphemous nonsense?’”[353] It
will be seen that Plutarch does not himself finally adopt any special
interpretation, although he emphatically rejects those which are not
pious as well as philosophic. He is desirous rather of showing in what
way the investigation of such questions should be approached, than of
imposing any definite conclusion on the understanding; of cultivating an
aptitude for rational and reverent inquiry, than of establishing a final
and inflexible dogma.
He deals first with the Euhemerists, or “Exanthropizers.” Euhemerus of
Tegea, or, as Plutarch here calls him, Euhemerus[354] of Messene, first
treated with scientific precision that tendency to regard the gods as
kings and rulers whose surpassing greatness and merit had been rewarded
by an imaginary apotheosis. He had embodied the result of his researches,
which he claims to have made during an expedition sent by Cassander to
the Red Sea, in a work called the “Sacred Record.” He asserted, according
to Lactantius, that he had seen in the Island of Panchaia (Plutarch
calls it _Panchon_) a column of gold with an inscription indicating
its erection by Zeus himself, _in qua columna gesta sua perscripsit ut
monimentum esset posteris rerum suarum_. This “humanizing” of Zeus was
extended to other deities; and Plutarch, who sarcastically denies that
these inscriptions had ever been seen by anybody else, whether Greek or
Barbarian, asserts that the principles of Euhemerus had been applied to
the explanation of the tombs and other monuments commemorating in Egypt
the events embodied in the Osirian myth. Although it has been asserted
that Euhemerus admitted the existence of the elemental deities, such
as the sun and the heavens, the atheistical tendency of his theory
is evident, and the author of the tract “De Placitis Philosophorum,”
whose bias is distinctly Epicurean and atheistic, says that Euhemerus
absolutely denied the existence of the gods, associating him in this
connexion with Diagoras the Melian, and Theodorus of Cyrene.[355]
Plutarch himself has no doubts as to the tendency of Euhemerism. Those
who have recourse to these theories,“transferring great names from heaven
to earth, almost entirely uproot and destroy the reverence and faith
implanted in all of us at our birth, and open wide the temple doors to
the profane and atheistical mob.”[356]—“They bring divinity to the level
of humanity, and fair occasion of unfettered speech to the impostures of
Euhemerus, who scattered Atheism the wide world over, degrading all the
recognized deities alike to the names of generals, admirals, kings of
a pretended eld.” Good and great kings are rewarded with the gratitude
of posterity, while disgrace and obloquy have been the portion of
those whose insolence has led them to assume the titles and temples of
gods.[357]
The hypothesis of Dæmonic natures, next applied by Plutarch to the
explanation of the legend, we have already examined. Naturally he
expresses a preference for this theory over that of the Euhemerists, but
will still proceed to discuss with philosophic detachment the hypotheses
of other schools, taking, as he says, the simplest first.[358] These
are the Physical Allegorists. “Just as the Greeks assert that Cronus is
an allegorical symbol for Time, Hera for Air, the birth of Hephaistos
for the transformation of Air into Fire, so also among the Egyptians
there are those who maintain that Osiris symbolizes the Nile, Isis the
Earth, fecundated in his embrace, Typhon the Sea, into which the Nile
falls to disappear and be scattered, except such part of him as has
been abstracted by the Earth to make her fruitful.”[359] He shows how
this identification of Typhon with the sea explains certain sayings,
beliefs, and practices of the Egyptians, but he regards it as rather
crude and superficial,[360] and passes on to an explanation given by
the more learned priests, who, with a more philosophic application of
the principles of allegorical interpretation, identify Osiris with the
_Moist_ Principle of the Universe, and Typhon with the _Dry_ Principle,
the former being the cause of Generation, the latter being hostile to
it.[361] The similarity of these views to early Greek speculation is
pointed out by a statement that the Egyptians held that Homer, like
Thales, had learnt from them that Water is the generative principle
of all things, Homer’s Ocean being Osiris, and his Tethys, Isis. This
ancient theory is fully discussed by Plutarch, showing how the Egyptians
applied it to the myth, but also indicating similarities of detail and
identities of principle between the Egyptian and Greek mythologies.[362]
“Those who combine with these physical explanations certain points
borrowed from astronomical speculation,” are next dealt with. These
Astronomical Allegorists maintained that Osiris is the Lunar World and
Typhon the Solar: the Moon’s light being regarded as favourable to the
reproductiveness of plants and animals, from its greater moistening
tendency, while the light of the Sun is parching, and so hostile to life
and vegetation that “a considerable portion of the earth is rendered
by his heat totally uninhabitable.”[363] After a brief description of
another class of astronomical Allegorists who regard the myth as an
enigmatical description of Eclipses,[364] he puts the whole of these
particular explanations of the Physical and Astronomical Allegorists in
their proper place as merely partial and distorted expressions of the
ancient and universal belief in the existence of two opposing principles,
two mutually hostile influences which operate throughout the universe,
giving Nature its mixed and uncertain and fluctuating character.[365]
One of the most conspicuous features in Plutarch’s Theology, as already
examined in these pages, is his anxiety to avoid any kind of Dualism in
his conception of Deity; and it is a necessary corollary of his religious
and philosophical conviction on this point that there should be no place
in the constitution of the world for a Being regarded as a coequal rival
to the One Supreme Omnipotence. As Plutarch, however, himself points out,
if nothing can be conceived as originating without a cause, and Good
cannot be regarded as furnishing the cause of Evil, it follows that
Evil as well as Good must have an originating principle of its own.[366]
But neither on the religious nor on the purely philosophic side does
he carry this admission to the extent of accepting an Evil personality
or principle equivalent in power to the Deity. On the one hand, he
accepts the doctrine of subordinate Dæmons, whose evil propensities are
ultimately under the control of the Omnipotent Author of Good, inasmuch
as they are liable to pains and penances for their infraction of the
laws He has imposed upon them; and on the other, he has learned from
Greek philosophy the conception of τὸ ἄπειρον, that infinite, formless
“Matter,” out of which the Demiurgus, making it the nurse and receptacle
of the ideas, had created the Universe. He insists, indeed, that the
two conceptions are familiar to Greek philosophers: Empedocles opposed
φιλότητα καὶ φιλίαν to νεῖκος οὐλόμενον; the Pythagoreans had two
well-known lists of contrary expressions.[367] Anaxagoras expressed the
antithesis by νοῦς and ἄπειρον; Aristotle by εἶδος and στέρησις. In all
these philosophical distinctions the inferiority of the second term is
implied, and Plutarch asserts this inferiority in unmistakable terms.
“The creation and formation of this world arose out of opposing, but not
equal, Principles, the supreme sway being the portion of the Better.”[368]
It is clear from these considerations that Plutarch’s own mind is
made up on the subject; but he cannot refrain from giving sympathetic
consideration to so ancient, widespread, and respectable a belief as that
involved in the myth of Osiris and Typhon, of Ormuzd and Ahriman; and
he devotes considerable space, and displays considerable ingenuity, in
connecting the Egyptian and Zoroastrian beliefs with the legends of Greek
Mythology and the principles of Greek Philosophy.[369] But his object,
even when he makes indulgent concessions to an opposite view, is never
lost sight of, and towards the conclusion of his search for parallelisms
and similarities, he expresses his aim in unmistakable and peculiarly
Plutarchean language. After passing severe criticism on the impiety of
those who give the names of gods to the productions of Nature, asserting
that Dionysus is _Wine_, and Hephaistos _Flame_ (which, says he, is like
identifying sail and cable and anchor with the pilot, the thread with
the weaver, or the draught with the physician), he adds, “God is not
lifeless, unintelligent, subject to man, as these things are. But it is
from these blessings that we conclude that those who bestow them upon us
for our use, and give us a constant and never-failing supply thereof,
are gods, _not different gods among different peoples, not Barbarian
gods, nor Greek gods, not gods of the south nor gods of the north; but
just as the sun, the moon, the earth, the sky, and the sea are common to
all, but receive different names among different peoples, so likewise
are different honours assigned and different invocations addressed to
the gods in different places according to the customs there established.
Yet is it one Reason which admonishes, and one Providence which directs,
while subordinate powers have been appointed over all things. Certain
peoples make use of sacred symbols which, with greater or less clearness,
direct the understanding to divine knowledge, and yet not without
danger, since some in their desire to shun the swamp of Superstition
have unconsciously slipped over the precipice of Atheism_.”[370] Here we
have, combined in one sentence, Plutarch’s belief in the Unity of God,
his acceptance of the theory of Dæmons, his recognition of the truth of
foreign creeds, his desire, so frequently expressed, and so consistently
acted upon, to follow the guidance of a reverent yet inquiring philosophy
on a path which is equally distant from the two great moral evils which
loom so large in his mental vision. Hence this tract is organically
connected with the treatise on Superstition; the former aims at securing
by purely intellectual and rational processes what the latter attempts by
appealing to the Intellect through the medium of the Imagination.[371]