Poetis et de Fortuna_ (Göttingen, 1893), subjects the structure of
the _De Audiendis_ to a very close and careful analysis, and comes to
the conclusion that the main sources of Plutarch’s material are to be
found in the writings of Stoic and Peripatetic philosophers. He notes
that Plutarch’s examples are taken from the same Homeric, verses as
Plato’s, and adds, “Quæ cum ita sint, quomodo hæ Plutarchum inter et
Platonem similitudines ortæ sint dubium jam esse non potest. Plutarchus,
ut in eis quæ antecedunt, ita etiam hic, usus est libro Peripatetici
cujusdam, qui, _ut criminationes a Platone poetis factas repelleret_,
hujus modi fictiones in natura artis poeticæ positas esse demonstravit
et commentationi suæ inseruit poetarum versus a Platone vituperatos.”
Chrysippus had composed a work on _How to study Poetry_, Zeno one
entitled _On Poetical Study_, and Cleanthes another, called _On the Poet_.
The opinion of so conscientious a scholar on Plutarch’s “appropriations”
is worth quoting:—“tenendum est ... Plutarchum non eum fuisse qui more
compilatorum libros aliorum ad verbum exscriberet sed id egisse ut ea quæ
legisset atque collegisset referret, sed ita ut modo sua intermisceret,
modo nonnulla omitteret vel mutaret.”
[147] _De Iside et Osiride_, 353 E.
[148] _De Ε apud Delphos_, 393 D. Cf. _De Defectu_, 433 E. Ammonius
is here evidently referring to a remark made (386 B) by “one of those
present” to the effect that “practically all the Greeks identify Apollo
with the Sun.” The words of Ammonius quoted in the text are strikingly
similar in spirit to the famous verses in the “In Memoriam:”—
“O thou that after toil and storm
May’st seem to have reached a purer air,
Whose faith has centre everywhere,
Nor cares to fix itself to form,
“Leave thou thy sister when she prays,
Her early Heaven, her happy views;
Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse
A life that leads melodious days.
“Her faith through form is pure as thine,
Her hands are quicker unto good:
Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood
To which she links a truth divine!”
[149] _Consolatio ad Apollonium_, 102 A.—“He was a very sage and virtuous
youth, conspicuous for the reverence which he paid to the gods, to his
parents, and to his friends.” This is nearly the old Hellenic ideal
as expressed, _e.g._, in the lines from the “Antiope” of Euripides,
preserved by Stobæus, “On Virtue”—
“There be three virtues for thy practice, child:
Honour the gods, revere thy loving parents,
Respect the laws of Greece.”
[150] _Amatorius_, 756 B.
[151] _Amatorius_, 762 A.
[152] _De Defectu Orac._, 435 E.
[153] _Consolatio ad Uxorem_, 612. Cf. _De Defectu Orac._, 437 A.
[154] Supplying, as Bernardakis does after Wyttenbach, καὶ οὐκ ἀγνοῶ ὁτι
ταῦτα πολλὰς ἔχει ἀπορίας.
[155] _De Pythiæ Orac._, 409 C. Cf. _De Rep. Ger._, 792 F.
[156] Plutarch puts these words into the mouth of Theon, a literary
man, and a most intimate friend of his own. But Theon is here a mere
modest disguise of Plutarch, just as “Lamprias” is in the _De Defectu
Oraculorum_. The argument is, in any case, not affected—the statement is
clearly Plutarch’s own. (See the note on that dialogue in a subsequent
chapter.)
[157] _De Pythiæ Orac._, 409 B.
[158] The antiquarian regret of Propertius for the old simple worships of
Rome—“Nulli cura fuit externos quærere divos Cum tremeret patrio pendula
turba sacro” (_Eleg._, v. 1)—touched a chord which very few Romans would
have responded to in Plutarch’s time.
[159] _De Exilio_, 602 E. This recognition of the sacred character of the
Emperor does not preclude criticisms of individual rulers, _e.g._, Nero:
_De Sera Num. Vindicta_, 567 F; and Vespasian: _Amatorius_, 771 C.
[160] _De Pythiæ Orac._, 408 B.
[161] Cf. the fate of Chæroneia under Antony, as told by Plutarch’s
grandfather (see _Life of Antony_, 948 A, B).
[162] 814 A.
[163] _Præcepta Reip. Ger._, 813, et passim:—He insists, however (814
E, F), that subservience must not go too far, and he is also careful to
point out such brilliant openings for political ambition as are left by
the peculiar conditions of the time (805 A, B).
[164] Plutarch states that the aim of his political advice is to enable
a man not only to become “a useful citizen,” but also “to order his
domestic affairs with safety, honour, and justice” (_De Unius in Repub._,
&c., 826 C).
[165] _Præcepta Reip._, 824 C.
[166] _Præcepta Reip._, 813 F.
[167] PROPERTIUS, iv. 11. “Hæc Di condiderant, hæc Di quoque mœnia
servant.” Plutarch’s essay reads like an exposition of this text of the
Roman poet.
[168] “Et hoc verbo monere satis est, Τύχης nomine contineri omnem
rerum actionumque efficientiam, quæ a Virtute disjuncta, nec in hominis
potestate posita est; sive illa ut casus et temeritas, sive ut divina
providentia informetur.”—WYTTENBACH. Schlemm says that this tract and
the _De Alexandri sive virtute sive fortuna_ are “meræ exercitationes
rhetoricæ in quibus certam quandam philosophiam persequi in animo non
habebat.” Yet the rhetoric of the _De Fortuna Romanorum_ is in wonderful
harmony with Plutarch’s mature opinion as deliberately expressed in the
_De Republica Gerenda_.
[169] VIRGIL: _Georgics_, ii. 534; PLUT: _De Fortuna Romanorum_, 316
E. This may be a conscious reminiscence of Virgil’s line. If Plutarch
had not read Virgil, he may have heard so famous a verse quoted by
his friends at Rome. He himself translates a passage from “the poet
Flaccus” in his _Life of Lucullus_ (518 C—HORACE: _Ep._, i. 6, 45). The
question of Plutarch’s acquaintance with Latin is very important for
investigations into the historical sources of his “Lives;” but it lies
beyond our present limits. It is fully dealt with by WEISSENBERGER in his
_Die Sprache Plutarchs_ (1895). He exculpates Plutarch from some of the
grosser mistakes in Latinity imputed to him by Volkmann.
[170] 317 B, C.
[171] CICERO: _Quæst. Tusc._, i. 23.
[172] _Amatorius_, 762 A.
[173] One need scarcely go so far as Professor Lewis Campbell, who
says that the main result of the “Ethics” of Plutarch is to show “how
difficult it was for a common-sense man of the world to form distinct and
reasonable opinions on matters of religion in that strangely complicated
time” (_Religion in Greek Literature_, 1898). But Professor Campbell is
also of opinion that “the convenient distinction between gods and demons,
which he (_i.e._ Plutarch) and others probably owed to their reading
of Plato, is worth dwelling on _because it was taken up for apologetic
purposes by the early Christian fathers_.” Surely its religious value
to an age which did not anticipate the coming of “the early Christian
fathers” makes the distinction worth study from a point of view quite
different from that represented in Christian apologetics.
[174] See MAURY, vol. i. p. 352.—“Pythagore admet l’existence de démons
bons et mauvais comme les hommes, et tout ce qui lui paraissait indigne
de l’idée qu’on devait se faire des dieux, il en faisait l’œuvre des
démons et des héros.” (For a fuller discussion of this question see the
chapters on Dæmonology.)
[175] Plutarch devotes so much of his work to an exposition of his views
of the Divine character, that one feels inclined to regard him less as
a philosopher in the general sense than as a theologian. A kindly piece
of description of his own (see _De Defectu Orac._, 410 A), in which he
mentions Cleombrotos of Lacedemon as “a man who made many journeys, not
for the sake of traffic, but because he wished to see and to learn,” and
says that as a result of his travels and researches he was compiling a
practically complete _corpus_ of philosophical material, the end and
aim of philosophy being, as he used to put it, “_Theology_”—may be
spoken with equal truth of Plutarch himself. We cannot, perhaps, do
better than apply the term Θεόσοφος to him, and support the appellation
with an interesting passage from M. Maury, in which he deals with the
distinction between theosophs and philosophers in the early stages of
Greek philosophy and religion:—“Les uns soumettant tous les faits à
l’appréciation rationelle, et partant de l’observation individuelle,
pour expliquer la formation de l’univers substituaient aux croyances
populaires un système créé par eux, et plus ou moins en contradiction
avec les opinions du vulgaire: c’étaient les philosophes proprement
dits. Les autres acceptaient la religion de leurs contemporains, ...
ils entreprenaient au nom de la sagesse divine, dont ils se donnaient
pour les interprètes, _non de renverser mais de réformer les notions
théologiques et les formes religieuses_, de façon à les mettre d’accord
avec leurs principes philosophiques” (MAURY, vol. i. p. 339). Cf. C. G.
SEIBERT, _De Apologetica Plutarchi Theologia_ (1854):-“Finis autem ad
quem tendebat ipsa erat religio a majoribus accepta, qua philosophiæ
ope purgata æqualium animos denuo implere studebat.” He thinks Plutarch
was a theologian first and a philosopher after. (In the passage quoted
above from the _De Defectu_ it is difficult not to regard Mr. Paton’s
emendation of φιλόθεος μὲν οὖν καὶ φιλόμαντις as more in accordance
with the character of Cleombrotos than the φιλοθεάμων καὶ φιλομαθής of
Bernardakis’ text, although, of course, he was a great traveller and an
ardent student.)
[176] _De E_, 392 A. Cf. PLATO: _Laches_, 240 C.
[177] 393 A-D.
[178] 394 C.
[179] _De Defectu_, 413 D.
[180] 433 D, E.
[181] 426 B.
[182] 1051 E.
[183] 1052 E.
[184] _De Defectu Orac._, 420 E.
[185] ÆSCHYLUS: _Prometheus Vinctus_, 210.
[186] _De Iside et Osiride_, 352 A. We need not here trouble with
Plutarch’s fanciful philology, almost as fanciful as that of some
modern Aryanists. His meaning is clear—Absolute Being is the object of
the worship of Isis—cf. MAX MÜLLER: _Selected Essays_, vol. i. p. 467:
“Comparative philologists have not yet succeeded in finding the true
etymology of Apollo.” (Plato’s derivations are given in the _Cratylus_,
266 C.)
[187] _Iliad_, xiii. 354. (Chapman’s translation.)
[188] _De Iside et Osiride_, 351 E.
[189] _Neoplatonism_, by C. BIGG, D.D. (“Chief Ancient Philosophies”), p.
216.
[190] Cf. the _De Placitis Philosophorum_, 881 B.
[191] _De Ε apud Delphos_, 384 F.
[192] 386 E.
[193] Alluding to HESIOD—_Works and Days_, 735 sq.
[194] _De Sera Numinis Vindicta_, 562 B.
[195] _De Ε_, 393 A.
[196] _De Ε_, 387 B, C.
[197] PLATO: _Philebus_, 39 E.
[198] ARISTOTLE: _Ethics_, viii. 12.
[199] _De Superstitione_, 167 E.
[200] _De Defectu Orac._, 423 E.
[201] PLUTARCH on _The Delay of the Deity in Punishing the Wicked_:
revised edition, with notes, by Professors H. B. Hackett and W. S. Tyler.
(New York, 1867.)
[202] _Sur les Délais de la Justice Divine dans la punition des
coupables_, par le Comte JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. (Lyons et Paris,
1856.)—“_J’ai pris_,” says de Maistre, “_j’ai pris quelques libertés
dont j’espère que Plutarque n’aura point se plaindre_;” and, speaking
of the _jeunesse surannée_ of Amyot’s style, he adds: “_Son orthographe
égare l’œil, l’oreille ne supporte pas ses vers: les dames surtout et les
étrangers le goûtent peu._” Another French critic justly remarks on these
“liberties” of de Maistre: “_C’est trop de licence. Plutarque n’est pas
un de ces écrivains qui laissent leurs pensées en bouton_” (Gréard, p.
274). Yet it is upon de Maistre’s “paraphrase” that Gréard bases his own
analysis!
[203] WYTTENBACH: _De Sera Numinis Vindicta_ (_Præfatio_). It is pleasant
to repeat the praise which Christian writers have poured on this tract.
“_Diese Schrift_” says Volkmann, “_gehört meines Erachtungs unbedingt
mit zu dem schönsten, was aus der gesammten nachclassischen Litteratur
der Griechen überhaupt auf uns gekommen ist_.” (VOLKMANN, vol. ii. p.
265.) One may wonder a little, perhaps, at the limitation conveyed in
the _nach_ of _nachclassischen_.—Trench says that some of Plutarch’s
arguments “would have gone far to satisfy St. Augustine, and to meet the
demands of his theology.”
[204] The Epicurean author of the _De Placitis_, still inveighing against
“that tall talker, Plato,” is bitterly emphatic on this point.—“_If there
is a God, and human affairs are administered by His Providence, how
comes it that bareness prospers, while the refined and good fall into
adversity?_” And he instances the murder of Agamemnon “_at the hands
of an adulterer and an adultress_,” and the death of Hercules, that
benefactor of humanity, “_done to death by Dejaniras drugs_.” (881 D.)
[205] _Symposiacs_, 642 C, 700 E.
[206] _Symposiacs_, 654 C.
[207] THUCYD., iii. 38. Cleon’s famous speech on the Mytilenean question.
[208] “Hujus rei aut omnino Lycisci ne vestigium quidem uspiam
reperi.”—WYTTENBACH.
[209] In allusion, of course, to the famous verse of an unknown poet:—
Ὀψὲ θεῶν ἀλέουσι μύλοι, ἀλέουσι δὲ λεπτὰ.
[210] 540 E.
[211] Deleting ἢ after ῥάδιον with BERNARDAKIS. 549 F.
[212] Note the change of number: θεῶν—εἰδὼς.
[213] Cf. the well-known passage in the _Timæus_ (_Timæus_, 29 C, D).
[214] 550 D. “Etsi hæc sententia disertis verbis in Platone, quod sciam,
non exstet, ejus tamen ubique sparsa sunt vestigia.” WYTTENBACH adds:
“Summam autem hominum virtutem et beatitudinem in eo consistere, ut
imitatione Deorum eis similes evadant, communis fere omnium Philosophorum
fuit sententia.”
[215] Plutarch has another well-known passage of the _Timæus_ in his
memory here.—_Timæus_, 29 D.
[216] “Neque hoc disertis verbis in Platone legere me memini; sed cum
variis locis ... confer.”—WYTT.
[217] 551 D.
[218] 553 A, 553 F.
[219] _Laws_, 728 C. The reference is to HESIOD: _Works and Days_, 265,
266, though Plutarch quotes verse 265 in a form different from the
vulgate. GOETTLING (_Ap._ Paley) thinks Plutarch’s version “savours more
of antiquity.” ARISTOTLE: _Rhetoric_, iii. 9, quotes the vulgate.
[220] 554 D. Literally, “_they were not punished when they grew old, but
grew old in punishment_.”
[221] 555 E, F.
[222] STOBÆUS: _Anthologion_, Tit. 79, 15.
[223] 557 D. Cf. the sarcasm of the Academic COTTA in the _De Natura
Deorum_, iii. 38: “Dicitis eam vim Deorum esse ut, etiam si quis morte
pœnas sceleris effugerit, expetantur eæ pœnæ a liberis, a nepotibus, a
posteris. O miram æquitatem Deorum!”
[224] 558 F.
[225] 559 E.
[226] 560 C. WYTTENBACH quotes LUCRETIUS, iii. 437 and 456: “Ergo
dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animai Naturam ceu fumus in altas aeris
auras.” He might have added, iii. 579, sqq.: “Denique, cum corpus nequeat
perferre animai Discidium, quin id tetro tabescat odore, Quid dubitas
quin ex imo penitusque coörta, Emanarit uti fumus diffusa animæ vis?”
Plutarch is probably thinking of Plato’s “intelligent gardener” (PHÆDRUS,
276 B), although, as Wyttenbach says, “_Horti Adonidis proverbii vim
habent._” The English reader will think of Shakespeare’s beautiful lines—
“_Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens,_
_That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next._”
_Henry VI._, Pt. 1, act i. sc. 6.
[227] 560 F.
[228] 561 A.
[229] 564 C.
[230] Cf. _Timon of Athens_, act iii. sc. 1: “_Let molten coin be thy
damnation._”
[231] 561 A.—In the long extract, preserved by Stobæus, from Plutarch’s
_De Anima_ (_Anthologion: Tit. 120, 28._—The _Tauchnitz_ edition of 1838,
however, ascribes this passage to Themistius, perhaps by confusion with
extract No. 25), Plutarch allows his imagination to play freely with the
fortunes of the soul in the afterworld. In a beautiful passage, Timon
compares death to initiation into the Great Mysteries—an initiation in
which gloom and weariness and perplexity and terror are followed by
the shining of a wondrous light, which beams on lovely meadows, whose
atmosphere resounds with sacred voices that tell us all the secret of the
mystery, and whose paths are trod by pure and holy men. Timon concludes
with Heraclitus that, if the soul became assuredly convinced of the fate
awaiting it hereafter, no power would be able to retain it on earth. But
Plutarch himself is not convinced: he is charmed and seduced, but Reason
holds him back from accepting as certainties the “airy subtleties and
wingy mysteries” of Imagination. Under the stress of a desire to console
his wife for the loss of her little daughter, he reminds her that the
“hereditary account” and the Mysteries of Dionysus—in which, he says,
both of them were initiated—equally repudiate the notion that the soul
is without sensation after death (_Consolatio ad Uxorem_, 611 D). In
his polemic against the Epicureans he chiefly emphasizes the emotional
aspect of the desire for immortality;—the Epicurean denial of immortality
destroys “the sweetest and greatest hopes of the majority of mankind”—one
of these “sweetest and greatest hopes” being that of seeing retribution
meted out to those whose wealth and power have enabled them to flout
and insult better men than themselves; it robs of its satisfaction that
yearning of the thoughtful mind for unstinted communion with the great
masters of contemplation; and deprives the bereaved heart of the pleasant
dream of meeting its loved and lost ones in another world (_Non posse
suav._, 1105 E). There is no doubt that Plutarch wished to believe in the
immortality of the soul, but the evidence is not conclusive that he did;
at the most it is with him a “counsel of perfection,” not an “article of
faith.”
[232] “_It it not clear from the writings of Plutarch to what extent
he was a monotheist._” This is the opinion of Charles W. Super, Ph.D.,
LL.D., and it is supported by the irrefragable proof that Plutarch
“_uses θεὸς both with and without the article_.” This judgment is
given, of all places in the world, at the conclusion of a translation
(a very indifferent one, by the way) of the _De Sera Numinis Vindicta_.
(“Between Heathenism and Christianity:—Being a Translation of Seneca’s
_De Providentia_ and Plutarch’s _De Sera Numinis Vindicta_.” by Charles
W. Super, Ph.D., LL.D., Chicago, 1899.)
[233] Plutarch himself is ignorant of its origin, and does not know
whether it was Magian, Orphic, Egyptian, or Phrygian. (_De Defectu
Orac._, 415 A. Cf. _Isis and Osiris_, 360 E, “following the Theologians
of old.”) Those who believed, like Rualdus, that Plato had read the
Old Testament (see note, page 45), had no difficulty in assigning the
doctrine of Dæmons to a Jewish source. Wolff, speaking of the systematic
dæmonology constructed by the neo-Platonists, alludes to this passage in
Plutarch, and says:—“Hæc omnia artificiosa interpretatione ex Platonis
fluxerunt fabulis; ex oriente fere nihil assumebatur. Namque Judæi aliis
principiis, ac reliqui, profecti decem dæmonum genera constituerant;
Chaldæi vetustiores non dæmonum genera, sed septem archangelos planetis
præfectos colebant; nec credendum Plut., _De Defectu Orac._, 415 A.
Studebat enim Plutarchus, _præsertim in Comm: de Iside et de Socratis
dæmonio, Græcorum placita ad Ægypti Asiæque revocare sapientiam_, et
quum ab Orpheo et Atti sancta quædam mysteria dicerentur profecta esse,
arcanis his ritibus summam de diis doctrinam significari suspicabatur”
(Wolff, _op. cit._).—Volkmann, who had carefully studied Plutarch’s
relationship both to his philosophical predecessors and to foreign forms
of religious faith, had previously arrived at a different conclusion
from that embodied in the words italicized above.—“Er war darum kein
Eklektiker oder Synkretist, und was man nun gar von seiner Vorliebe für
Orientalische Philosophie und Theologie gesagt hat gehört ledeglich in
das Gebiet der Fabel. Plutarchs philosophisch-allegorische Auslegung aber
der Ægyptischen Mythen von Isis und Osiris geht von der ausdrücklichen
Voraussetzung aus _dass diese Gottheiten wesentlich Hellenische sind_”
(Volkmann, vol. ii. p. 23). But these varying views are simply two
different ways of regarding the real fact, which is that Plutarch regards
foreign myths and Greek alike as different expressions of the conception
of Divine Unity—such Unity not being either Hellenic or Egyptian, but
simply absolute (see subsequent analysis of the _De Iside et Osiride_).
[234] DIOGENES LAERTIUS, viii. 32. RITTER and PRELLER also refer to
APULEIUS’ _De Deo Socratis_: “Atenim Pythagoricos mirari oppido solitos,
si quis se negaret unquam vidisse Dæmonem, satis, ut reor, idoneus auctor
est Aristoteles.” (Below this passage in my edition of Apuleius (the
_Delphin_, of 1688) appears the note “Idem scribit Plutarch, in libello
περὶ θαυμασίων ἀκουσμάτων.” This _libellus_ I cannot identify with any
enumerated in the catalogue of Lamprias.)
[235] “Plato, ne Anaxagoræ aut Socratis modo impietatis reus succumberet,
præterea ne sanctam animis hebetioribus religionem turbaret, intactos
reliquit ritus publicos et communem de diis dæmonibusque opinionem;
quæ ipse sentiat, significat quidem, sed, ut solet in rebus minus
certis _et a mera dialectica alienis_, obvoluta fabulis” (WOLFF, _De
Dæmonibus_, _loc. cit._). Is it permissible to suppose that the third
consideration—that expressed in the italicized words—operated more
strongly on Plato than either or both of the first two? Aristotle,
at any rate, takes up a much firmer attitude in face of the popular
mythology, which he regards as _fabulously introduced for the purpose
of persuading the multitude, enforcing the laws, and benefiting human
life_ (_Metaphysics_, xi. (xii.) 8, T. Taylor’s translation). This famous
passage is as outspoken as Epicureanism.
[236] PLATO: _Politicus_, 271 D. A similar “dispensation” is provided in
the _Laws_, 717 A.
[237] PLATO: _Symposium_, 202 E.
[238] HERODOTUS: ii. 53.
[239] _De Defectu Orac._, 415 B.
[240] HESIOD: _Works and Days_, 122-125 (Elton’s translation).
[241] _Works and Days_, 253. Cf. the beautiful fragment from Menander
preserved by Plutarch, _De Tranquillitate Animi_, 474 B:—
“By every man, the moment he is born,
There stands a guardian Dæmon, who shall be
His _mystagogue_ through life.”
[242] _Works and Days_, 141-2.
[243] _De Defectu Oraculorum_, 445 B.—Pluto, too, though perhaps
not quite with the innocent purpose of Homer, gives “dæmons” as an
alternative to “gods”—_Timæus_, Sec. 16. (A passage charged with the most
mordant irony against the national religious tradition.)
[244] _De Defectu Orac._, 416 C.
[245] Cf. WOLFF: “Neque discrepat hac in re communis religio: multi enim
dæmones mali Græcorum animos terrebant, velut Acco, Alphito, Empusa,
Lamia, Mormo, sive Mormolyce,” &c.—Considering the numerous references
made to the subject of Dæmonology by Greek poets and philosophers from
Hesiod and Empedocles downwards, with all of which, as is clear from
the citations made in our text, Plutarch is perfectly familiar, Prof.
Mahaffy’s note on this point is a little mysterious.—“Mr. Purser points
out to me that Plutarch rather popularized than originated this doctrine,
and himself refers it to various older philosophers.” (Mahaffy, p.
313.)—It needs no very close study of Plutarch to see for one’s self that
he does not claim to have originated the doctrine, and that he knows
himself to be dealing with a long-standing and widespread tradition.
[246] For a similar process, cf. the quotation from Dr. JACKSON’s
_Treatise on Unbelief_, given by Sir WALTER SCOTT in _Demonology and
Witchcraft_, p. 175, _note_: “Thus are the Fayries, from difference of
events ascribed to them, divided into good and bad, when it is but one
and the same malignant fiend that meddles in both.”
[247] Cf. GÖTTE: _Das Delphische Orakel: “In Zeiten, wo dasselbe keine
Bedeutung mehr hatte, wo es nur dazu dienen konnte, den finstersten
Aberglauben fortzupflanzen und zu erhalten, und die Menschen über die
wahre Leitung der Dinge in der Welt, über die wahren Mittel, durch welche
sich Jeder sein Glück bereitet, zu täuschen, wurde das Orakelwesen
von den frommen Vätern unserer Kirche für die Ausgeburt des Teufels
angesehen,” &c._—Cf. also, 1 Corinthians x. 20-22.
[248] See, for these illustrations, SCOTT’s _Demonology and Witchcraft_,
PATER’s _Apollo in Picardy_, and HEINE’s _Gods in Exile_. (“_Unter
solchen Umständen musste Mancher, dessen heilige Haine konfisciert waren,
bei uns in Deutschland als Holzhäcker taglöhnern und Bier trinken statt
Nektar._”)
[249] 361 A. sqq.
[250] The author of the _De Placitis_ (882 B.) gives a very vague and
slight account of the history of Dæmonology, probably from motives
of Epicurean contempt, if one may judge from the curt sentence which
concludes his brief note:—“Epicurus admits none of these things.”—He
merely says that Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics asserted
the existence of spirits called “Dæmons,” and adds that the same
philosophers also maintained the existence of Heroes some good, some
bad. The distinction between good and bad does not apply to the Dæmons.
The identical words of this passage in the _De Placitis_ are used by
Athenagoras (_Legat: pro Christ._, cap. 21) to express a definite
statement about Thales, who is asserted to have been the first who made
the division into God, dæmons, heroes.
[251] Plutarch has here preserved some very beautiful verses of
Empedocles, in which this punishment is described. Another fragment of
verse from Empedocles (_De Exilio_, 607 C) depicts with equal force and
beauty the punishment by the Dæmons of one who has been handed over to
them to atone for his crimes.
[252] Here should be noted the tendency to assimilate the good Dæmons to
the gods—a tendency to which reference has already been made.
[253] _De Defectu Orac._, 419 A.
[254] _De Defectu Orac._, 419 A.
[255] 419.—Mrs. Browning could hardly have read the _De Defectu_ when
she stated that her fine poem “The Dead Pan” was “partly founded on a
well-known tradition mentioned in a treatise of Plutarch (‘_De Oraculorum
Defectu_’), _according to which, at the hour of the Saviour’s agony, a
cry of ‘Great Pan is dead!’ swept across the waves in the hearing of
certain mariners,—and the oracles ceased_.” (It was one of the mariners
who uttered the cry, “The great Pan is dead!” having been thrice
requested by a supernatural voice to do so. But such errors of detail are
unimportant in view of the fact that the whole spirit of the story is
misunderstood by the poetess.)
[256] So one may conjecture from the description given by Demetrius,
who “sailed to the least distant of these lonely islands, which had few
inhabitants, and these all held sacred and inviolable by the Britons.”
Plutarch’s Demetrius has been identified with “Demetrius the Clerk” who
dedicated, “to the gods of the imperial Palace,” a bronze tablet now in
the Museum at York.—See King’s translation of the _Theosophical Essays_
in the “Bohn” series, p. 22.
[257] 420 B.
[258] 360 D.
[259] 361 E. We shall see elsewhere that, just as a good Dæmon may
be promoted to the rank of a god, so a good man may be lifted to the
status of a Dæmon, like Hesiod’s people of the Golden Age. (_De Dæmonio
Socratis_, 593 D. Cf. _De Defectu Orac._, 415 B.)
[260] 361 F. 364 E.
[261] Cf. APULEIUS, _De Deo Socratis_.—“Neque enim pro majestate Deûm
cælestium fuerit, ut eorum quisquam vel Annibali somnium pingat,
vel Flaminio hostiam conroget, vel Accio Nævio avem velificet, vel
sibyllæ fatiloquia versificet, etc. Non est operæ Diis superis ad hæc
descendere. Quad cuncta” (he says elsewhere) “cælestium voluntate et
numine et auctoritate, sed Dæmonum obsequio et opera et ministerio fieri
arbitrandum est.”
[262] _De Ε apud Delphos_, 394 A.
[263] _De Fato_, 572 F, sqq.—Bernardakis “stars” this tract as doubtfully
Plutarch’s. But the passage quoted, at any rate, is not discrepant from
Plutarch’s views elsewhere, though expressing them more concisely, and
with more appearance of system than usual with him. The similarity to
Plato’s tripartite division of the heavenly powers in the _Timæus_ is, of
course, evident, but the text has a note of sincerity which is lacking in
the Platonic passage.
[264] _De Defectu_, 417 C. (For the verse quoted in the original, cf. W.
CHRIST’s _Pindar_, p. 232.)
[265] 417 D.
[266] The nearest approach to this identification is made by the
mysterious stranger whom Cleombrotus finds near the Red Sea, who appeared
once every year among the people living in that neighbourhood, and who
gave the pious traveller much information concerning Dæmons and their
ways; which he was well fitted to do, as he spent most of his time in
their company and that of the pastoral nymphs. He said that Python (whom
Apollo slew) was a dæmon; that the Titans were dæmons; that Saturn may
have been a dæmon. He then adds the significant words, “There is nothing
to wonder at if we apply to certain Dæmons the traditional titles of the
gods, since a Dæmon who is assigned to a particular god, deriving from
him his authority and prerogatives, is usually called by the name of that
same god” (421 E). But this somewhat daring testimony is, we are not
surprised to find, preceded by a hint that in these matters we are to
drink from a goblet of mingled fact and fancy.—(421 A.)
[267] _De Defectu Orac._, 426 D.
[268] _Isis and Osiris_, 360 E.
[269] _Isis and Osiris_, 360 F.
[270] _Isis and Osiris_, 361 C. The passage in the “Banquet” referred to
has been already quoted (see p. 123).
[271] It would be otiose to illustrate by examples the universal and
splendid fame of the Delphic oracle. One may perhaps be given which is
not commonly quoted. Pliny the elder, who in one passage sneeringly
includes the _oraculorum præscita_ among the _fulgurum monitus,
auruspicum prædicta, atque etiam parva dictu, in auguriis sternutamenta
et offensiones pedum_, by means of which men have endeavoured to discover
hints of divine guidance, nevertheless, in another passage, quotes two
wise oracles as having been “velut ad castigandam hominum vanitatem a Deo
emissa.” (Lib. ii. cap. 5, and vii. cap. 47.)—The political, religious,
and moral influence of the Delphic oracle has been exhaustively dealt
with by Wilhelm Götte in the work already cited (see p. 127, _note_), and
by Bouché-Leclerq in the third volume of his “_Histoire de la Divination
dans l’Antiquité_.” On the general question of divination it would,
perhaps, be superfluous to consult anything beyond this monumental work,
with its exhaustive references and its philosophic style of criticism.
[272] JUVENAL: _Sat._ vi. 555.
[273] LUCAN, v. 111, sq.
[274]
—“Muto Parnassus hiatu
Conticuit, pressitque Deum: seu spiritus istas
Destituit fauces, mundique in devia versum
Duxit iter: seu barbarica cum lampade Pytho
Arsit, in immensas cineres abiere cavernas,
Et Phœbi tenuere viam: seu sponte Deorum
Cirrha silet fatique sat est arcana futuri
Carmine longævæ vobis commissa Sibyllæ:
Seu Pæan solitus templis arcere nocentes,
Ora quibus solvat nostro non invenit ævo.”
[275] The main argument of the third and shortest of the Delphic tracts
has been already given. A brief description of its contents is added by
way of note, to show its connexion with the two larger tracts. The tract
takes the form of a letter from Plutarch to Serapion, who acts as a means
of communication between Plutarch and other common friends. Its object is
to ascertain why the letter Ε was held in such reverence at the Delphic
shrine. A series of explanations is propounded, probably representing
views current on the subject, varying, as they do, from those proper
to the common people to those which could only have been the views
of logicians or mathematicians. Theon, a close friend of Plutarch’s,
maintains that the syllable is the symbol of the logical attributes of
the God, Logic, whose basis is Ει (“if”), being the process by which
philosophical truth is arrived at. “If, then, Philosophy is concerned
with Truth, and the light of Truth is Demonstration, and the principle
of Demonstration is Connexion, it is with good reason that the faculty
which includes and gives effect to this process has been consecrated
by philosophers to the god whose special charge is Truth.”... “Whence,
I will not be dissuaded from the assertion that this is the _Tripod of
Truth_, namely, Reason, which recognizing that the consequent follows
from the antecedent, and then taking into consideration the original
basis of fact, thus arrives at the conclusion of the demonstration.
How can we be surprised if the Pythian God, in his predilection for
Logic, is specially attentive to this aspect of Reason, to which he sees
philosophers are devoted in the highest degree?” This connexion of Reason
with Religion, a familiar process in Plutarch, is followed by a “list
of the arithmetical and mathematical praises of the letter Ε” involving
Pythagorean speculations, and the culmination of the whole piece lies
in the splendid vindication by Ammonius of the Unity and Self-Existence
and Eternity of the Deity. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of his
argument is the assignation to Apollo of the functions of the Supreme
Deity: an easy method of bringing Philosophy and Mythology to terms; a
mode of operation perhaps not unaffected by that Mithraic worship which,
on its classical side, was to culminate in Julian’s famous prayer to
Helios. The tract also furnishes, as already stated, a clear example of
the method by which the literal terms known in the worship of Dionysus
and Apollo are refined from their grosser elements and idealized by
the subtleties of the philosophic intellect, which then accepts them
as appropriate designations for the various functions of the God. The
pleasant seriousness, too, of all the interlocutors is worthy of note, as
presenting a type of religious discussion of whose calmness and dignity
the modern world knows little. It would be interesting, for example, to
hear a group of classical philosophers discuss the excommunication of
Professor Mivart by Cardinal Vaughan, or of Tolstoi by Pobedonostzeff.
[276] This Diogenianus does not appear to be identical with the
Diogenianus of Pergamos, twice mentioned in the _Symposiacs_, although
Bernardakis does not distinguish them in his Index.
[277] Philinus was an intimate friend of Plutarch’s (_Symposiacs_, 727
B; _De Sollertia Animalium_, 976 B); and, except in this Dialogue and
in the _De Soll. Anim._, appears only as taking his part in the social
intercourse of the _Symposiacs_, and as contributing his share to the
discussion of the various quaint and curious problems forming so large
a portion of the “Table Talk” of Plutarch and his friends. He has
Pythagorean tendencies; eats no flesh (727 B); objects to a rich and
varied diet, being of opinion that simple food is more easily digestible
(660 F); explains somewhat crudely why Homer calls salt θεῖος (685 D);
proves that Alexander the Great was a hard drinker (623 E); explains
why Pythagoras advised his followers to throw their bedclothes into
confusion on getting up (728 B, C); and tells a story of a wonderful tame
crocodile which lay in bed like a human being (_De Soll. Anim._, 976 B).
A very charming account of Plutarch’s friends has been given by M. A.
Chenevière, in his “_De Plutarchi familiaribus_,” written as a Litt.D.
thesis for a French University in 1886.
[278] 395 A.
[279] 396 D. Cf. _Symposiacs_, 628 A.
[280] 396 E. Boethus, a genial and witty man, with whom, notwithstanding
his Epicureanism, Plutarch lives on terms of intimate social intercourse.
In _Symposiacs_, 673 C, Boethus, now described as an Epicurean _sans
phrase_, entertains, in Athens, Plutarch, Sossius Senecio, and a number
of men of his own sect. After dinner the company discuss the interesting
question why we take pleasure in a dramatic representation of passions
whose exhibition in real life would shock and distress us. At another
time he appears, together with Plutarch and a few other friends, at a
dinner given by Ammonius, then _Strategos_ at Athens for the third time,
and explains, upon principles of Epicurean Science (_Symposiacs_, 720 F),
why sounds are more audible at night than by day.
[281] 396 F.
[282] See note, p. 149.
[283] Cf. CICERO: _De Divinatione_, ii. 50.—“_Quis est enim, qui totum
diem jaculans, non aliquando collineet? Totas noctes dormimus; neque ulla
fere est, qua non somniemus: et miramur, aliquando id, quod somniarimus,
evadere? Quid est tam incertum quam talorum jactus? tamen nemo est quin,
sæpe jactans, venereum jaciat aliquando, nonnumquam etiam iterum, ac
tertium_,” _&c._ Also ii. 971.—“_Casus autem innumerabilibus pæne seculis
in omnibus plura mirabilia quam in somniorum visis effecerit._”
[284] 399.
[285] Cf. HERODOTUS: ii. 135.
[286] 401 E.
[287] “Pyrrhi temporibus iam Apollo versus facere desierat.”—CICERO: _De
Div._, ii. 56. Plutarch, however, is able to say, “Even nowadays some
oracles are published in verse,” and to cite a very interesting instance
(_De Pyth. Orac._, 404 A).
[288] 408 C, D.
[289] 409 D.
[290] 404 C.
[291] _Lamprias._ The writer of this letter to “Terentius Priscus” is
addressed by the name of “Lamprias” in the course of the dialogue (413
E). This Terentius is not mentioned elsewhere by Plutarch, but one may
venture the guess that he was one of the friends whom, as in the case
of Lucius the Etrurian, and Sylla the Carthaginian, Plutarch had met at
Rome (_Symposiacs_, 727 B). Sylla and Lucius, whom we know to have been
on intimate terms with Plutarch, are interlocutors in the dialogue _De
Facie in Orbe Lunæ_, and one of them uses the same form of address to
the writer of that dialogue as is employed by Ammonius in this passage
(940 F). There is not the faintest doubt as to the genuineness of either
of these two dialogues, and it is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that
Plutarch, desiring perhaps to pay a compliment to a relative, veils his
own personality in this way: “Omnium familiarium et propinquorum ante
ceteros omnes Lampriam fratrem, et ejusdem nominis avum Lampriam, eos
imprimis fuisse qui Plutarchi amicitiam memoriamque obtinuerint, nobis
apparet” (_De Plutarchi Familiaribus_—CHENEVIÈRE). He pays a similar
compliment to his friend Theon, who sums up and concludes the argument
of the _De Pythiæ Oraculis_. (For the closeness of Theon’s intimacy with
Plutarch, see especially _Consolatio ad Uxorem_, 610 B, and _Symposiacs_,
725 F.) Cf. GRÉARD’S _La Morale de Plutarque_, p. 303: “Plutarque a
ses procédés, qu’on arrive à connaître. D’ordinaire ils consistent à
accorder successivement la parole aux défenseurs des systèmes extrèmes
et à réserver la conclusion au principal personnage du dialogue. Or
ce personnage est presque toujours celui qui a posé la thèse; et le
plus souvent il se trouve avoir avec Plutarque lui-même un lien de
parenté.”—Plutarch delights to such an extent to bring his friends into
his works, that it has even been suggested that no work is authentic
without this distinguishing mark. Readers of Plutarch know that one
characteristic of his style is the avoidance of hiatus, and that he puts
himself to all kinds of trouble to secure this object. In this connexion,
Chenevière remarks: “Mirum nobis visum est quod, ne in uno quidem
librorum quos hiatus causa G. Benseler Plutarcho abjudicavit, nullius
amici nomen offenditur. Scripta autem quæ nullo hiatu fœdata demonstrat,
vel amico cuidam dicata, vel nominibus amicorum sunt distincta.” (The
work by Benseler referred to is, of course, his _De Hiatu in Oratoribus
Atticis et Historicis Græcis_.)
[292] Plutarch does not, of course, wish to convey the suggestion that
Apollo’s shrine is still the centre of the earth, and that Britain is
as far away in one direction as the Red Sea is in another. The oracle’s
repulse of Epimenides, who wished to be certain on the point, indicates
that the question is one surrounded with difficulty, and that the wise
man will do best to leave it alone. Bouché-Leclerq has a startling
comment: “_Plutarque ajoute que, de son temps, la mesure avait été
verifiée par deux voyageurs partis l’un de la Grande Bretagne et l’autre
du fond de la mer Rouge_” (_La Divination_, iii. p. 80).
[293] 410 A, B. Cf. note, p. 90.
[294] 411 E.
[295] The cessation of the oracles was only comparative. WOLFF, in his
_De Novissima Oraculorum Ætate_, examines the history of each oracle
separately, and comes to a conclusion that the oracles were not silent
even in the age of Porphyry (born A.D. 232): “_Nondum obmutuisse numina
fatidica Porphyrii tempore. Vera enim ille deorum responsa censuit; quæ
Christianis opposuit, ne soli doctrinam divinitus accepisse viderentur._”
Strabo alludes to the failure of the oracle at Dodona, and adds that
the rest were silent too (STRABO: vii. 6, 9). Cicero alludes with great
contempt to the silence of the Delphic oracles in his own times: “_Sed,
quod caput est, cur isto modo jam oracula Delphis non eduntur, non modo
nostrâ ætate, sed jamdiu; ut modo nihil possit esse contemtius? Hoc loco
quum urgentur evanuisse aiunt vetustate vim loci ejus, unde anhelitus
ille terræ fieret, quo Pythia, mente incitata, oracula ederet.... Quando
autem ista vis evanuit? An postquam homines minus creduli esse cœperunt_”
(_De Div._, ii. 57). When Cicero wrote this passage he had probably
forgotten the excellent advice which the oracle had once given him when
he went to Delphi to consult it (PLUT.: _Cicero_, cap. 5).
[296] 412 D.
[297] Some of these points of grammar which attracted the scorn of
Heracleon were whether βάλλω loses a λ in the future; and what were
the positives from which the comparatives χεῖρον and βέλτιον, and the
superlatives χεῖριστον and βέλτιστον were formed (412 E).—“_Quelques
années après les guerres médiques, le pinceau de Polygnote couvrit la
Lesché des Cnidiens à Delphes de scènes empruntées au monde infernal._”
(Bouché-Leclerq: iii. 153.)—It would have been more interesting to a
modern student if Heracleon had replied that the pictures of Polygnotus
were quite sufficient to keep one mentally alert, and had seized the
opportunity to give us an exact description of the scenes depicted
and the meaning they conveyed to the men of his time. “‘Not all the
treasures,’ as Homer has it, ‘which the stone threshold of the Far-darter
holds safe within, would now,’ as Mr. Myers says, ‘be so precious to us
as the power of looking for one hour on the greatest work by the greatest
painter of antiquity, the picture by Polygnotus in the Hall of the
Cnidians at Delphi, of the descent of Odysseus among the dead.’”
[298] Didymus, “surnamed Planetiades,” is a picturesque figure, evidently
drawn from life. It is interesting to compare his attitude with that
imposed upon the ideal cynic of Epictetus: “It is his duty then to be
able with a loud voice, if the occasion should arise, and appearing on
the tragic stage to say, like Socrates, ‘Men, whither are you hurrying?
what are you doing, wretches? Like blind people you are wandering up and
down: you are going by another road, and have left the true road: you
seek for prosperity and happiness where they are not, and if another
shows you where they are you do not believe him’” (LONG’s _Epictetus_,
p. 251). Planetiades certainly endeavours to play this _rôle_ on the
occasion in question, though he is doubtless as far below the stoic ideal
as he is above the _soi-disant_ cynics whom Dion met at ALEXANDRIA.
[299] Cf. BLOUNT: _Apollonius of Tyana_, p. 37. Blount collects a number
of ancient and modern parallels to the thought of Plutarch here. HORACE,
_Epist._ i. 16. 59, readily occurs to the memory. (For the Pindaric
fragment, see W. Christ, p. 225.)
[300] 413 D.
[301] “Plutarch does not mean to say that Greece was not able at all to
furnish 3000 men capable of arms, but that if burgess armies of the old
sort were to be formed they would not be in a position to set on foot
3000 ‘hoplites.’”—MOMMSEN.
[302] 414 C.
[303] 417 A, B. Cf. _De Facie in Orbe Lunæ_, 944 C, D.
[304] 431 B.
[305] 436 F.
[306] 437 F.
[307] _De Pythiæ Orac._, 398 B.
[308] _De Defectu Orac._, 418 E.
[309] _De Defectu Orac._, 438 D.
[310] Plutarch, in reply to Boethus the Epicurean, uses an interesting
example to illustrate the two opposite views maintained on this point.
“Even you yourself here are beneficially influenced, it would seem, by
what Epicurus wrote and spoke three centuries ago; and yet you are of
opinion that God could not supply a Principle of Motion or a Cause of
Feeling, unless He took and shut Himself up in each individual thing and
became an intermingled portion of its essence” (398 B, C).
[311] “As to Plutarch’s theology, he was certainly a monotheist. He
probably had some vague belief in inferior deities (demons he would have
called them) as holding a place like that filled by angels and evil
spirits in the creed of most Christians; _yet it is entirely conceivable
that his occasional references to these deities are due merely to the
conventional rhetoric of his age_” (ANDREW P. PEABODY: Introduction to
a translation—already referred to—of the _De Sera Numinis Vindicta_).
It is a little difficult to be patient with the ignorance displayed in
the italicized part of this citation. That Plutarch’s “references to
these deities” are not “occasional” is a matter of fact; that they are
not “due merely to conventional rhetoric” it is hoped that the analysis
in the text—incomplete as it may be in other respects—has at least made
sufficiently clear. It is, however, gratifying to find that this American
translator, unlike Dr. Super, of Chicago, recognizes that Plutarch “was
certainly a monotheist.”
[312] Plutarch found the existence of the Dæmons recognized in each
of the three spheres which contributed to the formation of religious
beliefs—in philosophy, in popular tradition, and in law. STOBÆUS: _Tit._
44, 20 (“_On Laws and Customs_”—_Tauchnitz_ edition of 1838, vol. ii.
p. 164) has an interesting quotation, headed “_Preamble of the Laws of
Zaleucus_,” in which the following passage occurs:—“If an Evil Dæmon
come to any man, tempting him to Vice, let him spend his time near
temples, and altars, and sacred shrines, fleeing from Vice as from
an impious and cruel mistress, and let him pray the gods to deliver
him from her power.” Zaleucus may, of course, have been embodying the
teaching of his Pythagorean colleagues, but the fact remains that the
belief in the influence of Dæmons on human life received the authority
of a celebrated system of law, unless we are to be more incredulous than
Cicero himself—_Quis Zaleucum leges scripsisse non dixit?_ (_Ad Atticum_,
vi. 1).—(“His code is stated to have been the first collection of written
laws that the Greeks possessed.”—_Smaller Classical Dictionary_, Smith
and Marindin, 1898.)
[313] _Adversus Coloten_, 1124 D. The religious value of the belief in
Dæmonology is indicated in an interesting passage in the “_De Iside et
Osiride_” in which Isis, by her sufferings, is described as “having given
a sacred lesson of consolation to men and women involved in similar
sorrows.” 361 E. (In the next sentence she and Osiris are raised from the
dæmonic rank to the divine.)
[314] Accepting Bernardakis’ first emendation—εἰς θεοὺς ἐπαναφέρει τὰς
τῶν πράξεων ἀρχὰς. 580 A.
[315] 581 F.—Phidolaus would not have been at home among Xenophon’s
troops (_Anabasis_, iii. 2, 9).
[316] 588 C, D.
[317] 588 E.
[318] 589 D.
[319] 586 A.
[320] 589 F.
[321] 591 A.
[322] 594.
[323] _De Defectu_, 415 B, C. In the _De Facie quæ apparet_ the connexion
between mankind and the dæmons in described in similar terms to those
employed in the _De Dæmonio Socratis_. The Dæmons do not spend all their
time on the moon; they take charge of oracles, assist at initiatory
rites, punish evildoers, help men in battle and at sea, and for any want
of fairness or competence in the discharge of these duties they are
punished by being driven again to earth to enter human bodies once more
(944 D; cf. 944 C).
[324] That this truth is one which appeals to the Imagination more
cogently than to the Reason, resembling in that respect the belief in the
soul’s immortality, is evident to Plutarch. It is on this account that he
illustrates it by Myth instead of arguing it by Reason, and takes every
precaution to prevent his readers from regarding it as a complete and
final presentation of a logically irrefutable belief.
[325] _Non posse suaviter_, &c., 1101 B, C.
[326] 1101 D.
[327] 1102 B.
[328] _De Audiendis Poetis_ 34 B.
[329] _Conjugalia Præcepta_, 140 D. Champagny sees a reference here to
Christianity. But why not also in PLATO’s _Laws_, 674 F, and 661 C?—It
is quite in harmony with Plutarch’s love of openness in Religion that to
the general reticence displayed by the Greeks on the subject of their
religious Mysteries, he seems to add a personal reticence peculiarly his
own. Considering how anxiously he hovers about the question of the soul’s
immortality (see above, p. 118, and cf. _Consolatio ad Apollonium_, 120
B, C: “_If, as is probable, there is any truth in the sayings of ancient
poets and philosophers ... then must you cherish fair hopes of your
dear departed son_”—a passage curiously similar in form and thought to
TACITUS, _Agric._ 46: “_Si quis piorum manibus locus, si, ut sapientibus
placet_,” _&c._), it is remarkable that only once—and then under the
stress of a bitter domestic bereavement—does he specifically quote the
Mysteries (those of Dionysus) as inculcating that doctrine (_Ad Uxorem_,
611 D). His adoption of an unknown writer’s beautiful comparison of Sleep
to the Lesser Mysteries of Death (_Consol. ad Apoll._, 107 E), and his
repetition of the same idea elsewhere (see above, p. 118), may also be
indications how naturally the teaching of the Mysteries suggested the
idea of immortality. But he most frequently alludes to the Mysteries
as secret sources of information for the identification of nominally
different deities (_De Iside et Osiride_, 364 E), or for the assignation
of their proper functions to the Dæmons (_De Defectu_, 417 C), who are
regarded as responsible for what Mr. Andrew Lang (“Myth, Ritual, and
Religion,” _passim_) calls “the barbaric and licentious part of the
performances” (_De Iside et Osiride_, 360 E, F). We should perhaps
conclude, from the few indications which Plutarch gives of his views on
this subject, that he regarded the Mysteries in a twofold light; they
were a source of religious instruction, or consolation, respecting the
future state of the soul, and they were also a means of explaining and
justifying the crude legends which so largely intermingled with the purer
elements of Greek religion. Though, as Plutarch hints, many of these
barbaric legends were not suited to discussion by the profane, yet the
mind, when purified by sacred rites, and educated to the apprehension of
sacred meanings, could grasp the high and pure significance of things
which were a stumbling-block to the uninitiated, and could make them an
aid to a loftier moral life.
[330] “_Das eigentlich einzige und tiefste Thema der Welt- und
Menschengeschichte, dem alle übrigen untergeordnet sind, bleibt der
Conflict des Unglaubens und des Aberglaubens._”—GOETHE, _Westöstlicher
Divan_ (quoted by THOLUCK).
[331] 165 C.
[332] 165 D.
[333] BERNARDAKIS adopts Bentley’s emendation βαπτισμούς, which _might_
be an allusion to Christianity, but would more probably refer to such
a process as that already described in the words βάπτισον σεαυτὸν εἰς
θάλασσαν. We have previously discussed the general question involved
(see p. 45), but may here add the opinion of so unprejudiced a Christian
writer as Archbishop Trench, “_strange to say. Christianity is to him
(Plutarch) utterly unknown._”—(See also note, p. 202).
[334] 166 B.
[335] 166 B.
[336] 168 F.
[337] Bello primo, Aristodemum Messeniorum regem per superstitionem
animum ac spes omnes despondisse, seque ipsum interfecisse, narrat etiam
Pausanias, iv. 3.—WYTTENBACH.
[338] 169 C. _Iliad_, vii. 193, 194.
[339] 170 A. Trench quotes Seneca _Epist._, 123—“Quid enim interest utrum
deos neges, an infames?”
[340] 170 F.
[341] To the numerous citations made by Gréard (p. 209), we may add an
expression of opinion by Dr. Tholuck, given with special reference to
Plutarch’s views on Superstition:—“Wir haben in Alterthum einen hohen
Geist, Plutarch, welcher dem, was das Alterthum Aberglaube nannte, viele
Betrachtungen gewidmet hat, dem Gegenstande zwar nicht auf den Grund
gekommen, _aber in der Betrachtuug desselben doch so tiefe religiöse
Wahrheiten ausgesprochen_, dass wir nicht umhin können, ihn hier
ausführlicher dem Leser vorzuführen” (_Ueber Aberglauben und Unglauben_).
[342] WYTTENBACH bases this possibility on the 150th entry in the
Lamprian catalogue, “_On Superstition, against Epicurus._” (Entry No. 155
in the catalogue as given in BERNARDAKIS, vol. vii. pp. 473-7.) But the
discussion on this point in the _Non posse suaviter_ forms so important a
part of that tract that the title “_On Superstition, against Epicurus_”
would be no inapt title for the whole treatise.
[343] The view taken in the text as to the character of this strenuous
and noble sermon on _Superstition_ is, of course, quite at variance with
the opinion of Prof. Mahaffy, who regards it as “one of those sophistical
exercises practised by every one in that age—I mean, the defence of a
paradox with subtlety and ingenuity, _taking little account of sober
truth in comparison with dialectical plausibility_.”—_Greeks under Roman
Sway_, p. 318.
[344] _Pharsalia_, viii. 831.
[345] APULEIUS, _Meta_: Lib. xi. Lucius (a descendant of Plutarch, by the
way), in his pious gratitude, enters the service of the goddess who had
_uncharmed_ him.—Rursus donique, quam raso capillo, _collegi vetustissimi
et sub illis Sullæ temporibus conditi_ munia, non obumbrato vel obtecto
calvitio, sed quoquoversus obvio, gaudens obibam.
[346] 364 E.
[347] 354 C.
[348] 355 B.
[349] Cf. _De Pyth. Orac._, 400 A.
[350] 355 D.
[351] 358 E. Mr. Andrew Lang justly remarks, “Why these myths should be
considered ‘more blasphemous’ than the rest does not appear” (_Myth,
Ritual, and Religion_, vol. ii. pp. 116, 117).
[352] 358 F. This is a difficult passage. It seems necessary to
read ἀνακλάσει for ἀναχωρήσει (cf. ἀνάκλασις δή που περὶ τὴν ἶριν,
_Amatorius_, 765 E), but even then the meaning is difficult to elicit,
and it is not confidently claimed that the rendering in the text has
elicited it. Three translations are appended: “_For as mathematicians
assure us that the rainbow is nothing else but a variegated image of
the sun, thrown upon the sight by the reflexion of his beams from the
clouds, so ought we to look upon the present story as the representation,
or reflexion rather, of something real as its true cause_” (Plutarchi
_De Iside et Osiride_ Liber: Græce et Anglice, by SAMUEL SQUIRE,
A.M., Cambridge, 1744).—“_Und so wie die Naturforscher den Regenbogen
für ein Gegenbild der Sonne erklären, das durch das Zurücktreten der
Erscheinung an die Wolke bunt wird, so ist hier die Sage das Gegenbild
einer Wahrheit, welche ihre Bedeutung auf etwas anderes hin abspiegelt_”
(Plutarch _über Isis und Osiris_ herausgegeben von G. PARTHEY, Berlin,
1850).—_Legendum ἀναχρώσει vel ἀνακλάσει, ut Reisk._ “_Et quemadmodum
mathematici arcum cælestem Solis tradunt esse imaginem variatam visus
ad nubem reflexu: Sic fabula hoc loco indicium est orationis alio
reflectentis intellectum._”—WYTTENBACH.
[353] _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, vol. ii. p. 120.
[354] In our spelling of this name we use the freedom of choice so
graciously accorded by Xylander—_Si Euhemerus mavis, non repugno._
[355] _De Placitis Philosophorum_, 880 D. Cf. CICERO, _De Natura
Deorum_. i. 42. “Ab Euhemero autem et mortes et sepulturæ demonstrantur
deorum. Utrum igitur hic confirmasse videtur religionem, an penitus
totam sustulisse?” See MAYOR’s note on this passage. The references to
Lactantius and Eusebius and many others bearing on the question are
collected by Corsini in his first dissertation on the _De Placitis_.
Zimmerman is very indignant with Plutarch on account of the charge here
brought against Euhemerus and Diagoras, and has defended them against
our author with great energy and spirit. (_Epistola ad Nicolaum Nonnen
qua Euemerus Messenius et Diagoras Melius ab Atheismo contra Plutarchum
aliosque defenduntur._)
[356] 360 A.
[357] The language here seems curiously outspoken in view of the now
established apotheosis of the Emperors.
[358] 360 D.
[359] 356, 357. Cf. _De Dædalis Platæensibus_.
[360] 364 A.
[361] 366 C.
[362] 364 D.
[363] 367 D.
[364] 368 D.
[365] 369 C. It is clear from a careful examination of the text that
Plutarch gives only a critical examination of this theory: he does not
adopt it as his own, as has frequently been asserted.
[366] 369 D. “It is impossible,” argued these ancient thinkers, “that
moral life and death, that good and evil, can flow from a single source.
It is impossible that a Holy God can have been the author of evil. Evil,
then, must be referred to some other origin: it must have had an author
of its own.”—“_Some Elements of Religion_,” by Canon LIDDON (Lecture iv.
sect. i.).
[367] 370 E.
[368] 371 A.
[369] See especially the quotations from Plato in 370 F, and the
application of Platonic terms in the interpretation of the Isiac and
Osirian myth in 372 E, F, 373 and 374. Hesiod, too, is made to agree
with this Platonic explanation of the Egyptian legend (374 C), and the
Platonic notion of matter is strained to allow of its being identified
with Isis (372 E, 374 F). In 367 C, a parallelism is pointed out between
Stoic theology and an interpretation of the myth; and in 367 E the death
of Osiris on the 17th of the month is used to illustrate, if not to
explain, the Pythagorean ἀφοσίωσις of that number.
As regards the identification of particular deities in this tract,
reference may be made to 364 E, F and 365 A, B, where Dionysus is
identified with Osiris; and to 365 F, where Mnaseas of Patara is
mentioned with approval as associating with Epaphus, not only Dionysus,
but Serapis and Osiris also. Anticleides is also referred to as asserting
that Isis was the daughter of Prometheus and the wife of Dionysus. In 372
D, Osiris is identified with the Sun under the name of Sirius, and Isis
with the Moon, in 375, a fanciful philology is called in to aid a further
identification of Greek and Egyptian deities; but not much importance
is attached to similarities derived in this way. In the next sentence
Isis is stated to have been identified with Athene by the Egyptians; and
the general principle of identity is boldly stated in 377 C:—“_It is
quite legitimate to regard these gods as common possessions and not the
exclusive property of the Egyptians—Isis and the deities that go in her
train are universally known and worshipped. The names, indeed, of certain
of them have been borrowed from the Egyptians, not so long ago; but their
divinity has been known and recognized for ages._”
[370] 378 A.
[371] There is a strain of mysticism in the _De Osiride_ which is alien
from the cheerful common sense which usually marks Plutarch; a remark
which also applies to the _De Facie quæ apparet in Orbe Lunæ_. But the
same strain appears in others of his authentic tracts, though mostly
operating through the medium of Platonic dreams and myths, _e.g._ the
story of Thespesius in the _Sera Num. Vindic._, and that of Timarchus in
the _De Dæmonio Socratis_. Besides, one would not ceteris paribus deny
the authenticity of Browning’s “_Childe Roland_” because he had written
“_The Guardian Angel_,” or that of “_The Antiquary_” because Scott was
also the author of “_The Monastery_.” The tract was probably composed
after that return from Alexandria to which Plutarch so charmingly alludes
in _Sympos._, 678 C. Moreover, the very nature of the subject, and the
priestly character of the lady to whom it was addressed, as well as
the mysterious nature of the goddess whose ministrant she was, are all
parts of a natural inducement to mysticism. We must admit that Plutarch
here participates in that spirit of mysticism which, always inherent in
Platonism, was kept in check by his acutely practical bent, to be revived
and exaggerated to the destruction of practical ethics in the dreams and
abstractions of the Neo-Platonists.
[372] A very slight acquaintance with Plutarch’s writings will serve
to dispose of the charge of Atheism brought against him by Zimmerman,
the professor of Theology in the Gymnasium of Zurich:—Credo equidem
Plutarchum inter eos fuisse qui cum Cicerone crediderint eos qui dant
philosophiæ operam non arbitrari Deos esse.—It is true that Zimmerman
supports his case by quoting the pseudo-Plutarchean _De Placitis_ (Idem
de providentia non minus male loquitur quam ipsi Epicurei), and seems
himself afraid to accept the conclusion of his own demonstrations:—Atheum
eum fuisse non credo, sed quomodo asserere potuerit Superstitione
Atheismum tolerabiliorem esse, simul tamen eos, quos atheos fuisse minime
probare potuit, Superstitioni autem inimicissimos, omnem malorum mundum
intulisse, consociare nequeo.—But the learned author is too intent on
exculpating _Noster Euhemerus_ from Plutarch’s “injustice” to have
justice to spare for Plutarch himself.—(J. J. ZIMMERMAN, _Epistola ad
Nonnen_). Gréard quotes other authors of this charge against Plutarch (p.
269).—We cannot allow this opportunity to pass of protesting against the
attitude of those who assumed, even in the Nineteenth Century, that it
was a sign either of moral depravity, or mental incapacity, in Plutarch
not to have been a believer in the Christian faith. Even Archbishop
Trench, who admits, concerning such writers as our author, that “many
were by them enabled to live their lives after a far higher and nobler
fashion than else they would have attained” cannot rid himself of the
notion that had Plutarch actively opposed Christianity he would have
committed an offence which our generosity might have pardoned, though our
justice must recognize that it _needed_ pardon. “Plutarch himself may
be entirely acquitted of any _conscious_ attempt to fight against that
truth which was higher than any which he had” (p. 13).—“I have already
mentioned that, _through no fault of his own_, he stood removed from all
the immediate influences of the Christian Church” (p. 89). But suppose
the facts to have been just the opposite of those indicated in the words
we have italicized, it would involve the loss of all sense of historical
perspective to draw the conclusion which would clearly have been drawn by
Trench himself. The use of similar language by Prof. Mahaffy has already
been noted. (Pref. p. xii.) The position assumed by writers who maintain
this view, is one quite inappropriate for historical discussion, and its
natural expression, if it must be expressed at all, is through the medium
of such poetical aspirations as that breathed in the epigram of John, the
Metropolitan of Euchaita:—
“If any Pagans, Lord, Thy grace shall save
From wrath divine, this boon I humbly crave,
Plato and Plutarch save: Thine was the cause
Their speech supported: Thine, too, were the laws
Their hearts obeyed; and if their eyes were blind
To recognize Thee Lord of human kind,
Needs only that Thy gift of grace be shown
To bring them, and bring all men, to the Throne.”
[373] Dr. Martineau (_Types of Ethical Theory_, vol. i. p. 91) thinks
that “we must go a little further than Zeller, who decides that Plato
usually conceived of God as if personal, yet was restrained by a doctrine
inconsistent with such conception from approaching it closely or
setting it deliberately on any scientific ground,” and devotes several
closely-reasoned pages to show that, although there was no room for
a personal god in Plato’s philosophy, Plato himself was in distinct
opposition to his own views as systematically expounded in his writings.
“We may regard him as fully aware of the conditions of the problem,
and, though unable to solve it without lesion of his dialectic, yet
deliberately pronouncing judgment on the side of his religious feeling.”
But _pace tantorum virorum_ it will be admitted that the personality of
God is not very evident in Plato when those who understand him best can
only maintain that it is not essentially interwoven with his philosophy,
having only an indirect and accidental existence which is not possible
“without lesion of his dialectic.”
[374] “Abstractedly, the theology of the Stoics appears as a
materialistic pantheism; God is represented as a fire, and the world
as a mode of God.” (GRANT, _The Ethics of Aristotle_, vol. i. p. 265.)
In the famous “hymn of Cleanthes,” preserved, like so many other of
the great wonders of classical literature, by Stobæus, Grant sees an
emphatic recognition of the personality of God, but it is equally natural
to regard the hymn as a more detailed expression of that necessity of
submitting to Destiny—of living in accordance with nature—which Cleanthes
enounces in that other famous fragment which Epictetus would have us hold
ready to hand in all the circumstances of life:—
“Lead me, O Zeus, and thou O Destiny,
The way that I am bid by you to go:
To follow I am ready. If I choose not,
I make myself a wretch, and still must follow.”
—EPICTETUS, _Encheir._ lii. (Long’s translation.) Epictetus, indeed, and
Seneca, late comers in the history of Stoicism, have undoubtedly attained
to a clear recognition of the personality of God.
[375] See the “_De cohibenda ira_,” “_de cupiditate divitiarum_,” “_de
invidia et odio_,” “_de adulatore et amico_.”
[376] “_De garrulitate_,” “_de vitioso pudore_,” “_de vitando aere
alieno_,” “_de curiositate_.”
[377] “_De amicorum multitudine_,” and “_de adulatore et amico_”; “_de
fraterno amore_,” “_de amore prolis_”; “_conjugalia præcepta_,” “_de
exilio_,” “_consolatio ad uxorem_,” “_consolatio ad Apollonium_.” (“I
can easily believe,” says Emerson, “that an anxious soul may find in
Plutarch’s ‘Letter to his Wife Timoxena,’ a more sweet and reassuring
argument on the immortality than in the Phædo of Plato.”)
[378] Zeller says that “the most characteristic mark of the Plutarchian
Ethics is their connexion with religion.”—(_Greek Philosophy_, translated
by Alleyne and Abbott.)
[379] _De Virtute Morali_, 440 E.
[380] 444 C, D. (Cf. 451.)
[381] 444 D. Cf. _Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debeat_, 15 E.
[382] 445 C.
[383] “_An virtus doceri possit_,” “_de virtute et vitio_,” 101, C, D.
[384] Trench follows Zeller in regarding Plutarch as a forerunner of
the Neo-Platonists:—“Plutarch was a Platonist, with an oriental tinge,
and thus a forerunner of the new Platonists, who ever regarded him with
the highest honour. Their proper founder, indeed, he, more than any
other man, deserves to be called, though clear of many of the unhealthy
excesses into which, at a later date, many of them ran” (Trench, p. 90).
We hope our pages have done something towards putting Plutarch in a
different light from that which surrounds him here. As a matter of fact,
did the “new Platonists regard him ever with the highest honour?” The
testimony of Eunapius we have already quoted (p. 67, note). Himerius is
equally laudatory. “Plutarch, who is the source of all the instruction
you convey.”—_Eclogæ_, vii. 4. “I weep for one who, I fondly hoped,
would be gifted with speech excelling Minucianus in force, Nicagoras in
stateliness, Plutarch in sweetness” (_Orat._ xliii. 21—Monody on his
son’s death). But this is rather late in the history of Neo-Platonism.
What about Plotinus, and Porphyry, and Proclus? Trench gives no
references in proof of his statement, and we have been unable to find any.
[385] Theodoretus: _De Oraculis_, 951.—“_Plutarch of Chæronea, a man who
was not Hebrew, but Greek—Greek by birth and in language, and enslaved to
Greek ideas._” Cf. MOMMSEN: _The Provinces, from Cæsar to Diocletian_,
Lib. viii. cap. vii.—“In this Chæronean the contrast between the Hellenes
and the Hellenized found expression; such a type of Greek life was not
possible in Smyrna or in Antioch; it belonged to the soil like the honey
of Hymettus. There were men enough of more powerful talents and of deeper
natures, but hardly any second author has known how, in so happy a
measure, to reconcile himself serenely to necessity, and how to impress
upon his writings the stamp of his tranquillity of spirit, and of his
blessedness of life.”
[386] Dr. Bigg calls him a renegade, as the Church has called Julian
an apostate. A comment of M. Martha’s on this uncharitable practice is
worthy of frequent repetition:—“Ainsi donc, que l’on donne à Julien
tous les noms qu’il plaira, qu’on l’appelle insensé, fanatique, mais
qu’on cesse de lui infliger durement ce nom d’apostat, de peur qu’un
historien, trop touché de ses malheurs, ne s’avise un jour de prouver
que l’apostasie était excusable.” (“_Un chrétien devenu païen._”—_Études
Morales_.)
[387] See note, p. 45.
[388] Though having also carefully studied both Zeller and Vacherot
(ZELLER: _Die Philosophie der Griechen_, vol. iii.; VACHEROT: _Histoire
critique de l’Ecole d’Alexandrie_), we have specially used for the
purposes of the text the close analysis of the various aspects of
Neo-Platonism presented by Dr. Bigg in his “Neo-Platonism,” and the
interesting account given by M. Saisset in his article “De l’Ecole
d’Alexandrie,” written for the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” of September,
1844, as a review of Jules Simon’s work on the Alexandrian School.—For
the Neo-Platonist Dæmonology we have largely consulted Wolff.
[389] “In so far as the Deity is the original force, it must create
everything. But as it is raised above everything in its nature, and needs
nothing external, it cannot communicate itself substantially to another,
nor make the creation of another its object. Creation cannot, as with
the Stoics, be regarded as the communication of the Divine Nature, as a
partial transference of it into the derivative creature; nor can it be
conceived as an act of will. But Plotinus cannot succeed in uniting these
determinations in a clear and consistent conception. He has recourse,
therefore, to metaphors.”—ZELLER.
[390] “In the year 1722, a Sheriff-depute of Sutherland, Captain David
Ross, of Littledean, took it upon him to pronounce the last sentence of
death for witchcraft which was ever passed in Scotland. The victim was an
insane old woman who had so little idea of her situation as to rejoice at
the sight of the fire which was destined to consume her.”—Sir W. SCOTT:
“_Demonology and Witchcraft_,” cap. 9.
[391] See Volkmann, vol. i. cap. i.
[392] Cf. M. MARTHA, “Un chrétien devenu païen,” in his _Études Morales_:
“La philosophie prit tout à coup des allures mystiques et inspirées,
elle entoura de savantes ténèbres la claire mythologie compromise par
sa clarté; à ses explications symboliques elle mêla les pratiques
mystérieuses des cultes orientaux, à sa théologie subtile et confuse les
redoutables secrets de la magie: elle eut ses initiations clandestines
et terribles, ses enthousiasmes extatiques, ses vertus nouvelles souvent
empruntées au christianisme, ses bonnes œuvres, ses miracles même. En
un mot, elle devint la théurgie, cet art sublime et suspect qui prétend
pouvoir évoquer Dieu sur la terre et dans les âmes. Le christianisme
rencontrait donc non plus un culte suranné, facile à renverser, mais
une religion vivante, puisant son énergie dans sa défaite, défendu par
des fanatiques savants dont le sombre ferveur et l’éloquence illuminée
étaient capables d’entraîner aussi une armée de prosélytes.”
[393] As it was, the later Neo-Platonists had to content themselves with
Apollonius of Tyana, instead of Jesus Christ.—“Apollonius of Tyana, who
was no longer a mere philosopher, _but a being half-human, half-divine_”
(EUNAPIUS, _op. cit._).
[394] See Emerson’s “Introduction” to Goodwin’s translation of the
“Morals.”
[395] Saisset, _op. cit._
[396] DANTE: _Inferno_, Canto iii.