THE GREEK PHILOSOPHY IN GREAT PART DERIVED FROM THE BARBARIANS.
These are the times of the oldest wise men and philosophers among the
Greeks. And that the most of them were barbarians by extraction, and
were trained among barbarians, what need is there to say? Pythagoras
is shown to have been either a Tuscan or a Tyrian. And Antisthenes was
a Phrygian. And Orpheus was an Odrysian or a Thracian. The most, too,
show Homer to have been an Egyptian. Thales was a Phœnician by birth,
and was said to have consorted with the prophets of the Egyptians; as
also Pythagoras did with the same persons, by whom he was circumcised,
that he might enter the adytum and learn from the Egyptians the mystic
philosophy. He held converse with the chief of the Chaldeans and the
Magi; and he gave a hint of the church, now so called, in the common
hall[931] which he maintained.
And Plato does not deny that he procured all that is most excellent
in philosophy from the barbarians; and he admits that he came into
Egypt. Whence, writing in the _Phædo_ that the philosopher can
receive aid from all sides, he said: “Great indeed is Greece, O Cebes,
in which everywhere there are good men, and many are the races of the
barbarians.”[932] Thus Plato thinks that some of the barbarians,
too, are philosophers. But Epicurus, on the other hand, supposes that
only Greeks can philosophise. And in the _Symposium_, Plato,
lauding the barbarians as practising philosophy with conspicuous
excellence,[933] truly says: “And in many other instances both among
Greeks and barbarians, whose temples reared for such sons are already
numerous.” And it is clear that the barbarians signally honoured their
lawgivers and teachers, designating them gods. For, according to Plato,
“they think that good souls, on quitting the super-celestial region,
submit to come to this Tartarus, and assuming a body, share in all
the ills which are involved in birth, from their solicitude for the
race of men;” and these make laws and publish philosophy, “than which
no greater boon ever came from the gods to the race of men, or will
come.”[934]
And as appears to me, it was in consequence of perceiving the great
benefit which is conferred through wise men, that the men themselves
were honoured and philosophy cultivated publicly by all the Brahmins,
and the Odrysi, and the Getæ. And such were strictly deified by the
race of the Egyptians, by the Chaldeans and the Arabians, called the
Happy, and those that inhabited Palestine, by not the least portion
of the Persian race, and by innumerable other races besides these.
And it is well known that Plato is found perpetually celebrating the
barbarians, remembering that both himself and Pythagoras learned the
most and the noblest of their dogmas among the barbarians. Wherefore
he also called the races of the barbarians, “races of barbarian
philosophers,” recognising, in the Phædrus, the Egyptian king, and
shows him to us wiser than Theut, whom he knew to be Hermes. But in
the Charmides, it is manifest that he knew certain Thracians who were
said to make the soul immortal. And Pythagoras is reported to have
been a disciple of Sonches the Egyptian arch-prophet; and Plato, of
Sechnuphis of Heliopolis; and Eudoxus, of Cnidius of Konuphis, who was
also an Egyptian. And in his book, _On the Soul_,[935] Plato again
manifestly recognises prophecy, when he introduces a prophet announcing
the word of Lachesis, uttering predictions to the souls whose destiny
is being fixed. And in the _Timæus_ he introduces Solon, the very
wise, learning from the barbarian. The substance of the declaration
is to the following effect: “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always
children. And no Greek is an old man. For you have no learning that is
hoary with age.”[936]
Democritus appropriated the Babylonian ethic discourses, for he is said
to have combined with his own compositions a translation of the column
of Acicarus.[937] And you may find the distinction notified by him when
he writes, “Thus says Democritus.” About himself, too, where, pluming
himself on his erudition, he says, “I have roamed over the most ground
of any man of my time, investigating the most remote parts. I have seen
the most skies and lands, and I have heard of learned men in very great
numbers. And in composition no one has surpassed me; in demonstration,
not even those among the Egyptians who are called Arpenodaptæ, with all
of whom I lived in exile up to eighty years.” For he went to Babylon,
and Persis, and Egypt, to learn from the Magi and the priests.
Zoroaster the Magus, Pythagoras showed to be a Persian. Of the secret
books of this man, those who follow the heresy of Prodicus boast
to be in possession. Alexander, in his book _On the Pythagorean
Symbols_, relates that Pythagoras was a pupil of Nazaratus the
Assyrian[938] (some think that he is Ezekiel; but he is not, as will
afterwards be shown), and will have it that, in addition to these,
Pythagoras was a hearer of the Galatæ and the Brahmins. Clearchus the
Peripatetic says that he knew a Jew who associated with Aristotle.
Heraclitus says that, not humanly, but rather by God’s aid, the Sibyl
spoke.[939] They say, accordingly, that at Delphi a stone was shown
beside the oracle, on which, it is said, sat the first Sibyl, who came
from Helicon, and had been reared by the Muses. But some say that
she came from Milea, being the daughter of Lamia of Sidon.[940] And
Serapion, in his epic verses, says that the Sibyl, even when dead,
ceased not from divination. And he writes that, what proceeded from
her into the air after her death, was what gave oracular utterances in
voices and omens; and on her body being changed into earth, and the
grass as natural growing out of it, whatever beasts happening to be in
that place fed on it exhibited to men an accurate knowledge of futurity
by their entrails. He thinks also, that the face seen in the moon is
her soul. So much for the Sibyl.
Numa, the king of the Romans was a Pythagorean, and aided by the
precepts of Moses, prohibited from making an image of God in human
form, and of the shape of a living creature. Accordingly, during the
first hundred and seventy years, though building temples, they made
no cast or graven image. For Numa secretly showed them that the Best
of Beings could not be apprehended except by the mind alone. Thus
philosophy, a thing of the highest utility, flourished in antiquity
among the barbarians, shedding its light over the nations. And
afterwards it came to Greece. First in its ranks were the prophets
of the Egyptians; and the Chaldeans among the Assyrians; and the
Druids among the Gauls; and the Samanæans among the Bactrians; and the
philosophers of the Celts; and the Magi of the Persians, who foretold
the Saviour’s birth, and came into the land of Judæa guided by a
star. The Indian gymmnosophists are also in the number, and the other
barbarian philosophers. And of these there are two classes, some of
them called Sarmanæ,[941] and others Brahmins. And those of the Sarmanæ
who are called Hylobii[942] neither inhabit cities, nor have roofs over
them, but are clothed in the bark of trees, feed on nuts, and drink
water in their hands. Like those called Encratites in the present day,
they know not marriage nor begetting of children.
Some, too, of the Indians obey the precepts of Buddha;[943] whom, on
account of his extraordinary sanctity, they have raised to divine
honours.
Anacharsis was a Scythian, and is recorded to have excelled many
philosophers among the Greeks. And the Hyperboreans, Hellanicus
relates, dwelt beyond the Riphæan mountains, and inculcated justice,
not eating flesh, but using nuts. Those who are sixty years old they
take without the gates, and do away with. There are also among the
Germans those called holy women, who, by inspecting the whirlpools of
rivers and the eddies, and observing the noises of streams, presage
and predict future events.[944] These did not allow the men to fight
against Cæsar till the new moon shone.
Of all these, by far the oldest is the Jewish race; and that their
philosophy committed to writing has the precedence of philosophy among
the Greeks, the Pythagorean Philo[945] shows at large; and, besides
him, Aristobulus the Peripatetic, and several others, not to waste
time, in going over them by name. Very clearly the author Megasthenes,
the contemporary of Seleucus Nicanor, writes as follows in the third of
his books, _On Indian Affairs_: “All that was said about nature by
the ancients is said also by those who philosophise beyond Greece: some
things by the Brahmins among the Indians, and others by those called
Jews in Syria.” Some more fabulously say that certain of those called
the Idæan Dactyli were the first wise men; to whom are attributed the
invention of what are called the “Ephesian letters,” and of numbers
in music. For which reason dactyls in music received their name. And
the Idæan Dactyli were Phrygians and barbarians. Herodotus relates
that Hercules, having grown a sage and a student of physics, received
from the barbarian Atlas, the Phrygian, the columns of the universe;
the fable meaning that he received by instruction the knowledge of the
heavenly bodies. And Hermippus of Berytus calls Charon the Centaur
wise; about whom, he that wrote _The Battle of the Titans_ says,
“that he first led the race of mortals to righteousness, by teaching
them the solemnity of the oath, and propitiatory sacrifices and the
figures of Olympus.” By him Achilles, who fought at Troy, was taught.
And Hippo, the daughter of the Centaur, who dwelt with Æolus, taught
him her father’s science, the knowledge of physics. Euripides also
testifies of Hippo as follows:
“Who first, by oracles, presaged,
And by the rising stars, events divine.”
By this Æolus, Ulysses was received as a guest after the taking of
Troy. Mark the epochs by comparison with the age of Moses, and with the
high antiquity of the philosophy promulgated by him.