Chapter 14

The people of his time and neighbourhood seem to have fancied that the old man must have some bad motive. They understood mysteries and redemptions and revelations. They understood magic and curses. But they were puzzled, apparently, by this simple message, which only told them to use their reason, their courage, and their sympathy, and not to be afraid of death or of angry gods. The doctrine was condensed into four sentences of a concentrated eloquence that make a translator despair:[170:1] 'Nothing to fear in God: Nothing to feel in Death: Good can be attained: Evil can be endured.'

Of course, the doctrines of this good old man do not represent the whole truth. To be guided by one's aversions is always a sign of weakness or defeat; and it is as much a failure of nerve to reject blindly for fear of being a fool, as to believe blindly for fear of missing some emotional stimulus.

There is no royal road in these matters. I confess it seems strange to me as I write here, to reflect that at this moment many of my friends and most of my fellow creatures are, as far as one can judge, quite confident that they possess supernatural knowledge. As a rule, each individual belongs to some body which has received in writing the results of a divine revelation. I cannot share in any such feeling. The Uncharted surrounds us on every side and we must needs have some relation towards it, a relation which will depend on the general discipline of a man's mind and the bias of his whole character. As far as knowledge and conscious reason will go, we should follow resolutely their austere guidance. When they cease, as cease they must, we must use as best we can those fainter powers of apprehension and surmise and sensitiveness by which, after all, most high truth has been reached as well as most high art and poetry: careful always really to seek for truth and not for our own emotional satisfaction, careful not to neglect the real needs of men and women through basing our life on dreams; and remembering above all to walk gently in a world where the lights are dim and the very stars wander.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

It is not my purpose to make anything like a systematic bibliography, but a few recommendations may be useful to some students who approach this subject, as I have done, from the side of classical Greek.

For Greek Philosophy I have used besides Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius and Philodemus, Diels, _Fragmente der Vorsokratiker_; Diels, _Doxographi Graeci_; von Arnim, _Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta_; Usener, _Epicurea_; also the old _Fragmenta Philosophorum_ of Mullach.

For later Paganism and Gnosticism, Reitzenstein, _Poimandres_; Reitzenstein, _Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen_; Dieterich, _Eine Mithrasliturgic_ (also _Abraxas_, _Nekyia_, _Muttererde_, &c.); P. Wendland, _Hellenistisch-Römische Kultur_; Cumont, _Textes et Monuments relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra_ (also _The Mysteries of Mithra_, Chicago, 1903), and _Les Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain_; Seeck, _Untergang der antiken Welt_, vol. iii; Philo, _de Vita Contemplativa_, Conybeare; Gruppe, _Griechische Religion and Mythologie_, pp. 1458-1676; Bousset, _Hauptprobleme der Gnosis_, 1907, with good bibliography in the introduction; articles by E. Bevan in the _Quarterly Review_, No. 424 (June 1910), and the _Hibbert Journal_, xi. 1 (October 1912). _Dokumente der Gnosis_, by W. Schultz (Jena, 1910), gives a highly subjective translation and reconstruction of most of the Gnostic documents: the _Corpus Hermeticum_ is translated into English by G. R. S. Meade, _Thrice Greatest Hermes_, 1906. The first volume of Dr. Scott's monumental edition of the _Hermetica_ (Clarendon Press, 1924) has appeared just too late to be used in the present volume.

For Jewish thought before the Christian era Dr. Charles's _Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs_; also the same writer's _Book of Enoch_, and the _Religionsgeschichtliche Erklärung des Neuen Testaments_ by Carl Clemen, Giessen, 1909.

Of Christian writers apart from the New Testament those that come most into account are Hippolytis ([cross symbol] A. D. 250), _Refutatio Omnium Haeresium_, Epiphanius (367-403), _Panarion_, and Irenaeus ([cross symbol] A. D. 202), _Contra Haereses_, i, ii. For a simple introduction to the problems presented by the New Testament literature I would venture to recommend Prof. Bacon's _New Testament_, in the Home University Library, and Dr. Estlin Carpenter's _First Three Gospels_. In such a vast literature I dare not make any further recommendations, but for a general introduction to the History of Religions with a good and brief bibliography I would refer the reader to Salomon Reinach's _Orpheus_ (Paris, 1909; English translation the same year), a book of wide learning and vigorous thought.

FOOTNOTES:

[124:1] Mr. Marett has pointed out that this conception has its roots deep in primitive human nature: _The Birth of Humility_, Oxford, 1910, p. 17. 'It would, perhaps, be fanciful to say that man tends to run away from the sacred as uncanny, to cower before it as secret, and to prostrate himself before it as tabu. On the other hand, it seems plain that to these three negative qualities of the sacred taken together there corresponds on the part of man a certain negative attitude of mind. Psychologists class the feelings bound up with flight, cowering, and prostration under the common head of "asthenic emotion". In plain English they are all forms of heart-sinking, of feeling unstrung. This general type of innate disposition would seem to be the psychological basis of Humility. Taken in its social setting, the emotion will, of course, show endless shades of complexity; for it will be excited, and again will find practical expression, in all sorts of ways. Under these varying conditions, however, it is reasonable to suppose that what Mr. McDougall would call the "central part" of the experience remains very much the same. In face of the sacred the normal man is visited by a heart-sinking, a wave of asthenic emotion.' Mr. Marett continues: 'If that were all, however, Religion would be a matter of pure fear. But it is not all. There is yet the positive side of the sacred to be taken into account.' It is worth remarking also that Schleiermacher (1767-1834) placed the essence of religion in the feeling of absolute dependence without attempting to define the object towards which it was directed.

[129:1] Usener, _Epicurea_ (1887), pp. 232 ff.; Diels, _Doxographi Graeci_ (1879), p. 306; Arnim, _Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta_ (1903-5), Chrysippus 1014, 1019.

[133:1] Juv. x. 365 f.; Polyb. ii. 38, 5; x. 5, 8; xviii. 11, 5.

[133:2] Cf. also his _Consolatio ad Apollonium_. The earliest text is perhaps the interesting fragment of Demetrius of Phalerum (fr. 19, in _F. H. G._ ii. 368), written about 317 B. C. It is quoted with admiration by Polybius xxix. 21, with reference to the defeat of Perseus of Macedon by the Romans:

'One must often remember the saying of Demetrius of Phalerum . . . in his Treatise on Fortune. . . . "If you were to take not an indefinite time, nor many generations, but just the fifty years before this, you could see in them the violence of Fortune. Fifty years ago do you suppose that either the Macedonians or the King of Macedon, or the Persians or the King of Persia, if some God had foretold them what was to come, would ever have believed that by the present time the Persians, who were then masters of almost all the inhabited world, would have ceased to be even a geographical name, while the Macedonians, who were then not even a name, would be rulers of all? Yet this Fortune, who bears no relation to our method of life, but transforms everything in the way we do not expect and displays her power by surprises, is at the present moment showing all the world that, when she puts the Macedonians into the rich inheritance of the Persian, she has only lent them these good things until she changes her mind about them." Which has now happened in the case of Perseus. The words of Demetrius were a prophecy uttered, as it were, by inspired lips.'

[134:1] Eur., _Tro._ 886. Literally it means 'The Compulsion in the way Things grow'.

[134:2] Zeno, fr. 87, Arnim.

[135:1] Chrysippus, fr. 913, Arnim.

[135:2] Cleanthes, 527, Arnim. Ἂγου δέ μ', ὦ Ζεῦ, καὶ σύ γ' ἡ Πεπρωμένη, κτλ. Plotinus, _Enn._ III. i. 10.

[135:3] Epicurus, Third Letter. Usener, p. 65, 12 = Diog. La. x. 134.

[136:1] Aristotle, fr. 12 ff.

[136:2] e. g. Chrysippus, fr. 1076, Arnim.

[138:1] _Themis_, p. 180, n. 1.

[138:2] Not to Plotinus: _Enn._ II. ix against the Valentinians. Cf. Porphyry, Ἀφορμαί, 28.

[138:3] Bousset, _Hauptprobleme der Gnosis_, 1907, pp. 13, 21, 26, 81, &c.; pp. 332 ff. She becomes Helen in the beautiful myth of the Simonian Gnostics--a Helen who has forgotten her name and race, and is a slave in a brothel in Tyre. Simon discovers her, gradually brings back her memory and redeems her. Irenaeus, i. 23, 2.

[139:1] _De Iside et Osiride_, 67. (He distinguishes them from the real God, however, just as Sallustius would.)

[139:2] Mithras was worshipped by the Cilician Pirates conquered by Pompey. Plut., _Vit. Pomp._ 24.

[139:3] ἔκγονος τοῦ πρώτου θεοῦ. Plato (Diels, 305); Stoics, ib. 547, l. 8.

[140:1] Aristotle (Diels, 450). ὅσας δὲ εἶναι τὰς σφαίρας, τοσούτους ὑπάρχειν καὶ τοὺς κινοῦντας θεούς. Chrysippus (Diels 466); Posidonius, ib. (cf. Plato, _Laws_. 898 ff.). See Epicurus's Second Letter, especially Usener, pp. 36-47 = Diog. La. x. 86-104. On the food required by the heavenly bodies cf. Chrysippus, fr. 658-61, Arnim.

[140:2] ὁ δὲ Ἐπίκουρος οὐδὲν τούτων ἐγκρίνει. Diels, 307{a} 15. Cf. 432{a} 10.

[141:1] Heath, _Aristarchos of Samos_, pp. 301-10.

[142:1] Pythagoras in Diels, p. 555, 20; the best criticism is in Aristotle, _De Caelo_, chap. 9 (p. 290 b), the fullest account in Macrobius, _Comm. in Somn. Scipionis_, ii.

[142:2] See Diels, _Elementium_, 1899, p. 17. These magic letters are still used in the Roman ritual for the consecration of churches.

[143:1] A seven-day week was known to Pseudo-Hippocrates περὶ σαρκῶν _ad fin._, but the date of that treatise is very uncertain.

[143:2] Aesch., _Ag._ 6; Eur., _Hip._ 530. Also _Ag._ 365, where ἀστρῶν βέλος goes together and μήτε πρὸ καιροῦ μήθ' ὕπερ.

[143:3] Proclus, _In Timaeum_, 289 F; Seneca, _Nat. Quaest._ iii. 29, 1.

[145:1] Chrysippus, 1187-95. Esse divinationem si di sint et providentia.

[145:2] Cicero, _De Nat. De._ iii. 11, 28; especially _De Divinatione_, ii. 14, 34; 60, 124; 69, 142. 'Qua ex coniunctione naturae et quasi concentu atque consensu, quam συμπάθειαν Graeci appellant, convenire potest aut fissum iecoris cum lucello meo aut meus quaesticulus cum caelo, terra rerumque natura?' asks the sceptic in the second of these passages.

[145:3] Chrysippus, 939-44. Vaticinatio probat fati necessitatem.

[145:4] Chrysippus, 1214, 1200-6.

[146:1] _Eine Mithrasliturgie_, 1903. The MS. is 574 Supplément grec de la Bibl. Nationale. The formulae of various religions were used as instruments of magic, as our own witches used the Lord's Prayer backwards.

[146:2] _Refutatio Omnium Haeresium_, v. 7. They worshipped the Serpent, Nāhāsh (נָחָשׁ).

[147:1] Bousset, p. 351. The hostility of Zoroastrianism to the old Babylonian planet gods was doubtless at work also. Ib. pp. 37-46.

[147:2] Or, in some Gnostic systems, of the Mother.

[148:1] Harrison, _Prolegomena_, Appendix on the Orphic tablets.

[148:2] Ap. _Metamorphoses_, xi.

[149:1] 2 Cor. xii. 2 and 3 (he may be referring in veiled language to himself); Gal. i. 12 ff.; Acts ix. 1-22. On the difference of tone and fidelity between the Epistles and the Acts see the interesting remarks of Prof. P. Gardner, _The Religious Experience of St. Paul_, pp. 5 ff.

[149:2] Porphyry, _Vita Plotini_, 23. 'We have explained that he was good and gentle, mild and merciful; we who lived with him could feel it. We have said that he was vigilant and pure of soul, and always striving towards the Divine, which with all his soul he loved. . . . And thus it happened to this extraordinary man, constantly lifting himself up towards the first and transcendent God by thought and the ways explained by Plato in the _Symposium_, that there actually came a vision of that God who is without shape or form, established above the understanding and all the intelligible world. To whom I, Porphyry, being now in my sixty-eighth year, profess that I once drew near and was made one with him. At any rate he appeared to Plotinus "a goal close at hand." For his whole end and goal was to be made One and draw near to the supreme God. And he attained that goal four times, I think, while I was living with him--not potentially but in actuality, though an actuality which surpasses speech.'

[150:1] _C. I. G._, vol. xii, fasc. 3; and Bethe in _Rhein. Mus._, N. F., xlii, 438-75.

[150:2] Irenaeus, i. 13, 3.

[150:3] Bousset, chap. vii; Reitzenstein, _Mysterienreligionen_, p. 20 ff., with excursus; _Poimandres_, 226 ff.; Dieterich, _Mithrasliturgie_, pp. 121 ff.

[152:1] Eur. fr. 484.

[152:2] _R. G. E._{3}, pp. 135-40. I do not touch on the political side of this apotheosis of Hellenistic kings; it is well brought out in Ferguson's _Hellenistic Athens_, e. g. p. 108 f., also p. 11 f. and note. Antigonus Gonatas refused to be worshipped (Tarn, p. 250 f.). For Sallustius's opinion, see below, p. 223, chap. xviii _ad fin._

[153:1] Cf. ψυχὴ οἰκητήριον δαίμονος, Democr. 171, Diels, and Alcmaeon is said by Cicero to have attributed divinity to the Stars and the Soul. Melissus and Zeno θείας οἴεται τὰς ψυχάς. The phrase τινὲς τὴν ψυχὴν ἀπὸ τῶν ἄστρων ῥέουσαν, Diels 651, must refer to some Gnostic sect.

[154:1] See for instance Frazer, _Golden Bough_{3}, part I, i. 417-19.

[154:2] Aesch. _Pers._ 157, 644 (θεός), 642 (δαίμων). Mr. Bevan however suspects that Aeschylus misunderstood his Persian sources: see his article on 'Deification' in Hastings's _Dictionary of Religion_.

[154:3] Cf. Aristotle on the Μεγαλόψυχος, _Eth. Nic._ 1123 b. 15. εἰ δὲ δὴ μεγάλων ἑαμτὸν ἀξιοῖ ἄξιος ὤν, καὶ μάλιστα τῶν μεγίστων, περὶ ἓν μάλιστα ἂν εἲη. . . . μέγιστον δὲ τοῦτ' ἂν θείημεν ὃ τοῖς θεοῖς ἀπονέμομεν. But these kings clearly transgressed the mean. For the satirical comments of various public men in Athens see Ed. Meyer, _Kleine Schriften_, 301 ff., 330.

[155:1] Lysander too had altars raised to him by some Asiatic cities.

[156:1] Dittenberger, _Inscr. Orientis Graeci_, 90; Wendland, _Hellenistisch-römische Kultur_, 1907, p. 74 f. and notes.

[157:1] Several of the phrases are interesting. The last gift of the heavenly gods to this Theos is the old gift of Mana. In Hesiod it was Κάρτος τε Βίη τε, the two ministers who are never away from the King Zeus. In Aeschylus it was Kratos and Bia who subdue Prometheus. In Tyrtaeus it was Νίκη καὶ Κάρτος. In other inscriptions of the Ptolemaic age it is Σωτηρία καὶ Νίκη or Σωτηρία καὶ Νίκη αἰώνιος. In the current Christian liturgies it is 'the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory'. _R. G. E._{3}, p. 135, n. The new conception, as always, is rooted in the old. 'The Gods Saviours, Brethren', &c., are of course Ptolemy Soter, Ptolemy Philadelphus, &c., and their Queens. The phrases εἰκὼν ζῶσα τοῦ Διός, υἱὸς τοῦ Ἡλίου, ἠγαπημένος ὑπὸ τοῦ Φθᾶ, are characteristic of the religious language of this period. Cf. also Col. i. 14, εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Ephes. i. 5, 6.

[158:1] Fr. 1118. Arnim. Cf. Antipater, fr. 33, 34, τὸ εὐποιητικόν is part of the definition of Deity.

[158:2] Plin., _Nat. Hist._ ii. 7, 18. Deus est mortali iuvare mortalem et haec ad aeternam gloriam via. Cf. also the striking passages from Cicero and others in Wendland, p. 85, n. 2.

[159:1] The Stoic philosopher, teaching at Rhodes, _c._ 100 B. C. A man of immense knowledge and strong religious emotions, he moved the Stoa in the direction of Oriental mysticism. See Schwartz's sketch in _Characterköpfe_{a}, pp. 89-98. Also Norden's _Commentary on Aeneid_ vi.

[160:1] Jacoby in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopädie_, vi. 954. It was called Ἱερὰ Ἀναγραφή.

[161:1] Cf. Plotin. _Enn._ I, ii. 6 ἀλλ' ἡ σπουδὴ οὐκ ἔξω ἁμαρτίας εἶναι, ἀλλὰ θεὸν εἶναι.

[161:2] Acts xiv. 12. They called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, because he was ὁ ἡγούμενος τοῦ λόγου.--Paul also writes to the Galatians (iv. 14): 'Ye received me _as a messenger of God, as Jesus Christ_.'

[162:1] Bousset, p. 238.

[162:2] Hippolytus, 134, 90 ff., text in Reitzenstein's _Poimandres_, pp. 83-98.

[163:1] _Republic_, 362 A. Ἀνασχινδυλεύω is said to = ἀνασκολοπίζω, which is used both for 'impale' and 'crucify'. The two were alternative forms of the most slavish and cruel capital punishment, impalement being mainly Persian, crucifixion Roman.

[164:1] See _The Hymn of the Soul_, attributed to the Gnostic Bardesanes, edited by A. A. Bevan, Cambridge, 1897.

[164:2] Bousset cites Acta Archelai 8, and Epiphanius, _Haeres_. 66, 32.

[164:3] Gal. iv. 9; 1 Cor. xv. 21 f., 47; Rom. v. 12-18.

[165:1] ἡ ἀνάστασις τῶν νεκρῶν. Cf. Acts xvii. 32.

[165:2] Cleanthes, 538, Arnim; Diels, p. 592, 30. Cf. Philolaus, Diels, p. 336 f.

[166:1] See especially the interpretation of Nestor's Cup, Athenaeus, pp. 489 c. ff.

[167:1] I may refer to the learned and interesting remarks on the Esoteric Style in Prof. Margoliouth's edition of Aristotle's _Poetics_. It is not, of course, the same as Allegory.

[169:1] Published in the Teubner series by William, 1907.

[170:1]

Ἄφοβον ὁ θεός. Ἀναίσθητον ὁ θάνατος. Τὸ ἀγαθὸν εὔκτητον. Τὸ δεινὸν εὐεκκαρτέρητον.

I regret to say that I cannot track this Epicurean 'tetractys' to its source.

V

THE LAST PROTEST

In the last essay we have followed Greek popular religion to the very threshold of Christianity, till we found not only a soil ready for the seed of Christian metaphysic, but a large number of the plants already in full and exuberant growth. A complete history of Greek religion ought, without doubt, to include at least the rise of Christianity and the growth of the Orthodox Church, but, of course, the present series of studies does not aim at completeness. We will take the Christian theology for granted as we took the classical Greek philosophy, and will finish with a brief glance at the Pagan reaction of the fourth century, when the old religion, already full of allegory, mysticism, asceticism, and Oriental influences, raised itself for a last indignant stand against the all-prevailing deniers of the gods.

This period, however, admits a rather simpler treatment than the others. It so happens that for the last period of paganism we actually possess an authoritative statement of doctrine, something between a creed and a catechism. It seems to me a document so singularly important and, as far as I can make out, so little known, that I shall venture to print it entire.

A creed or catechism is, of course, not at all the same thing as the real religion of those who subscribe to it. The rules of metre are not the same thing as poetry; the rules of cricket, if the analogy may be excused, are not the same thing as good play. Nay, more. A man states in his creed only the articles which he thinks it right to assert positively against those who think otherwise. His deepest and most practical beliefs are those on which he acts without question, which have never occurred to him as being open to doubt. If you take on the one hand a number of persons who have accepted the same creed but lived in markedly different ages and societies, with markedly different standards of thought and conduct, and on the other an equal number who profess different creeds but live in the same general environment, I think there will probably be more real identity of religion in the latter group. Take three orthodox Christians, enlightened according to the standards of their time, in the fourth, the sixteenth, and the twentieth centuries respectively, I think you will find more profound differences of religion between them than between a Methodist, a Catholic, a Freethinker, and even perhaps a well-educated Buddhist or Brahmin at the present day, provided you take the most generally enlightened representatives of each class. Still, when a student is trying to understand the inner religion of the ancients, he realizes how immensely valuable a creed or even a regular liturgy would be.

Literature enables us sometimes to approach pretty close, in various ways, to the minds of certain of the great men of antiquity, and understand how they thought and felt about a good many subjects. At times one of these subjects is the accepted religion of their society; we can see how they criticized it or rejected it. But it is very hard to know from their reaction against it what that accepted religion really was. Who, for instance, knows Herodotus's religion? He talks in his penetrating and garrulous way, 'sometimes for children and sometimes for philosophers,' as Gibbon puts it, about everything in the world; but at the end of his book you find that he has not opened his heart on this subject. No doubt his profession as a reciter and story-teller prevented him. We can see that Thucydides was sceptical; but can we fully see what his scepticism was directed against, or where, for instance, Nikias would have disagreed with him, and where he and Nikias both agreed against us?

We have, of course, the systems of the great philosophers--especially of Plato and Aristotle. Better than either, perhaps, we can make out the religion of M. Aurelius. Amid all the harshness and plainness of his literary style, Marcus possessed a gift which has been granted to few, the power of writing down what was in his heart just as it was, not obscured by any consciousness of the presence of witnesses or any striving after effect. He does not seem to have tried deliberately to reveal himself, yet he has revealed himself in that short personal note-book almost as much as the great inspired egotists, Rousseau and St. Augustine. True, there are some passages in the book which are unintelligible to us; that is natural in a work which was not meant to be read by the public; broken flames of the white passion that consumed him bursting through the armour of his habitual accuracy and self-restraint.

People fail to understand Marcus, not because of his lack of self-expression, but because it is hard for most men to breathe at that intense height of spiritual life, or, at least, to breathe soberly. They can do it if they are allowed to abandon themselves to floods of emotion, and to lose self-judgement and self-control. I am often rather surprised at good critics speaking of Marcus as 'cold'. There is as much intensity of feeling in Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν as in most of the nobler modern books of religion, only there is a sterner power controlling it. The feeling never amounts to complete self-abandonment. 'The Guiding Power' never trembles upon its throne, and the emotion is severely purged of earthly dross. That being so, we children of earth respond to it less readily.