Chapter 6

writings were Pythagorean as well as Numan, Livy rejects as ignorant of the chronological impossibility of making the king contemporary with the philosopher. The fragment of Cassius Hemina is quoted in Pliny, sec. 86; Val. Max. i. 1, and Plutarch, _Numa_ 22, add nothing to our knowledge of the incident.

[745] See Schanz, _Gesch. der röm. Literatur_, i. 268; Pliny, _loc. cit._, calls him "vetustissimus auctor annalium," but his work was later than the _Annals_ or _Origines_ of Cato.

[746] Ennius came from South Italy (Rudiae in Messapia), the home of Pythagoreanism. For traces of it in his works, see Reid on Cicero, _Academica priora_, ii. 51.

[747] This is the view taken by Colin, _Rome et la Grèce, 200-146 B.C._, p. 269 foll. This reaction was probably only a part of the general reversion to conservatism which we have been noticing in the action of the government in religious matters.

[748] See above, p. 149 foll.

[749] Quoted by Aust, _Religion der Römer_, p. 64. The passage is in Zeller's _Religion und Philosophie bei den Römern_, a short treatise reprinted in his _Vorträge und Abhandlungen_, ii. 93 foll.

[750] Ribbeck, _Fragmenta Tragicorum Latinorum_, p. 54.

[751] _Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero_, p. 334.

[752] _Cistellaria_, ii. 1. 45 foll.

[753] Aust, _op. cit._ p. 66.

[754] See Schanz, _Gesch. der röm. Literatur_, vol. i. p. 75.

LECTURE XVI

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND ROMAN RELIGION

I said at the end of the last lecture that ideas about the Divine might be discussed at Rome by philosophers, as the Romans began to read and in some degree to think. At the era we have now reached, the latter half of the second century B.C., this process actually began, and I propose in this lecture to deal with it briefly. But my subject is the Roman religious experience, and I can only find room for philosophy so far as the philosophy introduced at Rome had a really religious side. Another reason forbidding me to give much space to it is that it was at Rome entirely exotic, did not spring from an indigenous root in Roman life and thought, and never seriously affected the minds of the lower and less educated population. And I must add that the types of Greek philosophy which concern us at all have been fully and ably dealt with, the one in vol. ii. of Dr. Caird's lectures on this foundation on _The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers_, a work from which I have learnt much, and the other by Dr. Masson in his most instructive work on the great Epicurean poet Lucretius.

We have seen in the two last lectures that in that second century B.C. the Roman was fast becoming religiously destitute--a castaway without consolation, and without the sense that he needed it. He was destitute, first, in regard to his idea of God and of his relation to God; for if we take our old definition of religion, which seems to me to be continually useful, we can hardly say of that age that it showed any effective desire to be in right relation with the Power manifesting itself in the universe. The old idea of the manifestation of the Power in the various _numina_ had no longer any relation to Roman life; the kind of life in which it germinated and grew, the life of agriculture and warlike self-defence, had passed away with the growth of the great city, the decay of the small farmer, and the extension of the empire; and no new informing and inspiring principle had taken its place. Secondly, he was destitute in regard to his sense of duty, which had been largely dependent on religion, both in the family and in the State. No new force had come in to create and maintain conscience. In public life, indeed, the religious oath was still powerful, and continued to be so, though there are some signs that its binding force was less strong than of yore, especially in the army.[755] But in a society so complex as that of Rome in the last two centuries B.C. much more was wanted than a bond sanctioned by civil and religious law; there was needed a sense of duty to the family, the slave, the provincials, the poor and unfortunate. There was no spring of moral action, no religious consecration of morality, no stimulus to moral endeavour. The individual was rapidly developing, emancipating himself from the State and the group-system of society; but he was developing in a wrong direction. The importance of self, when realised in high and low alike, was becoming self-seeking, indifference to all but self. We have now to see whether philosophy could do anything to relieve this destitution of the Romans in regard both to God and duty.

The first system of philosophy actually to make its appearance at Rome was that of Epicurus[756]; but it speedily disappeared for the time, and only became popular in the last century B.C., and then in its most repulsive form. It was indeed destined to inspire the noblest mind among all Roman thinkers with some of the greatest poetry ever written; but I need say little of it, for it was never really a part of Roman religious experience. Though capable of doing men much good in a turbulent and individualistic age, it did not and could not do this by establishing a religious sanction for conduct. The Epicurean gods were altogether out of reach of the conscience of the individual. They were superfluous even for the atomic theory on which the whole system was pivoted;[757] and what Epicurus himself understood by them, or any of his followers down to Lucretius, is matter of subtle and perplexing disputation.[758] One point is clear, that they had no interest in human beings;[759] and the natural inference would be that human beings had no call to worship them; yet, strange to say, Epicurus himself took part in worship, and in the worship of the national religion of his native city. Philodemus, the contemporary of Lucretius, expressly asserts this,[760] and even insists that Epicurism gave a religious sanction to morality which was absent in Stoicism.[761] Lucretius himself clearly thought that worship was natural and possible. "If you do not clear your mind of false notions," he says, "nec delubra deum placido cum pectore adibis."[762] Man might go on with his ancestral worship, but entirely without fear, and as with "placid mind" he took part in the rites of his fathers, a mysterious divine influence might enter his mind; "the images of a Zeus, a Heracles, an Athene, might pass in and impress on him the aspect and character of each deity, and carry with them suggestions of virtue, of courage, of wise counsel in difficulty."[763] Evidently both Epicurus and his followers had felt the difficulty and the peril of breaking entirely with the religious habits of the mass of the people, and had conscientiously done their best to reconcile their own belief with popular practice--an attempt which has its parallel in the religious speculation of the present day.

But for the Roman follower of Epicurus, wholly unused to such subtle ideas as the passage of divine influence into the mind by means of religious contemplation, this lame attempt to bring apathetic gods into relation with human life must have been quite meaningless. Cicero well expresses the common sense of a Roman at the very beginning of his treatise on the _Nature of the Gods_.[764] "If they are right who deny that the gods have any interest in human affairs, where is there room for _pietas_, for _sanctitas_, for _religio_?" What, he adds, is the use of worship, of honour, of prayer? If these are simply make-believes, _pietas_ cannot exist, and with it we may almost assume that _fides_ and _iustitia_, and the social virtues generally, which hold society together, must vanish too. Such criticism is characteristically Roman, and we may take it as representing accurately the feeling of the old-fashioned Roman of Cicero's day, as well as of the Stoic or Academic critic of Epicurism. On the other hand, the believing Epicurean at Rome was not more likely to accept the compromise; he had done with his own gods and their worship, and such a "ficta simulatio" was not likely to attract him. Even Lucretius, whose mind was in a sense really religious, does no more in the passage I quoted just now than _allude_ to actual worship of the gods, and he makes it quite clear that the tranquillity and happiness coming from contemplation, and the punishment that follows misdoing, are both purely subjective; the gods are not active in influencing man's life, but man influences that life himself by opening his mind to the contemplation of the gods. This passage of Lucretius (vi. 68 foll.) is, if I am not mistaken, the nearest approach to real religion that we find in the history of Roman Epicurism; yet so far as we know it bore no fruit. It seems to me to express a genuine feeling, a _religio_, but the expression is blurred by a consciousness of inconsistency.

The fact is that in the system of Epicurus the Power manifesting itself in the universe is not a divine Power, but a mechanical one; the gods have nothing to do with it, they cannot be active, their perfection is found in repose; they are an adjunct, an after-thought in the system. Thus all attempts to reconcile the Power with the popular religion must inevitably be failures, and more especially so in the Roman world. At best the Epicurean gods could but set an example of quietism which could not possibly be a force for good in that active world of business and government.[765] The real force of Epicurism, for the Roman at least, if I am not mistaken, was _analogous_ to a religious force, though far indeed from being one in reality--I mean the profound and touching belief in the Founder himself as a saviour, which is so familiar to all readers of Lucretius.[766] And the real legacy of Lucretius himself to Roman religion is only indirectly a religious one--I mean the wholesome contempt for "_superstitio_" and all the baser side of religious belief and practice, old and new.[767] If his devotion to the Master had been rooted more in the love of goodness and less in the admiration for his speculations, and if his contempt for _superstitio_ had been less harshly dogmatic, had he been more sympathetic and generous in his attitude to the Italian ideas of the divine--the power of Lucretius might possibly have been strong and permanent.

Thus for the Roman's destitution in regard to God Epicurism could find no remedy, and as a consequence it could provide no religious sanction for his conduct in life. What power it had upon conduct as a system of ethics is a question outside the range of my subject. No doubt a certain type of mind, naturally pure and good, and apt to retire upon itself, might find in Epicurism not only no harm but even positive help; perhaps the best way to appreciate this fact, too often overlooked, is to read the defence of the Epicurean ethics put into the mouth of Torquatus, in the first book of the _de Finibus_,[768] by one who was far from being in sympathy with the creed. But for the Roman of that age, when ideas of duty and discipline were losing strength, this enticing faith, with pleasure as its _summum bonum_, and with quietism as its ideal of human life,[769] could hardly be a real stimulus to active virtue; the Roman needed bracing, and this was not a tonic, but a sedative. Far more valuable in every way, and far better suited to the best instincts of the Roman character, was the rival creed of Stoicism, and I must devote the rest of this lecture to the consideration of its religious aspect.

It was most fortunate for Rome that her best and ablest men in the second century B.C. fell into the hands, not of Epicureans, but of Stoics--into the hands, too, of a single Stoic of high standing, fine character, and good sense. For destitute as the Roman was both in regard to God and to Duty, he found in Stoicism an explanation of man's place in the universe,--an explanation relating him directly to the Power manifesting itself therein, and deriving from that relation a _binding_ principle of conduct and duty. This should make the religious character of Stoicism at once apparent. It is perfectly true, as the late Mr. Lecky said long ago,[770] that "Stoicism, taught by Panaetius of Rhodes, and soon after by the Syrian Posidonius, became the true religion of the educated classes. It furnished the principles of virtue, coloured the noblest literature of the time, and guided all the developments of moral enthusiasm." To this I only need to add that it woke in the mind an entirely new idea of Deity, far transcending that of Roman _numina_ and of Greek polytheism, and yet not incapable of being reconciled with these; so that it might be taken as an inpouring of sudden light upon old conceptions of the Power, glorifying and transfiguring them, rather than, like the Epicurean faith, a bitter and contemptuous negation of man's inherited religious instincts. But before we go on to consider this illumination more closely, let me say a few words about Panaetius the Stoic missionary, and Scipio Aemilianus, his most famous disciple.

Scipio, born 184, was a happy combination of the best Roman aristocratic character and the receptive intelligence which for a Roman was the chief result of a Greek liberal education. He had been educated by his famous father, Aemilius Paulus, in a thoroughly healthy way; he was no mere book-student, but a practical courageous Roman, with a solid mental foundation of moral rectitude (_pietas_) fixed firmly in the traditions and instincts of his own family. On this foundation, as has been well said,[771] a superstructure of intellectual culture might be built securely without destroying it, and this was exactly what did take place, both for Scipio and for that circle of friends of his which has become so famous in Roman history. In very early life he became the intimate friend of Polybius, whose account of their first unreserved intercourse is one of the most delightful passages in all ancient literature;[772] and from Polybius he doubtless learnt to think. He must have learnt to understand the real nature of the Roman empire, to appreciate the forces which had called it into being,[773] the qualities which had preserved it through the fearful struggle with Hannibal, and the duty of a noble Roman in regard to it. From Polybius, indeed, it is not likely that he gained much light on matters either of religion or morality; but that statesman and historian must inevitably have accustomed him, in the course of their long intercourse, to think more deeply than Roman had ever yet thought, about the world in which he lived and was to act for many years the leading part. Thus he was well prepared for the friendship of a more spiritual guide.

Panaetius, who was probably about the same age as Scipio, had the advantage, as a visitor at Rome, of being a Rhodian, _i.e._ a citizen of the one Greek State which had been almost continuously on good terms with Rome, and of great value to her. He was also a scion of an old and honoured family in that city, and was thus in every way a fit friend and companion for a great Roman noble. When their friendship began we do not know for certain; but it is a fact that he lived for some two years, together with Polybius, in the house of Scipio, and these years were probably between 144 and 141 B.C., after Scipio's return from the conquest of Carthage.[774] When Scipio in 141 was commissioned by the Senate to go and set things in order in the eastern Mediterranean, he took Panaetius with him,[775] and brought him home to live with him again as a guest, perhaps until he left for the Numantine war in 134, after which it is not likely that they met again before Scipio's sudden death in 129. I am particular about the extent of their intimacy, because I wish to make it clear that this was no ordinary or fleeting friendship between a commonplace Greek philosopher and an average Roman statesman. Both statesman and philosopher were far above the usual level of their kind, and in the course of this long intimacy must have had full opportunity of learning from each other. From Scipio Panaetius would learn the secrets of the Roman temperament, and divine the right methods of dealing with it, and the result of this was a happy modification of the old rigidity of the Stoic principles--an adaptation of them to the Roman character which had far-reaching consequences. From Panaetius Scipio and his friends would learn a new and illuminating conception of man's place in the universe, and of his relation to the Power manifested in it. To understand the power of Stoicism on the mind of these Romans and their intellectual successors, it is necessary to have a clear idea of this illumination.

Hitherto there had been nothing in the religion of Rome, or of any other city-state, to make it inevitable, reasonable, that man should worship the Power, except tradition and self-interest, involved in the tradition and self-interest of the family and the city. The gods belonged, as we saw, to family or city as divine inhabitants, and if you neglected them they would show their anger against you. Originally it was _religio_, the feeling of awe for something distinct from man and unknown to him, which forced him to propitiate that which he might fear, but had no reason, except the instinct of self-preservation, to reverence; and later on, as he came to know his _numina_ better, to make them, so to speak, his own, and to formulate the methods of propitiating them, he gradually came also to take them for granted, and to worship them as a matter of traditional duty. The idea of conforming his life to the will of any of these _numina_ would, of course, be absolutely strange to him--the expression would have no meaning whatever for him. The help which he sought from them was not moral help, but material.[776] But now, when the _religio_ has been hypnotised and soothed away, and when the tradition of ceremonial observance was growing dim and weak, when he is left alone with his fellow-men, and without any binding reason for right conduct towards them, he may learn from Stoicism that there is a Power above and beyond all his _numina_, yet involving and embracing them all, to which, and by the help of which, as a man endowed with reason, he _must_ conform his life.

The theology held and taught by Panaetius, in common with all Stoics at all periods, was based upon two leading thoughts, in the correlation of which lay the kernel of the Stoic ethical system. The first of these thoughts is this: the whole universe, in all its forms and manifestations, shows unmistakably the work of Reason, of Mind; without mind, reason, _spiritus_, as Cicero calls it,[777] the universe could not exist. I need not go here into the origin and history of this thought; what is important for us is to make clear the theological consequences of it. Obviously it was natural that the Stoic should be led on to the conviction that this universe endowed with Reason--with a Reason far transcending all human capacity--must itself be God. The Stoic arguments in support of this further step are indeed lame, as they inevitably must be; they are well set forth at the beginning of Book ii. of Cicero's work _de Natura Deorum_ (based upon one by Posidonius, the successor and disciple of Panaetius), where they seem to us rather cold and formal. That step is indeed incapable of being made convincing by any syllogism; it is only when we try to think with the minds of those old thinkers, living in a world of unmeaning worship, that we begin to realise the nobility of a conviction which they tried in vain to reduce to a syllogism. _Sapiens a principio mundus, et deus habendus est_;[778] these words, which sound like an article of a creed, suffice for us without the laborious arguments of Cleanthes and Chrysippus which we may read in the fifth and sixth chapters of Cicero's book. Cicero has added to these a characteristic illustration from city life, which I may quote as more useful for us. "If a man enters a house or a gymnasium or a forum, and sees reason, method, and discipline reigning there, he cannot suppose that these came about without a cause, but perceives that there is someone there who rules and is obeyed: how much more, when he contemplates the motions and revolutions to be seen in the universe (_e.g._, in the heavenly bodies), must he conclude that they are all governed by a conscious Mind!" And this Mind can be nothing else but God.

This sounds like the Deism of the eighteenth century, and might be described as "natural religion"; but the Stoics took yet another step, and developed their thought into Pantheism. The idea of a personal Deity, distinct from the universe and its Creator, was obnoxious to them; it would have committed them to a dualism of Mind and Matter which, from the very outset of their history, they emphatically repudiated; their conviction was of a Unity in all things, and to this they consistently held in spite of constant and damaging criticism. The theological result of this conviction has lately been well expressed by Dr. Bussell.[779] He is speaking of Seneca in particular, but what he says applies to all Stoics equally well: "Though he yearns to see God in 'the moral order of the Universe,' he is forced in the interests of Unity to identify Him with every other known force. As He is everything, so any name will suit Him. He is the sum of existence: or the secret and abstract law which guides it: He is Nature or Fate. The partial names of special deities are all His, and together they make up the fulness of the divine title; but _they disappear in the immense nothingness_, rather than colour or qualify it." This is a point of immense importance for the study of Stoicism at Rome; it was fully developed by Posidonius, and copied from him both by Cicero and Varro. "God," says Cicero in the