CHAPTER V.

1. The strong and growing yearning for some direct, personal revelation of God, some supernatural manifestation of His existence and care for men, is noted by Zeller as a special trait of Hellenistic times. Such a revelation must have been longed for by many as the only satisfying answer to the destructive logic of the Pyrrhonists, and men's minds were also of course led that way by the insistence of the Stoic thinkers upon the communion of the individual with God, as the most important of all possible relations. Hence the growth of many wild and orgiastic cults at this epoch--all based on the state of ecstasy connected with their rites, which was ascribed to supernatural influence. With the Stoics this movement took the comparatively sober shape of attention to the established system of oracular divination. Zeller, however, shows that some Stoics were disposed to rationalize the revelations of the oracles by supposing a certain sympathy between the mind of the seer and the future events which led to the unconscious selection of means of divination which would exhibit the proper signs.--(Z. 339, 340.) Epictetus evidently thought more of God's revelation in the conscience than any other.

2. The story is told by Simplicius in his commentary on this chapter. Two friends, journeying together to inquire of the oracle at Delphi, were set upon by robbers; one of them resisted, and was murdered, the other either fled or made no effort on his companion's behalf. Arriving at the temple of Apollo, he was greeted with the following deliverance of the oracle:--

"Thou saw'st thy friend all undefended die-- Foul with that sin, from Phoebus' temple fly."