6. Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 1.39, 1.42-1.43, 4.83-4.98, 4.100-4.102, 4.109-4.115, 4.134-4.135, 12.27, 12.75-12.77, 30.26, 36.13, 36.20, 36.23, 36.29-36.34, 36.36-36.38, 40.35-40.37 (1st cent. CE
| 4.83. "Now as there are, roughly speaking, three prevailing types of lives which the majority usually adopt, not after thoughtful consideration and testing, I assure you, but because they are carried away by chance and thoughtless impulse, we must affirm that there is just the same number of spirits whom the great mass of foolish humanity follows and serves â some men one spirit and some another â just as a wicked and wanton troop follows a wicked and frenzied leader. 4.84. of these types of lives which I have mentioned, the first is luxurious and self-indulgent as regards bodily pleasures, the second, in its turn, is acquisitive and avaricious, while the third is more conspicuous and more disordered than the other two â I mean the one that loves honour and glory â and it manifests a more evident and violent disorder or frenzy, deluding itself into believing that it is enamoured of some noble ideal. 4.85. "Therefore, come, let us imitate clever artists. They put the impress of their thought and art upon practically everything, representing not only the various gods in human forms but everything else as well. Sometimes they paint rivers in the likeness of men and springs in certain feminine shapes, yes, and islands and cities and well-nigh everything else, like Homer, who boldly represented the Scamander as speaking beneath his flood 4.86. and though they cannot give speech to their figures, nevertheless do give them forms and symbols appropriate to their nature, as, for example, their river gods recline, usually naked, and wear long flowing beards and on their heads crowns of tamarisk or rushes. 4.87. Let us then show ourselves to be no whit worse or less competent in the field of discourse than they in their several arts as we mould and depict the characters of the three spirits of the three lives, therein displaying an accomplishment the reverse of and complementary to the skill and prophetic power of the physiognomists, as they call them. 4.88. These men can determine and announce a man's character from his shape and appearance; while we propose to draw from a man's habits and acts, a type and shape that will match the physiognomist's work â that is, if we shall succeed in getting hold rather of the average and lower types. 4.89. Since our purpose is to show the absurdity existing in human lives, there is no impropriety or objection to our being seen imitating poets or artists or, if need be, priests of purification and to our striving to furnish illustrations and examples from every source, in the hope of being able to win souls from evil, delusion, and wicked desires and to lead them to love virtue and to long for a better life; 4.90. or else we might follow the practice of some of those who deal with initiations and rites of purification, who appease the wrath of Hecate and undertake to make a person sound, and then before the cleansing process, as I understand, set forth and point to the many and various visions that, as they claim, the goddess sends when angry. 4.91. "Well, then, the avaricious spirit craves gold, silver, lands, cattle, blocks of houses, and every kind of possession. Would it not be represented by a good artist as downcast and gloomy of appearance, humble and mean of dress â aye, as squalid and ragged, loving neither children nor parents nor native land, and recognizing no kinship but that of money, and considering the gods as nothing more than that which reveals to him many vast treasures or the deaths of certain kinsfolk and connections from whom he might inherit, regarding our holy festivals as sheer loss and useless expense, never laughing or smiling 4.92. eyeing all with suspicion and thinking them dangerous, distrusting everybody, having a rapacious look, ever twitching his fingers as he computes his own property, I take it, or that of someone else â a spirit not only without appreciation or capacity for any other thing, but scoffing at education and literature except when they have to do with estimates and contracts, the still blinder lover of wealth, which is rightly described and portrayed as blind; 4.93. mad about every kind of possession and thinking that nothing should be thrown away; unlike the magnetic stone, which they say attracts iron to itself, but amassing copper and lead as well, yes, even sand and rock if anyone gives them, and everywhere and in almost every case regarding possession as more profitable and better than non-possession. He is most frantic and eager, however, to get money, simply because success here is quickest and cheapest, since money goes on piling up day and night and outstrips, I ween, the circuits of the moon. 4.94. He recks naught of dislike, hate, and curses and, besides, holds that while other kinds of possessions may be pretty baubles wherewith to amuse oneself, money, to put it succinctly, is the very essence of wealth. 4.95. This, therefore, is what he seeks and pursues from any and every source, never concerning himself at all to ask whether it is acquired by shameful or by unjust means, except insofar as, observing the punishments meted out to footpads, he lets cowardice get the better of him and becomes cautious. For he has the soul of a worthless cur, that snatches up things when it expects not to be noticed, and looks on other morsels with longing eyes but keeps away from them, though reluctantly, because the guards are by. 4.96. So let him be a man insignificant in appearance, servile, unsleeping, never smiling, ever quarrelling and fighting with someone, very much like a pander, who in garb as well as in character is shameless and niggardly, dressed in a coloured mantle, the finery of one of his harlots. 4.135. Again, the spirit that loves distinction counsels and encourages him to sacrifice all that he has for the sake of honour, but the other spirit opposes and blocks this one. And indeed, the lover of pleasure and the lover of fame can never be in accord or say the same thing; for the one despises fame, thinks it nonsense, and often cites the lines of Sardanapallus: 'What I have eaten and wantoned, the joys I have had of my amours, These alone have I now. The rest of my blessings have vanished.' 12.27. Now concerning the nature of the gods in general, and especially that of the ruler of the universe, first and foremost an idea regarding him and a conception of him common to the whole human race, to the Greeks and to the barbarians alike, a conception that is inevitable and innate in every creature endowed with reason, arising in the course of nature without the aid of human teacher and free from the deceit of any expounding priest, has made its way, and it rendered manifest God's kinship with man and furnished many evidences of the truth, which did not suffer the earliest and most ancient men to doze and grow indifferent to them; 36.13. Or don't you think Phocylides had good reason for attaching his name to a maxim and declaration such as this? This too the saying of Phocylides: The law-abiding town, though small and set On a lofty rock, outranks mad Nineveh. Why, in comparison with the entire Iliad and Odyssey are not these verses noble to those who pay heed as they listen? Or was it more to your advantage to hear of the impetuous leaping and charging of Achilles, and about his voice, how by his shouts alone he routed the Trojans? Are those things more useful for you to learn by heart than what you just have heard, that a small city on a rugged headland is better and more fortunate, if orderly, than a great city in a smooth and level plain, that is to say, if that city is conducted in disorderly and lawless fashion by men of folly?' 36.23. For that, indeed, is the only constitution or city that may be called genuinely happy â the partnership of god with god; even if you include with the gods also everything that has the faculty of reason, mankind being thus included as boys are said to share in citizenship with men, being citizens by birth though not by reason of conceiving and performing the tasks of citizens or sharing in the law, of which they have no comprehension. However, if we take communities of a different kind, though everywhere and in every instance, we may almost say, they are absolutely faulty and worthless as compared with the supreme righteousness of the divine and blessed law and its proper administration, still for our present purpose we shall be supplied with examples of the type that is fairly equitable when compared with that which is utterly corrupt, just as among persons who are all ill we compare the man who had the lightest case with the one who is in worst condition. 36.29. Yet, despite my brave words to Hieroson, I was moved and heaved a sigh, as it were, when I bethought me of Homer and Plato."Well then," said I, "the term 'city' must be taken on the understanding that our sect is not literally defining the universe as a city; for that would be in direct conflict with our doctrine of the city, which, as I have said, the Stoics define as an organization of human beings; and at the same time it would possibly not be suitable or convincing, if, after stating in the strict sense of the term that the universe is a living creature, they should then call it a city 36.30. for that the same thing is both a city and a living being is a proposition that, I imagine, no one would readily consent to entertain. Yet the present orderly constitution of the universe ever since the whole has been separated and divided into a considerable number of forms of plants and animals, mortal and immortal, yes, and into air and earth and water and fire, being nevertheless by nature in all these forms one thing and governed by one spirit and force â this orderly constitution, I say, the Stoics do in one way or another liken to a city because of the multitude of the creatures that are constantly either being born or else ending their existence in it, and, furthermore, because of the arrangement and orderliness of its administration. 36.31. "This doctrine, in brief, aims to harmonize the human race with the divine, and to embrace in a single term everything endowed with reason, finding in reason the only sure and indissoluble foundation for fellowship and justice. For in keeping with that concept the term 'city' would be applied, not, of course, to an organization that has chanced to get mean or petty leaders nor to one which through tyranny or democracy or, in fact, through decarchy or oligarchy or any other similar product of imperfection, is being torn to pieces and made the victim of constant party faction. Nay, term would be applied rather to an organization that is governed by the sanest and noblest form of kingship, to one that is actually under royal goverce in accordance with law, in complete friendship and concord. 36.32. And this, indeed, is precisely what the wisest and eldest ruler and law-giver ordains for all, both mortals and immortals, he who is the leader of all the heaven and lord of all being, himself thus expounding the term and offering his own administration as a pattern of the happy and blessed condition, he whom the divine bards, instructed by the Muses, praise in song and call the 'father of gods and men.' 36.33. "For the chances are, indeed, that poets as a class are not utterly bad marksmen when they speak of sacred things and that they are not missing the mark when they use such expressions as that repeatedly; on the other hand, it is not likely that they have received a real initiation according to the rites and regulations of true initiates, or that with reference to the universe they know anything, if I may say so, which is true and clear. But we may think of them as merely like the attendants at the rites, who stand outside at the doors, decking portals and the altars which are in full view and attending to the other preparations of that kind but never passing within. Indeed that is the very reason why the poets call themselves 'attendants of the Muses,' not initiates or any other august name. 36.34. So, as I was saying, it is reasonable to suppose that not only do those who busy themselves near some ritual, hard by the entrance to the sanctuary, gain some inkling of what is going on within, when either a lone mystic phrase rings out loudly, or fire appears above the enclosure, but also that there comes sometimes to the poets â I mean the very ancient poets â some utterance from the Muses, however brief, some inspiration of divine nature and of divine truth, like a flash of fire from the invisible. This is what happened to Homer and Hesiod when they were possessed by the Muses. 36.36. And trusting to these poets men erect altars to Zeus the King and, what is more, some do not hesitate even to call him Father in their prayers, believing that there exists some such government and organization of the universe as that. Therefore, from that standpoint at least, it seems to me, they would not hesitate to apply the term 'home of Zeus' to the entire universe â if indeed he is father of all who live in it â yes, by Zeus, and his 'city' too, our Stoic similitude, to suggest the greater office of the god. 36.37. For kingship is a word more appropriate to a city than to a home. For surely men would not apply the term King to him who is over all and then refuse to admit that the whole is governed by a king, nor would they admit that they are governed by a king and then deny that they are members of a state or that there is a kingly administration of the universe. And again, conceding 'administration,' they would not balk at accepting 'city,' or something very like it, as descriptive of that which is administered. 36.38. "This, then, is the theory of the philosophers, a theory which sets up a noble and benevolent fellowship of gods and men which gives a share in law and citizenship, not to all living beings whatsoever, but only to such as have a share in reason and intellect, introducing a far better and more righteous code than that of Sparta, in accordance with which the Helots have no prospect of ever becoming Spartans, and consequently are constantly plotting against Sparta. 40.35. Do you not see in the heavens as a whole and in the divine and blessed beings that dwell therein an order and concord and self-control which is eternal, than which it is impossible to conceive of anything either more beautiful or more august? Furthermore, do you not see also the stable, righteous, everlasting concord of the elements, as they are called â air and earth and water and fire â with what reasonableness and moderation it is their nature to continue, not only to be preserved themselves, but also to preserve the entire universe? |
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