1. Homer, Odyssey, 1.260-1.264 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 1.260. ᾤχετο γὰρ καὶ κεῖσε θοῆς ἐπὶ νηὸς Ὀδυσσεὺς 1.261. φάρμακον ἀνδροφόνον διζήμενος, ὄφρα οἱ εἴη 1.262. ἰοὺς χρίεσθαι χαλκήρεας· ἀλλʼ ὁ μὲν οὔ οἱ 1.263. δῶκεν, ἐπεί ῥα θεοὺς νεμεσίζετο αἰὲν ἐόντας, 1.264. ἀλλὰ πατήρ οἱ δῶκεν ἐμός· φιλέεσκε γὰρ αἰνῶς— | 1.260. For he'd gone there in a swift ship searching for a man-killing drug, to have it to rub on bronze-tipped arrows. Ilus didn't give it to him, since he feared the gods who are forever, but my father gave it to him, for he loved him terribly. |
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2. Homer, Iliad, 1.50-1.53, 1.145, 12.280, 24.758 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 1.50. οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶτον ἐπῴχετο καὶ κύνας ἀργούς, 1.51. αὐτὰρ ἔπειτʼ αὐτοῖσι βέλος ἐχεπευκὲς ἐφιεὶς 1.52. βάλλʼ· αἰεὶ δὲ πυραὶ νεκύων καίοντο θαμειαί. 1.53. ἐννῆμαρ μὲν ἀνὰ στρατὸν ᾤχετο κῆλα θεοῖο, 1.145. ἢ Αἴας ἢ Ἰδομενεὺς ἢ δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς 12.280. νιφέμεν ἀνθρώποισι πιφαυσκόμενος τὰ ἃ κῆλα· 24.758. κεῖσαι, τῷ ἴκελος ὅν τʼ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων | 1.50. but then on the men themselves he let fly his stinging shafts, and struck; and constantly the pyres of the dead burned thick.For nine days the missiles of the god ranged among the host, but on the tenth Achilles called the people to assembly, for the goddess, white-armed Hera, had put it in his heart, 1.51. but then on the men themselves he let fly his stinging shafts, and struck; and constantly the pyres of the dead burned thick.For nine days the missiles of the god ranged among the host, but on the tenth Achilles called the people to assembly, for the goddess, white-armed Hera, had put it in his heart, 1.52. but then on the men themselves he let fly his stinging shafts, and struck; and constantly the pyres of the dead burned thick.For nine days the missiles of the god ranged among the host, but on the tenth Achilles called the people to assembly, for the goddess, white-armed Hera, had put it in his heart, 1.53. but then on the men themselves he let fly his stinging shafts, and struck; and constantly the pyres of the dead burned thick.For nine days the missiles of the god ranged among the host, but on the tenth Achilles called the people to assembly, for the goddess, white-armed Hera, had put it in his heart, 1.145. or you, son of Peleus, of all men most extreme, so that on our behalf you may propitiate the god who strikes from afar by offering sacrifice. Glaring from beneath his brows spoke to him swift-footed Achilles:Ah me, clothed in shamelessness, thinking of profit, how shall any man of the Achaeans obey your words with a ready heart 12.280. bestirreth him to snow, shewing forth to men these arrows of his, and he lulleth the winds and sheddeth the flakes continually, until he hath covered the peaks of the lofty mountains and the high headlands, and the grassy plains, and the rich tillage of men; aye, and over the harbours and shores of the grey sea is the snow strewn, 24.758. oft would he drag thee about the barrow of his comrade, Patroclus, whom thou didst slay; howbeit even so might he not raise him up. all dewy-fresh thou liest in my halls as wert thou g newly slain, like as one whom Apollo of the silver bow assaileth with his gentle shafts and slayeth. |
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3. Hesiod, Theogony, 47-58, 708 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 708. κῆλα Διὸς μεγάλοιο, φέρον δʼ ἰαχήν τʼ ἐνοπήν τε | 708. With us so long in hope this war will bring |
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4. Hesiod, Works And Days, 535-537, 561-563, 565-567, 564 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 31 564. εὖτʼ ἂν δʼ ἑξήκοντα μετὰ τροπὰς ἠελίοιο | 564. The house, when in his cold and dreadful place |
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5. Heraclitus of Ephesus, Fragments, b5 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 32 |
6. Pindar, Nemean Odes, 10.15 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 |
7. Xenophanes, Fragments, b14-16, b23, b11 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 32 | b11. Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace among mortals, stealings and adulteries and deceivings of one another. |
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8. Aeschylus, Libation-Bearers, 286 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 286. ἐκ προστροπαίων ἐν γένει πεπτωκότων, | 286. For the dark bolt of the infernal powers, who are stirred by kindred victims calling for vengeance, and madness, and groundless terrors out of the night, torment and harass a man, and he sees clearly, though he moves his eyebrows in the dark. |
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9. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 649 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 649. 649. For visions of the night, always haunting my maiden chamber, sought to beguile me with seductive words, saying: |
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10. Plato, Protagoras, 320c, 320d, 322a (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 37 322a. βίου γίγνεται, Προμηθέα δὲ διʼ Ἐπιμηθέα ὕστερον, ᾗπερ λέγεται, κλοπῆς δίκη μετῆλθεν. ΣΩ. | 322a. that man gets facility for his livelihood, but Prometheus, through Epimetheus' fault, later on (the story goes) stood his trial for theft. And now that man was partaker of a divine portion, he, in the first place, by his nearness of kin to deity, was the only creature that worshipped gods, and set himself to establish altars and holy images; and secondly, he soon was enabled by his skill to articulate speech and words, and to invent dwellings, clothes, sandals, beds, and the foods that are of the earth. Thus far provided, men dwelt separately in the beginning, and cities there were none; [322b] so that they were being destroyed by the wild beasts, since these were in all ways stronger than they; and although their skill in handiwork was a sufficient aid in respect of food, in their warfare with the beasts it was defective; for as yet they had no civic art, which includes the art of war. So they sought to band themselves together and secure their lives by founding cities. Now as often as they were banded together they did wrong to one another through the lack of civic art, 322a. that man gets facility for his livelihood, but Prometheus, through Epimetheus’ fault, later on (the story goes) stood his trial for theft. Soc. |
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11. Herodotus, Histories, 4.79 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 4.79. ἐπείτε δὲ ἔδεέ οἱ κακῶς γενέσθαι, ἐγίνετο ἀπὸ προφάσιος τοιῆσδε. ἐπεθύμησε Διονύσῳ Βακχείῳ τελεσθῆναι· μέλλοντι δέ οἱ ἐς χεῖρας ἄγεσθαι τὴν τελετὴν ἐγένετο φάσμα μέγιστον. ἦν οἱ ἐν Βορυσθενεϊτέων τῇ πόλι οἰκίης μεγάλης καὶ πολυτελέος περιβολή, τῆς καὶ ὀλίγῳ τι πρότερον τούτων μνήμην εἶχον, τὴν πέριξ λευκοῦ λίθου σφίγγες τε καὶ γρῦπες ἕστασαν· ἐς ταύτην ὁ θεὸς ἐνέσκηψε βέλος. καὶ ἣ μὲν κατεκάη πᾶσα, Σκύλης δὲ οὐδὲν τούτου εἵνεκα ἧσσον ἐπετέλεσε τὴν τελετήν. Σκύθαι δὲ τοῦ βακχεύειν πέρι Ἕλλησι ὀνειδίζουσι· οὐ γὰρ φασὶ οἰκὸς εἶναι θεὸν ἐξευρίσκειν τοῦτον ὅστις μαίνεσθαι ἐνάγει ἀνθρώπους. ἐπείτε δὲ ἐτελέσθη τῷ Βακχείῳ ὁ Σκύλης, διεπρήστευσε τῶν τις Βορυσθενειτέων πρὸς τοὺς Σκύθας λέγων “ἡμῖν γὰρ καταγελᾶτε, ὦ Σκύθαι, ὅτι βακχεύομεν καὶ ἡμέας ὁ θεὸς λαμβάνει· νῦν οὗτος ὁ δαίμων καὶ τὸν ὑμέτερον βασιλέα λελάβηκε, καὶ βακχεύει τε καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ μαίνεται. εἰ δέ μοι ἀπιστέετε, ἕπεσθε, καὶ ὑμῖν ἐγὼ δέξω.” εἵποντο τῶν Σκύθεων οἱ προεστεῶτες, καὶ αὐτοὺς ἀναγαγὼν ὁ Βορυσθενεΐτης λάθρῃ ἐπὶ πύργον κατεῖσε. ἐπείτε δὲ παρήιε σὺν τῷ θιάσῳ ὁ Σκύλης καὶ εἶδόν μιν βακχεύοντα οἱ Σκύθαι, κάρτα συμφορὴν μεγάλην ἐποιήσαντο, ἐξελθόντες δὲ ἐσήμαινον πάσῃ τῇ στρατιῇ τὰ ἴδοιεν. | 4.79. But when things had to turn out badly for him, they did so for this reason: he conceived a desire to be initiated into the rites of the Bacchic Dionysus; and when he was about to begin the sacred mysteries, he saw the greatest vision. ,He had in the city of the Borysthenites a spacious house, grand and costly (the same house I just mentioned), all surrounded by sphinxes and griffins worked in white marble; this house was struck by a thunderbolt. And though the house burnt to the ground, Scyles none the less performed the rite to the end. ,Now the Scythians reproach the Greeks for this Bacchic revelling, saying that it is not reasonable to set up a god who leads men to madness. ,So when Scyles had been initiated into the Bacchic rite, some one of the Borysthenites scoffed at the Scythians: “You laugh at us, Scythians, because we play the Bacchant and the god possesses us; but now this deity has possessed your own king, so that he plays the Bacchant and is maddened by the god. If you will not believe me, follow me now and I will show him to you.” ,The leading men among the Scythians followed him, and the Borysthenite brought them up secretly onto a tower; from which, when Scyles passed by with his company of worshippers, they saw him playing the Bacchant; thinking it a great misfortune, they left the city and told the whole army what they had seen. |
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12. Euripides, Medea, 628 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 | 628. When in excess and past all limits Love doth come, he brings not glory or repute |
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13. Euripides, Hercules Furens, 422 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 | 422. the many-headed water-snake, and smeared its venom on his darts, with which he slew the shepherd of Erytheia, a monster with three bodies. Choru |
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14. Empedocles, Fragments, b128 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 32 | b128. Nor had they[42] any Ares for a god nor Kydoimos, no nor King Zeus nor Kronos nor Poseidon, but Kypris the Queen. . . . Her did they propitiate with holy gifts, with painted figures[43] and perfumes of cunning fragrancy, with offerings of pure myrrh and sweet-smelling frankincense, 5casting on the ground libations of brown honey. And the altar did not reek with pure bull's blood, but this was held in the greatest abomination among men, to eat the goodly limbs after tearing out the life. |
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15. Protagoras, Fragments, b4 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 31 |
16. Sophocles, Women of Trachis, 574, 715-718, 714 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 | 714. enchanting me in order to destroy the man who had shot him. And now too late I gain the knowledge of this, when it can no longer help. Yes, I alone—unless my outlook prove mistaken—I, miserable one, shall completely destroy him! For I know that the arrow which made the wound harmed |
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17. Xenophon, Memoirs, 1.4.15 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 38 1.4.15. ὅταν πέμπωσιν, ὥσπερ σὺ φὴς πέμπειν αὐτούς, συμβούλους ὅ τι χρὴ ποιεῖν καὶ μὴ ποιεῖν. ὅταν δὲ Ἀθηναίοις, ἔφη, πυνθανομένοις τι διὰ μαντικῆς φράζωσιν, οὐ καὶ σοὶ δοκεῖς φράζειν αὐτούς, οὐδʼ ὅταν τοῖς Ἕλλησι τέρατα πέμποντες προσημαίνωσιν, οὐδʼ ὅταν πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, ἀλλὰ μόνον σὲ ἐξαιροῦντες ἐν ἀμελείᾳ κατατίθενται; | 1.4.15. I will believe when they send counsellors, as you declare they do, saying, Do this, avoid that. But when the Athenians inquire of them by divination and they reply, do you not suppose that to you, too, the answer is given? Or when they send portents for warning to the Greeks, or to all the world? Are you their one exception, the only one consigned to neglect? 1.4.15. "I will believe when they send counsellors, as you declare they do, saying, 'Do this, avoid that.'" "But when the Athenians inquire of them by divination and they reply, do you not suppose that to you, too, the answer is given? Or when they send portents for warning to the Greeks, or to all the world? Are you their one exception, the only one consigned to neglect? |
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18. Dead Sea Scrolls, Hodayot, 2.25 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 |
19. Cicero, On The Nature of The Gods, 1.4, 1.118-1.121, 2.5, 2.7-2.15 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 32, 37, 38, 45 | 1.4. and in all probability the disappearance of piety towards the gods will entail the disappearance of loyalty and social union among men as well, and of justice itself, the queen of all the virtues. There are however other philosophers, and those of eminence and note, who believe that the whole world is ruled and governed by divine intelligence and reason; and not this only, but also that the gods' providence watches over the life of men; for they think that the cornº and other fruits of the earth, and also the weather and the seasons and the changes of the atmosphere by which all the products of the soil are ripened and matured, are the gift of the immortal gods to the human race; and they adduce a number of things, which will be recounted in the books that compose the present treatise, that are of such a nature as almost to appear to have been expressly constructed by the immortal gods for the use of man. This view was controverted at great length by Carneades, in such a manner as to arouse in persons of active mind a keen desire to discover the truth. 1.118. Take again those who have asserted that the entire notion of the immortal gods is a fiction invented by wise men in the interest of the state, to the end that those whom reason was powerless to control might be led in the path of duty by religion; surely this view was absolutely and entirely destructive of religion. Or Prodicus of Ceos,',WIDTH,)" onmouseout="nd();"º who said that the gods were personifications of things beneficial to the life of man — pray what religion was left by his theory? 1.119. Or those who teach that brave or famous or powerful men have been deified after death, and that it is these who are the real objects of the worship, prayers and adoration which we are accustomed to offer — are not they entirely devoid of all sense of religion? This theory was chiefly developed by Euhemerus, who was translated and imitated especially by our poet Ennius. Yet Euhemerus describes the death and burial of certain gods; are we then to think of him as upholding religion, or rather as utterly and entirely destroying it? I say nothing of the holy and awe‑inspiring sanctuary of Eleusis, Where tribes from earth's remotest confines seek Initiation, and I pass over Samothrace and those occult mysteries Which throngs of worshippers at dead of night In forest coverts deep do celebrate at Lemnos, since such mysteries when interpreted and rationalized prove to have more to do with natural science than with theology. 1.120. Even that great man Democritus, from whose fountains Epicurus watered his little garden, seems to me to be very inferior to his usual acuteness when speaking about the nature of the Gods. For at one time he thinks that there are images endowed with divinity, inherent in the universality of things; at another, that the principles and minds contained in the universe are Gods; then he attributes divinity to animated images, employing themselves in doing us good or harm; and, lastly, he speaks of certain images of such vast extent that they encompass the whole outside of the universe; all which opinions are more worthy of the country of Democritus than of Democritus himself; for who can frame in his mind any ideas of such images? who can admire them? who can think they merit a religious adoration? But Epicurus, when he divests the Gods of the power of doing good, extirpates all religion from the minds of men; for though he says the divine nature is the best and the most excellent of all natures, he will not allow it to be susceptible of any benevolence, by which he destroys the chief and peculiar attribute of the most perfect being. For what is better and more excellent than goodness and beneficence? To refuse your Gods that quality is to say that no man is any object of their favor, and no Gods either; that they neither love nor esteem any one; in short, that they not only give themselves no trouble about us, but even look on each other with the greatest indifference. 1.120. "For my own part I believe that even that very eminent man Democritus, the fountain-head from which Epicurus derived the streams that watered his little garden, has no fixed opinion about the nature of the gods. At one moment he holds the view that the universe includes images endowed with divinity; at another he says that there exist in this same universe the elements from which the mind is compounded, and that these are gods; at another, that they are animate images, which are wont to exercise a beneficent or harmful influence over us; and again that they are certain vast images of such a size as to envelop and enfold the entire world. All these fancies are more worthy of Democritus's native city than of himself; 1.121. for who could form a mental picture of such images? who could adore them and deem them worthy of worship or reverence? "Epicurus however, in abolishing divine beneficence and divine benevolence, uprooted and exterminated all religion from the human heart. For while asserting the supreme goodness and excellence of the divine nature, he yet denies to god the attribute of benevolence — that is to say, he does away with that which is the most essential element of supreme goodness and excellence. For what can be better or more excellent than kindness and beneficence? Make out god to be devoid of either, and you make him devoid of all love, affection or esteem for any other being, human or divine. It follows not merely that the gods do not care for mankind, but that they have no care for one another. How much more truth there is in the Stoics, whom you censure! They hold that all wise men are friends, even when strangers to each other, since nothing is more lovable than virtue, and he that attains to it will have our esteem in whatever country he dwells. 2.5. For what can possibly be more evident than this? And if it were not a truth universally impressed on the minds of men, the belief in it would never have been so firm; nor would it have been, as it is, increased by length of years, nor would it have gathered strength and stability through every age. And, in truth, we see that other opinions, being false and groundless, have already fallen into oblivion by lapse of time. Who now believes in Hippocentaurs and Chimaeras? Or what old woman is now to be found so weak and ignorant as to stand in fear of those infernal monsters which once so terrified mankind? For time destroys the fictions of error and opinion, while it confirms the determinations of nature and of truth. 2.5. how is the latter fact more evident than the former? Nothing but the presence in our minds of a firmly grasped concept of the deity could account for the stability and permanence of our belief in him, a belief which is only strengthened by the passage of the ages and grows more deeply rooted with each successive generation of mankind. In every other case we see that fictitious and unfounded opinions have dwindled away with lapse of time. Who believes that the Hippocentaur or the Chimaera ever existed? Where can you find an old wife senseless enough to be afraid of the monsters of the lower world that were once believed in? The years obliterate the inventions of the imagination, but confirm the judgements of nature. "Hence both in our own nation and among all others reverence for the gods and respect for religion grow continually stronger and more profound. 2.7. What do predictions and foreknowledge of future events indicate, but that such future events are shown, pointed out, portended, and foretold to men? From whence they are called omens, signs, portents, prodigies. But though we should esteem fabulous what is said of Mopsus, Tiresias, Amphiaraus, Calchas, and Helenus (who would not have been delivered down to us as augurs even in fable if their art had been despised), may we not be sufficiently apprised of the power of the Gods by domestic examples? Will not the temerity of P. Claudius, in the first Punic war, affect us? who, when the poultry were let out of the coop and would not feed, ordered them to be thrown into the water, and, joking even upon the Gods, said, with a sneer, "Let them drink, since they will not eat;" which piece of ridicule, being followed by a victory over his fleet, cost him many tears, and brought great calamity on the Roman people. Did not his colleague Junius, in the same war, lose his fleet in a tempest by disregarding the auspices? Claudius, therefore, was condemned by the people, and Junius killed himself. 2.7. "Again, prophecies and premonitions of future events cannot but be taken as proofs that the future may appear or be foretold as a warning or portended or predicted to mankind — hence the very words 'apparition,' 'warning,' 'portent,' 'prodigy.' Even if we think that the stories of Mopsus, Tiresias, Amphiaraus, Calchas and Helenus are mere baseless fictions of romance (though their powers of divination would not even have been incorporated in the legends had they been entirely repugt to fact), shall not even the instances from our own native history teach us to acknowledge the divine power? shall we be unmoved by the story of the recklessness of Publius Claudius in the first Punic War? Claudius merely in jest mocked at the gods: when the chickens on being released from their cage refused to feed, he ordered them to be thrown into the water, so that as they would not eat they might drink; but the joke cost the jester himself many tears and the Roman people a great disaster, for the fleet was severely defeated. Moreover did not his colleague Junius during the same war lose his fleet in a storm after failing to comply with the auspices? In consequence of these disasters Claudius was tried and condemned for high treason and Junius committed suicide. 2.8. Coelius says that P. Flaminius, from his neglect of religion, fell at Trasimene; a loss which the public severely felt. By these instances of calamity we may be assured that Rome owes her grandeur and success to the conduct of those who were tenacious of their religious duties; and if we compare ourselves to our neighbors, we shall find that we are infinitely distinguished above foreign nations by our zeal for religious ceremonies, though in other things we may be only equal to them, and in other respects even inferior to them. Ought we to contemn Attius Navius's staff, with which he divided the regions of the vine to find his sow? I should despise it, if I were not aware that King Hostilius had carried on most important wars in deference to his auguries; but by the negligence of our nobility the discipline of the augury is now omitted, the truth of the auspices despised, and only a mere form observed; so that the most important affairs of the commonwealth, even the wars, on which the public safety depends, are conducted without any auspices; the Peremnia are discussed; no part of the Acumina performed; no select men are called to witness to the military testaments; our generals now begin their wars as soon as they have arranged the Auspicia. 2.8. Caelius writes that Gaius Flaminius after ignoring the claims of religion fell at the battle of Trasimene, when a serious blow was inflicted on the state. The fate of these men may serve to indicate that our empire was won by those commanders who obeyed the dictates of religion. Moreover if we care to compare our national characteristics with those of foreign peoples, we shall find that, while in all other respects we are only the equals or even the inferiors of others, yet in the sense of religion, that is, in reverence for the gods, we are far superior. 2.9. Or are we to make light of the famous augural staff of Attus Navius, wherewith he marked out the vineyard into sections for the purpose of discovering the pig? I would agree that we might do so, had not King Hostilius fought great and glorious wars under the guidance of Attus's augury. But owing to the carelessness of our nobility the augural lore has been forgotten, and the reality of the auspices has fallen into contempt, only the outward show being retained; and in consequence highly important departments of public administration, and in particular the conduct of wars upon which the safety of the state depends, are carried on without any auspices at all; no taking of omens when crossing rivers, none when lights flash from the points of the javelins, none when men are called to arms (owing to which wills made on active service have gone out of existence, since our generals only enter on their military command when they have laid down their augural powers). 2.10. The force of religion was so great among our ancestors that some of their commanders have, with their faces veiled, and with the solemn, formal expressions of religion, sacrificed themselves to the immortal Gods to save their country. I could mention many of the Sibylline prophecies, and many answers of the haruspices, to confirm those things, which ought not to be doubted. For example: our augurs and the Etrurian haruspices saw the truth of their art established when P. Scipio and C. Figulus were consuls; for as Tiberius Gracchus, who was a second time consul, wished to proceed to a fresh election, the first Rogator, as he was collecting the suffrages, fell down dead on the spot. Gracchus nevertheless went on with the assembly, but perceiving that this accident had a religious influence on the people, he brought the affair before the senate. The senate thought fit to refer it to those who usually took cognizance of such things. The haruspices were called, and declared that the man who had acted as Rogator of the assembly had no right to do so; to which, as I have heard my father say, he replied heatedly, 2.10. But among our ancestors religion was so powerful that some commanders actually offered themselves as victims to the immortal gods on behalf of the state, veiling their heads and formally vowing themselves to death. I could quote numerous passages from the Sibylline prophecies and from the oracles of soothsayers in confirmation of facts that no one really ought to question. Why, in the consulship of Publius Scipio and Gaius Figulus both our Roman augural lore and that of the Etruscan soothsayers were confirmed by the evidence of actual fact. Tiberius Gracchus, then consul for the second time, was holding the election of his successors. The first returning officer in the very act of reporting the persons named as elected suddenly fell dead. Gracchus nevertheless proceeded with the election. Perceiving that the scruples of the public had been aroused by the occurrence, he referred the matter to the Senate. The Senate voted that it be referred 'to the customary officials.' Soothsayers were sent for, and pronounced that the returning officer for the elections had not been in order. 2.11. Have I no right, who am consul, and augur, and favored by the Auspicia? And shall you, who are Tuscans and Barbarians, pretend that you have authority over the Roman Auspicia, and a right to give judgment in matters respecting the formality of our assemblies? Therefore, he then commanded them to withdraw; but not long afterward he wrote from his province to the college of augurs, acknowledging that in reading the books he remembered that he had illegally chosen a place for his tent in the gardens of Scipio, and had afterward entered the Pomoerium, in order to hold a senate, but that in repassing the same Pomoerium he had forgotten to take the auspices; and that, therefore, the consuls had been created informally. The augurs laid the case before the senate. The senate decreed that they should resign their charge, and so they accordingly abdicated. What greater example need we seek for? The wisest, perhaps the most excellent of men, chose to confess his fault, which he might have concealed, rather than leave the public the least atom of religious guilt; and the consuls chose to quit the highest office in the State, rather than fill it for a moment in defiance of religion. 2.11. Thereupon Gracchus, so my father used to tell me, burst into a rage. 'How now?' he cried, 'was I not in order? I put the names to the vote as consul, as augur, and with auspices taken. Who are you, Tuscan barbarians, to know the Roman constitution, and to be able to lay down the law as to our elections?' And accordingly he then sent them about their business. Afterwards however he sent a dispatch from his province to the College of Augurs to say that while reading the sacred books it had come to his mind that there had been an irregularity when he took Scipio's park as the site for his augural tent, for he had subsequently entered the city bounds to hold a meeting of the Senate and when crossing the bounds again on his return had forgotten to take the auspices; and that therefore the consuls had not been duly elected. The College of Augurs referred the matter to the senate; the Senate decided that the consuls must resign; they did so. What more striking instances can we demand? A man of the greatest wisdom and I may say unrivalled distinction of character preferred to make public confession of an offence that he might have concealed rather than that the stain of impiety should cling to the commonwealth; the consuls preferred to retire on the spot from the highest office of the state rather than hold it for one moment of time in violation of religion. 2.12. How great is the reputation of the augurs! And is not the art of the soothsayers divine? And must not every one who sees what innumerable instances of the same kind there are confess the existence of the Gods? For they who have interpreters must certainly exist themselves; now, there are interpreters of the Gods; therefore we must allow there are Gods. But it may be said, perhaps, that all predictions are not accomplished. We may as well conclude there is no art of physic, because all sick persons do not recover. The Gods show us signs of future events; if we are occasionally deceived in the results, it is not to be imputed to the nature of the Gods, but to the conjectures of men. All nations agree that there are Gods; the opinion is innate, and, as it were, engraved in the minds of all men. The only point in dispute among us is, what they are. 2.12. The augur's office is one of high dignity; surely the soothsayer's art also is divinely inspired. Is not one who considers these and countless similar facts compelled to admit that the gods exist? If there be persons who interpret the will of certain beings, it follows that those beings must themselves exist; but there are persons who interpret the will of the gods; therefore we must admit that the gods exist. But perhaps it may be argued that not all prophecies come true. Nor do all sick persons get well, but that does not prove that there is no art of medicine. Signs of future events are manifested by the gods; men may have mistaken these signs, but the fault lay with man's powers of inference, not with the divine nature. "Hence the main issue is agreed among all men of all nations, inasmuch as all have engraved in their minds an innate belief that the gods exist. 2.13. Their existence no one denies. Cleanthes, one of our sect, imputes the way in which the idea of the Gods is implanted in the minds of men to four causes. The first is that which I just now mentioned — the foreknowledge of future things. The second is the great advantages which we enjoy from the temperature of the air, the fertility of the earth, and the abundance of various benefits of other kinds. The third cause is deduced from the terror with which the mind is affected by thunder, tempests, storms, snow, hail, devastation, pestilence, earthquakes often attended with hideous noises, showers of stones, and rain like drops of blood; by rocks and sudden openings of the earth; by monstrous births of men and beasts; by meteors in the air, and blazing stars, by the Greeks called cometae, by us crinitae, the appearance of which, in the late Octavian war, were foreboders of great calamities; by two suns, which, as I have heard my father say, happened in the consulate of Tuditanus and Aquillius, and in which year also another sun (P. Africanus) was extinguished. These things terrified mankind, and raised in them a firm belief of the existence of some celestial and divine power. His fourth cause, and that the strongest, is drawn from the regularity of the motion and revolution of the heavens, the distinctness, variety, beauty, and order of the sun, moon, and all the stars, the appearance only of which is sufficient to convince us they are not the effects of chance; as when we enter into a house, or school, or court, and observe the exact order, discipline, and method of it, we cannot suppose that it is so regulated without a cause, but must conclude that there is some one who commands, and to whom obedience is paid. It is quite impossible for us to avoid thinking that the wonderful motions, revolutions, and order of those many and great bodies, no part of which is impaired by the countless and infinite succession of ages, must be governed and directed by some supreme intelligent being. 2.13. As to their nature there are various opinions, but their existence nobody denies. Indeed our master Cleanthes gave four reasons to account for the formation in men's minds of their ideas of the gods. He put first the argument of which I spoke just now, the one arising from our foreknowledge of future events; second, the one drawn from the magnitude of the benefits which we derive from our temperate climate, from the earth's fertility, and from a vast abundance of other blessings; 2.14. third, the awe inspired by lightning, storms, rain, snow, hail, floods, pestilences, earthquakes and occasionally subterranean rumblings, showers of stones and raindrops the colour of blood, also landslips and chasms suddenly opening in the ground, also unnatural monstrosities human and animal, and also the appearance of meteoric lights and what are called by the Greeks 'comets,' and in our language 'long-haired stars,' such as recently during the Octavian War appeared as harbingers of dire disasters, and the doubling of the sun, which my father told me had happened in the consulship of Tuditanus and Aquilius, the year in which the light was quenched of Publius Africanus, that second sun of Rome: all of which alarming portents have suggested to mankind the idea of the existence of some celestial and divine power. 2.15. And the fourth and most potent cause of the belief he said was the uniform motion and revolution of the heavens, and the varied groupings and ordered beauty of the sun, moon and stars, the very sight of which was in itself enough to prove that these things are not the mere effect of chance. When a man goes into a house, a wrestling-school or a public assembly and observes in all that goes on arrangement, regularity and system, he cannot possibly suppose that these things come about without a cause: he realizes that there is someone who presides and controls. Far more therefore with the vast movements and phases of the heavenly bodies, and these ordered processes of a multitude of enormous masses of matter, which throughout the countless ages of the infinite past have never in the smallest degree played false, is he compelled to infer that these mighty world-motions are regulated by some Mind. |
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20. Septuagint, Wisdom of Solomon, 13-15 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 31 | 15. When I was in distress I called upon the name of the Lord, I hoped for the help of the God of Jacob and was saved;, For the hope and refuge of the poor art Thou, O God., (a) For who, O God, is strong except to give thanks unto Thee in truth?, And wherein is a man powerful except in giving thanks to Thy name?, A new psalm with song in gladness of heart, The fruit of the lips with the well-tuned instrument of the tongue, The firstfruits of the lips from a pious and righteous heart–, He that offereth these things shall never be shaken by evil; The flame of fire and the wrath against the unrighteous shall not touch him,, When it goeth forth from the face of the Lord against sinners, To destroy all the substance of sinners,, For the mark of God is upon the righteous that they .may be saved. Famine and sword and pestilence (shall be) far from the righteous,, For they shall flee away from the pious as men pursued in war; But they shall pursue sinners and overtake (them), And they that do lawlessness shall not escape the judgement of God; As by enemies experienced (in war) shall they be overtaken,, For the mark of destruction is upon their forehead., And the inheritance of sinners is destruction and darkness, And their iniquities shall pursue them unto Sheol beneath., Their inheritance shall not be found of their children,, For sins shall lay waste the houses of sinners. And sinners shall perish for ever in the day of the Lord’s judgement,, When God visiteth the earth with His judgement., But they that fear the Lord shall find mercy therein, And shall live by the compassion of their God; But sinners shall perish for ever. 15. But thou, our God, art kind and true,patient, and ruling all things in mercy., For even if we sin we are thine, knowing thy power;but we will not sin, because we know that we are accounted thine., For to know thee is complete righteousness,and to know thy power is the root of immortality., For neither has the evil intent of human art misled us,nor the fruitless toil of painters,a figure stained with varied colors,, whose appearance arouses yearning in fools,so that they desire the lifeless form of a dead image., Lovers of evil things and fit for such objects of hope are those who either make or desire or worship them.", For when a potter kneads the soft earth and laboriously molds each vessel for our service,he fashions out of the same clay both the vessels that serve clean uses and those for contrary uses, making all in like manner;but which shall be the use of each of these the worker in clay decides., With misspent toil, he forms a futile god from the same clay -- this man who was made of earth a short time before and after a little while goes to the earth from which he was taken,when he is required to return the soul that was lent him., But he is not concerned that he is destined to die or that his life is brief,but he competes with workers in gold and silver,and imitates workers in copper;and he counts it his glory that he molds counterfeit gods., His heart is ashes, his hope is cheaper than dirt,and his life is of less worth than clay,, because he failed to know the one who formed him and inspired him with an active soul and breathed into him a living spirit.", But he considered our existence an idle game,and life a festival held for profit,for he says one must get money however one can, even by base means., For this man, more than all others, knows that he sins when he makes from earthy matter fragile vessels and graven images., But most foolish, and more miserable than an infant,are all the enemies who oppressed thy people., For they thought that all their heathen idols were gods,though these have neither the use of their eyes to see with,nor nostrils with which to draw breath,nor ears with which to hear,nor fingers to feel with,and their feet are of no use for walking., For a man made them,and one whose spirit is borrowed formed them;for no man can form a god which is like himself., He is mortal, and what he makes with lawless hands is dead,for he is better than the objects he worships,since he has life, but they never have., The enemies of thy people worship even the most hateful animals,which are worse than all others, when judged by their lack of intelligence;, and even as animals they are not so beautiful in appearance that one would desire them,but they have escaped both the praise of God and his blessing. |
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21. Demetrius, Style, 235, 223 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 244 |
22. Vitruvius Pollio, On Architecture, 10 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 |
23. Lucretius Carus, On The Nature of Things, 1.1-1.49 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 43 1.1. Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, 1.2. alma Venus, caeli subter labentia signa 1.3. quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferentis 1.4. concelebras, per te quoniam genus omne animantum 1.5. concipitur visitque exortum lumina solis: 1.6. te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli 1.7. adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus 1.8. summittit flores, tibi rident aequora ponti 1.9. placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum. 1.10. nam simul ac species patefactast verna diei 1.11. et reserata viget genitabilis aura favoni, 1.12. aeriae primum volucris te, diva, tuumque 1.13. significant initum perculsae corda tua vi. 1.14. et rapidos trat amnis: ita capta lepore 1.15. inde ferae pecudes persultant pabula laeta 1.16. te sequitur cupide quo quamque inducere pergis. 1.17. denique per maria ac montis fluviosque rapacis 1.18. frondiferasque domos avium camposque virentis 1.19. omnibus incutiens blandum per pectora amorem 1.20. efficis ut cupide generatim saecla propagent. 1.21. quae quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas 1.22. nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras 1.23. exoritur neque fit laetum neque amabile quicquam, 1.24. te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse, 1.25. quos ego de rerum natura pangere conor 1.26. Memmiadae nostro, quem tu, dea, tempore in omni 1.27. omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus. 1.28. quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem. 1.29. effice ut interea fera moenera militiai 1.30. per maria ac terras omnis sopita quiescant; 1.31. nam tu sola potes tranquilla pace iuvare 1.32. mortalis, quoniam belli fera moenera Mavors 1.33. armipotens regit, in gremium qui saepe tuum se 1.34. reiicit aeterno devictus vulnere amoris, 1.35. atque ita suspiciens tereti cervice reposta 1.36. pascit amore avidos inhians in te, dea, visus 1.37. eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore. 1.38. hunc tu, diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto 1.39. circum fusa super, suavis ex ore loquellas 1.40. funde petens placidam Romanis, incluta, pacem; 1.41. nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo 1.42. possumus aequo animo nec Memmi clara propago 1.43. talibus in rebus communi desse saluti. 1.44. omnis enim per se divum natura necessest 1.45. immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur 1.46. semota ab nostris rebus seiunctaque longe; 1.47. nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis, 1.48. ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri, 1.49. nec bene promeritis capitur nec tangitur ira. | 1.1. BOOK I: PROEM: Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men, Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars Makest to teem the many-voyaged main And fruitful lands- for all of living things Through thee alone are evermore conceived, Through thee are risen to visit the great sun- Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on, Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away, For thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers, For thee waters of the unvexed deep Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky Glow with diffused radiance for thee! For soon as comes the springtime face of day, And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred, First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee, Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine, And leap the wild herds round the happy fields Or swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain, Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead, And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams, Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains, Kindling the lure of love in every breast, Thou bringest the eternal generations forth, Kind after kind. And since 'tis thou alone Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught Is risen to reach the shining shores of light, Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born, Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse Which I presume on Nature to compose For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be Peerless in every grace at every hour- Wherefore indeed, Divine one, give my words Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest O'er sea and land the savage works of war, For thou alone hast power with public peace To aid mortality; since he who rules The savage works of battle, puissant Mars, How often to thy bosom flings his strength O'ermastered by the eternal wound of love- And there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown, Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee, Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath Hanging upon thy lips. Him thus reclined Fill with thy holy body, round, above! Pour from those lips soft syllables to win Peace for the Romans, glorious Lady, peace! For in a season troublous to the state Neither may I attend this task of mine With thought untroubled, nor mid such events The illustrious scion of the Memmian house Neglect the civic cause. |
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24. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 1.11-1.12, 1.13.1, 1.13.3, 1.14.1, 1.15.6-1.15.8, 1.17.2-1.17.3, 1.18.1-1.18.2, 1.18.4-1.18.5, 1.20.5-1.20.6, 1.21.5-1.21.11, 1.22.2, 6.1 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 45, 47 | 6.1. < 6.1. The foregoing is told by Diodorus in the Third Book of his history. And the same writer, in the sixth Book as well, confirms the same view regarding the gods, drawing from the writing of Euhemerus of Messenê, and using the following words:, "As regards the gods, then, men of ancient times have handed down to later generations two different conceptions: Certain of the gods, they say, are eternal and imperishable, such as the sun and moon and the other stars of the heavens, and the winds as well and whatever else possesses a nature similar to theirs; for of each of these the genesis and duration are from everlasting to everlasting. But the other gods, we are told, were terrestrial beings who attained to immortal honour and fame because of their benefactions to mankind, such as Heracles, Dionysus, Aristaeus, and the others who were like them., Regarding these terrestrial gods many and varying accounts have been handed down by the writers of history and mythology; of the historians, Euhemerus, who composed the Sacred History, has written a special treatise about them, while, of the writers of myths, Homer and Hesiod and Orpheus and the others of their kind have invented rather monstrous stories about the gods. But for our part, we shall endeavour to run over briefly the accounts which both groups of writers have given, aiming at due proportion in our exposition., "Now Euhemerus, who was a friend of King Cassander and was required by him to perform certain affairs of state and to make great journeys abroad, says that he travelled southward as far as the ocean; for setting sail from Arabia the Blest he voyaged through the ocean for a considerable number of days and was carried to the shore of some islands in the sea, one of which bore the name of Panchaea. On this island he saw the Panchaeans who dwell there, who excel in piety and honour the gods with the most magnificent sacrifices and with remarkable votive offerings of silver and of gold., The island is sacred to the gods, and there are a number of other objects on it which are admired both for their antiquity and for the great skill of their workmanship, regarding which severally we have written in the preceding Books., There is also on the island, situated upon an exceedingly high hill, a sanctuary of Zeus Triphylius, which was established by him during the time when he was king of all the inhabited world and was still in the company of men., And in this temple there is a stele of gold on which is inscribed in summary, in the writing employed by the Panchaeans, the deeds of Uranus and Cronus and Zeus., "Euhemerus goes on to say that Uranus was the first to be king, that he was an honourable man and beneficent, who was versed in the movement of the stars, and that he was also the first to honour the gods of the heavens with sacrifices, whence he was called Uranus or "Heaven.", There were born to him by his wife Hestia two sons, Titan and Cronus, and two daughters, Rhea and Demeter. Cronus became king after Uranus, and marrying Rhea he begat Zeus and Hera and Poseidon. And Zeus, on succeeding to the kingship, married Hera and Demeter and Themis, and by them he had children, the Curetes by the first named, Persephonê by the second, and Athena by the third., And going to Babylon he was entertained by Belus, and after that he went to the island of Panchaea, which lies in the ocean, and here he set up an altar to Uranus, the founder of his family. From there he passed through Syria and came to Casius, who was ruler of Syria at that time, and who gave his name to Mt. Casius. And coming to Cilicia he conquered in battle Cilix, the governor of the region, and he visited very many other nations, all of which paid honour to him and publicly proclaimed him a god.", After recounting what I have given and more to the same effect about the gods, as if about mortal men, Diodorus goes on to say: "Now regarding Euhemerus, who composed the Sacred History, we shall rest content with what has been said, and shall endeavour to run over briefly the myths which the Greeks recount concerning the gods, as they are given by Hesiod and Homer and Orpheus." Thereupon Diodorus goes on to add the myths as the poets give them. 6.1. 1. The foregoing is told by Diodorus in the Third Book of his history. And the same writer, in the sixth Book as well, confirms the same view regarding the gods, drawing from the writing of Euhemerus of Messenê, and using the following words:,2. "As regards the gods, then, men of ancient times have handed down to later generations two different conceptions: Certain of the gods, they say, are eternal and imperishable, such as the sun and moon and the other stars of the heavens, and the winds as well and whatever else possesses a nature similar to theirs; for of each of these the genesis and duration are from everlasting to everlasting. But the other gods, we are told, were terrestrial beings who attained to immortal honour and fame because of their benefactions to mankind, such as Heracles, Dionysus, Aristaeus, and the others who were like them.,3. Regarding these terrestrial gods many and varying accounts have been handed down by the writers of history and mythology; of the historians, Euhemerus, who composed the Sacred History, has written a special treatise about them, while, of the writers of myths, Homer and Hesiod and Orpheus and the others of their kind have invented rather monstrous stories about the gods. But for our part, we shall endeavour to run over briefly the accounts which both groups of writers have given, aiming at due proportion in our exposition.,4. "Now Euhemerus, who was a friend of King Cassander and was required by him to perform certain affairs of state and to make great journeys abroad, says that he travelled southward as far as the ocean; for setting sail from Arabia the Blest he voyaged through the ocean for a considerable number of days and was carried to the shore of some islands in the sea, one of which bore the name of Panchaea. On this island he saw the Panchaeans who dwell there, who excel in piety and honour the gods with the most magnificent sacrifices and with remarkable votive offerings of silver and of gold.,5. The island is sacred to the gods, and there are a number of other objects on it which are admired both for their antiquity and for the great skill of their workmanship, regarding which severally we have written in the preceding Books.,6. There is also on the island, situated upon an exceedingly high hill, a sanctuary of Zeus Triphylius, which was established by him during the time when he was king of all the inhabited world and was still in the company of men.,7. And in this temple there is a stele of gold on which is inscribed in summary, in the writing employed by the Panchaeans, the deeds of Uranus and Cronus and Zeus.,8. "Euhemerus goes on to say that Uranus was the first to be king, that he was an honourable man and beneficent, who was versed in the movement of the stars, and that he was also the first to honour the gods of the heavens with sacrifices, whence he was called Uranus or "Heaven.",9. There were born to him by his wife Hestia two sons, Titan and Cronus, and two daughters, Rhea and Demeter. Cronus became king after Uranus, and marrying Rhea he begat Zeus and Hera and Poseidon. And Zeus, on succeeding to the kingship, married Hera and Demeter and Themis, and by them he had children, the Curetes by the first named, Persephonê by the second, and Athena by the third.,10. And going to Babylon he was entertained by Belus, and after that he went to the island of Panchaea, which lies in the ocean, and here he set up an altar to Uranus, the founder of his family. From there he passed through Syria and came to Casius, who was ruler of Syria at that time, and who gave his name to Mt. Casius. And coming to Cilicia he conquered in battle Cilix, the governor of the region, and he visited very many other nations, all of which paid honour to him and publicly proclaimed him a god.",11. After recounting what I have given and more to the same effect about the gods, as if about mortal men, Diodorus goes on to say: "Now regarding Euhemerus, who composed the Sacred History, we shall rest content with what has been said, and shall endeavour to run over briefly the myths which the Greeks recount concerning the gods, as they are given by Hesiod and Homer and Orpheus." Thereupon Diodorus goes on to add the myths as the poets give them. |
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25. Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 12 (1st cent. CE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 47, 48, 50 | 12. Can it be, Sirs, that here before you, just as before many another audience â to use a familiar saying â I have met with the strange and inexplicable experience of the owl? For though she is no whit wiser than the other birds nor more beautiful in appearance, but on the contrary only what we know her to be, yet whenever she utters her mournful and far from pleasing note, they all flock to her â yes, and even when they merely see her, the reason being, as it seems to me, that they look with scorn upon her insignificance and weakness; and yet people in general say that the birds admire the owl. <, Surely, however, the birds ought rather to admire the peacock when they see him, beautiful and many-coloured as he is, and then again truly when he lifts himself up in pride and shows the beauty of his plumage, as he struts before his hen with his tail spread out and arched all about him like a fair-shaped theatre or some picture of the heavens studded with stars â a figure well deserving of admiration for the colouring also, which is nearest to gold blended with dark blue; and then too on the tips of his feathers there are eyes, as it were, or markings like rings both in shape and in their general similitude. <, And, if you want something further, observe the lightness of his plumage, so light indeed that it is not an encumbrance nor hard to carry on account of its length. In the centre of it he offers himself to the spectator's gaze, quite calm and unconcerned, turning himself this way and that as if on parade; and when he wishes really to astound us, he rustles his feathers and makes a sound not unpleasing, as of a light breeze stirring some thick wood. But it is not the peacock with all this fine display that the birds want to see, nor when they hear the song of the nightingale as she rises at early dawn are they at all affected by her â <, nay, not even the swan do they greet on account of its music, not even when in the fullness of years it sings its last song, and through joy, and because it has forgotten the troubles of life, utters its triumphant notes and at the same time without sorrow conducts itself, as it seems, to a sorrowless death â even then, I say, the birds are not so charmed by its strains that they gather on some river's bank or on a broad mead or the clean strand of a mere, or on some tiny green islet in a river. <, And since you likewise, though having so many delightful spectacles to behold, and so many things to hear â able orators, most charming writers of both verse and prose, and finally, like gorgeous peacocks, sophists in great numbers, men who are lifted aloft as on wings by their fame and disciples â since you, I say, despite all these attractions, draw near and wish to listen to me, a man who knows nothing and makes no claim to knowing, am I not right in likening your interest to that which the birds take in the owl, one might almost say not without some divine purpose? <, This purpose is seen in men's belief that this bird is beloved of Athenê also, the fairest of the gods and the wisest, and indeed at Athens it was honoured by the art of Pheidias, who did not count the owl unworthy to share a dedication with the goddess, the popular assembly approving; but Pericles and his own self he depicted covertly, so we are told, on the shield of the goddess. However, it does not occur to me to regard all this as good fortune on the part of the owl, unless she really does in fact possess some superior sagacity. <, And this, I imagine, is the reason why Aesop composed the fable in which he represents her as being wise and as advising the birds, when the first oak tree began to grow, not to let it happen, but by all means to destroy the plant; for, she explained, the tree would produce a drug from which none might escape, the bird-lime, and they would be caught by it. Again, when men were sowing flax, she bade them pick up this seed also, since if it grew, no good would come of it. <, And in the third place, when she saw a man armed with a bow, she prophesied, saying: "Yonder man will outstrip you with the help of your own feathers, for though he is on foot himself, he will send feathered shafts after you." But the other birds mistrusted her words of warning. They considered her foolish, and said she was mad; but afterwards through experience they came to admire her and to consider her in very truth exceedingly wise. And that is the reason why, whenever she shows herself, they draw near to her as to one possessing all knowledge; but as for her, she no longer gives them advice, but merely laments. <, So perhaps there has been delivered unto you some true word and salutary counsel, which Philosophy gave to the Greeks of old, but the men of that time comprehended it not and despised it; whereas those of the present day, recalling it, draw near to me on account of my appearance, thus honouring Philosophy as the birds honour the owl, although it is in reality voiceless and reticent of speech. For I am quite well aware that I have not hitherto said anything worthy of consideration, and that now I have no knowledge superior to your own. <, But there are other men who are wise and altogether blessed; and if you wish, I shall make them known to you, mentioning each one by name. For indeed this alone I consider to be profitable â to know the men who are wise and able and omniscient. To such if you are willing to cleave, neglecting all other things â both parents and the land of your birth, the shrines of the gods, and the tombs of your forefathers â following wherever they lead, or remaining wherever they establish themselves â whether in the Babylon of Ninus and Semiramis, or in Bactra, or Sousa, or Palibothra, or in some other famous and wealthy city â giving them money or in some other way winning their favour, you will become happier than happiness itself. <, But if you not willing to do this yourselves, mistrusting your own natural ability, or pleading poverty or age or lack of physical strength, you will at least not begrudge your sons this boon nor deprive them of the greatest blessings, but will entrust them to these teachers if they are willing to receive them; and if they are unwilling, you will persuade them or compel them by any and all means, to the end that your sons, having been properly educated and having grown wise, may thenceforth be renowned among all Greeks and barbarians, being pre-eminent in virtue and reputation and wealth and in almost every kind of power. For not only do virtue and renown attend upon wealth, as we are told, but wealth likewise and of necessity accompanies virtue. <, This is the prophecy and counsel that I give you in the presence of yonder god, moved by a spirit of goodwill and friendship toward you. And I suppose that it would be my duty to urge and exhort myself first of all, if only the state of my health and my advanced age permitted, but the fact is that, on account of the infirmities which afflict me, I am under the necessity, if perchance I shall find it in any way possible, of discovering some bit of wisdom which has already been from the ancients cast aside as it were, and had grown stale for lack of teachers who are both better and still living. And I shall tell you of another respect too in which I am like the owl, even if you are ready to laugh at my words. <, For just as that bird makes no use herself of the others that fly to her side, but to the fowler is the most useful of all possessions â since he has no need to throw out feed or mimic a call, but merely to show the owl and then have a great multitude of birds â so I too have nothing to gain by the interest of the many. For I do not take disciples, since I know there is nothing I should be able to teach them, seeing that I know nothing myself; but to lie and deceive by my promises, I have not the courage for that. But if I associated myself with a professional sophist, I should help him greatly by gathering a great crowd to him and then allowing him to dispose of the catch as he wished. However, for some reason or other, not one of the sophists is willing to take me on, nor can they bear the sight of me. <, Now I am almost sure that you believe me when I speak of my own inexperience and lack of knowledge and sagacity â and it seems to me that you not only believe me on this point, but would have believed Socrates also, when he continually and to all men advanced on his own behalf the same defence â that he knew nothing; but that Hippias and Polus and Gorgias, each of whom was more struck with admiration of himself than of anyone else, you would have considered wise and blessed. <, But notwithstanding, I declare to that, great as is your number, you have been eager to hear a man who is neither handsome in appearance nor strong, and in age is already past his prime, one who has no disciple, who professes, I may almost say, no art or special knowledge either of the nobler or of the meaner sort, no ability either as a prophet or a sophist, nay, not even as an orator or a flatterer, one who is not even a clever writer, who does not even have a craft deserving of praise or of interest, but who simply â wears his hair long! But if you think it a better and wiser course, <, I must do this and try to the best of my ability. However, you will not hear words such as you would hear from any other man of the present day, but words much less pretentious and wearisome, in fact just such as you now observe. And in brief, you must allow me to pursue any thought that occurs to me and not become annoyed if you find me wandering in my remarks exactly as in the past I have lived a life of roving, but you must grant me your indulgence, bearing in mind that you are listening to a man who is a layman and who is fond of talking. For in fact, as it happens, I have just finished a long, long journey, all the way from the Ister and the land of the Getae, or Mysians as Homer, using the modern designation of the race, calls them. <, And I went there, not as a merchant with his wares, nor yet as one of the supply-train of the army in the capacity of baggage-carrier or cattle-driver, nor was I discharging a mission as ambassador to our allies or on some embassy bearing congratulations, the members of which join in prayers with the lips only. I went Unarmed, with neither helm nor shield nor lance, <, nor indeed with any other weapon either, so that I marvelled that they brooked the sight of me. For I, who could not ride a horse and was not a skilled bowman or man-atâarms, nor yet a javelin-thrower, or slinger, belonging to the light-armed troops who carry no heavy armour, nor, again, was able to cut timber or dig a trench, nor to mow fodder from an enemy's meadow 'with many a glance behind,' nor yet to raise a tent or a rampart, just as certain non-combatants do who follow the legions as helpers, <, I, who was useless for all such things, came among men who were not dullards, and yet had no leisure to listen to speeches, but were high-strung and tense like race-horses at the starting barriers, fretting at the delay and in their excitement and eagerness pawing the ground with their hoofs. There one could see everywhere swords, everywhere corselets, everywhere spears, and the whole place was crowded with horses, with arms, and with armed men. Quite alone I appeared in the midst of this mighty host, perfectly undisturbed and a most peaceful observer of war, <, weak in body and advanced in years, not bearing 'a golden sceptre' or the sacred fillets of any god and arriving at the camp on an enforced journey to gain a daughter's release, but desiring to see strong men contending for empire and power, and their opponents for freedom and native land. Then, not because I shrank from the danger â let no one think this â but because I recalled to mind an old vow, I turned my course hither to you, ever considering that things divine have the greater claim and are more profitable than things human, however important these may be. <, Now is it more agreeable and more opportune for you that I should describe what I saw there â the immense size of the river and the character of the country, what climate the inhabitants enjoy and their racial stock, and further, I suppose, the population and their military strength? Or should you prefer that I take up the older and greater tale of this god at whose temple we are now? <, For he is indeed alike of men and gods the king and ruler and lord and father, and in addition, the dispenser of peace and of war, as the experienced and wise poets of the past believed â to see if perchance we can commemorate both his nature and his power in a brief speech, which will fall short of what it should be even if we confine ourselves to these two themes alone. <, Should I, then, begin in the manner of Hesiod, a man good and beloved of the Muses, imitating the way in which he, quite shrewdly, does not venture to begin in his own person and express his own thoughts, but invites the Muses to tell about their own father? For this hymn to the goddesses is altogether more fitting than to enumerate those who went against Ilium, both themselves and the benches of their ships seriatim, although the majority of the men were quite unknown. And what poet is wiser and better than he who invokes aid for this work in the following manner? â <, O ye Pierian Muses, who glorify man by your lays, Draw nigh me, and sing for me Zeus your father, and chant his praise. It is he through whom mortal men are renowned or unrenowned; At the pleasure of Zeus most high by fame are they crowned or discrowned; For lightly he strengtheneth this one, and strength unto that one denies; Lightly abases the haughty, the lowly he magnifies; Lightly the crooked he straightens, and withers the pride of the proud, Even Zeus who thunders on high, who dwelleth in mansions of cloud. <, Answer, therefore and tell me whether the address I offer and the hymn would prove more suitable to this assemblage, you sons of Elis â for you are the rulers and the directors of this national festal gathering, both supervisors and guardians of what is said and done here â or perhaps those who have gathered here should be spectators merely, not only of the sights to be seen, admittedly altogether beautiful and exceedingly renowned, but, very specially, of the worship of the god and of his truly blessed image, which your ancestors by lavish expenditure and by securing the service of the highest art made and set up as a dedication â of all the statues which are upon the earth the most beautiful and the most dear to the gods, Pheidias having, as we are told, taken his pattern from Homer's poesy, where the god by a slight inclination of his brows shook all Olympus, <, as the great poet most vividly and convincingly has expressed it in the following verses: He said, and nodded with his shadowy brows; Wav'd on th' immortal head th' ambrosial locks, And all Olympus trembled at his nod. Or, should we somewhat more carefully consider these two topics themselves, I mean the expressions of our poets and the dedications here, and try to ascertain whether there is some sort of influence which in some way actually moulds and gives expression to man's conception of the deity, exactly as if we were in a philosopher's lecture-room at this moment? <, 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; <, for inasmuch as these earlier men were not living dispersed far away from the divine being or beyond his borders apart by themselves, but had grown up in his company and had remained close to him in every way, they could not for any length of time continue to be unintelligent beings, especially since they had received from him intelligence and the capacity for reason, illumined as they were on every side by the divine and magnificent glories of heaven and the stars of sun and moon, by night and day encountering varied and dissimilar experiences, seeing wondrous sights and hearing manifold voices of winds and forest and rivers and sea, of animals tame and wild; while they themselves uttered a most pleasing and clear sound, and taking delight in the proud and intelligent quality of the human voice, attached symbols to the objects that reached their senses, so as to be able to name and designate everything perceived, <, thus easily acquiring memories and concepts of innumerable things. How, then, could they have remained ignorant and conceived no inkling of him who had sowed and planted and was now preserving and nourishing them, when on every side they were filled with the divine nature through both sight and hearing, and in fact through every sense? They dwelt upon the earth, they beheld the light of heaven, they had nourishment in abundance, for god, their ancestor, had lavishly provided and prepared it to their hand. <, As a first nourishment the first men, being the very children of the soil, had the earthy food â the moist loam at that time being soft and rich â which they licked up from the earth, their mother as it were, even as plants now draw the moisture therefrom. Then the later generation, who were now advancing, had a second nourishment consisting of wild fruits and tender herbs along with sweet dew and fresh nymph-haunted rills. Furthermore, being in contact with the circumambient air and nourished by the unceasing inflow of their breath, they sucked in moist air as infants suck in their food, this milk never failing them because the teat was ever at their lips. <, Indeed, we should almost be justified in calling this the first nourishment for both the earlier and the succeeding generations without distinction. For when the babe, still sluggish and feeble, is cast forth from the womb, the earth, its real mother, receives it, and the air, after breathing into it and quickening it, at once awakens it by a nourishment more liquid than milk and enables it to emit a cry. This might reasonably be called the first teat that nature offered to human beings at the moment of birth. <, So experiencing all these things and afterwards taking note of them, men could not help admiring and loving the divinity, also because they observed the seasons and saw that it is for our preservation that they come with perfect regularity and avoidance of excess in either direction, and yet further, because they enjoyed this god-given superiority over the other animals of being able to reason and reflect about the gods. <, So it is very much the same as if anyone were to place a man, a Greek or a barbarian, in some mystic shrine of extraordinary beauty and size to be initiated, where he would see many mystic sights and hear many mystic voices, where light and darkness would appear to him alternately, and a thousand other things would occur; and further, if it should be just as in the rite called enthronement, where the inducting priests are wont to seat the novices and then dance round and round them â pray, is it likely that the man in this situation would be no whit moved in his mind and would not suspect that all which was taking place was the result of a more than wise intention and preparation, even if he belonged to the most remote and nameless barbarians and had no guide and interpreter at his side â provided, of course, that he had the mind of a human being? <, Or rather, is this not impossible? impossible too that the whole human race, which is receiving the complete and truly perfect initiation, not in a little building erected by the Athenians for the reception of a small company, but in this universe, a varied and cunningly wrought creation, in which countless marvels appear at every moment, and where, furthermore, the rites are being performed, not by human beings who are of no higher order than the initiates themselves, but by immortal gods who are initiating mortal men, and night and day both in sunlight and under the stars are â if we may dare to use the term â literally dancing around them forever â is it possible to suppose, I repeat, that of all these things his senses told him nothing, or that he gained no faintest inkling of them, and especially when the leader of the choir was in charge of the whole spectacle and directing the entire heaven and universe, even as a skilful pilot commands a ship that has been perfectly furnished and lacks nothing? <, That human beings should be so ')" onMouseOut="nd();"affected would occasion no surprise, but much rather that, as we see, this influence reaches even the senseless and irrational brutes, so that even they recognize and honour the god and desire to live according to his ordice; and it is still stranger that the plants, which have no conception of anything, but, being soulless and voiceless, are controlled by a simple kind of nature â it is passing strange, I say, that even these voluntarily and willingly yield each its own proper fruit; so very clear and evident is the will and power of yonder god. <, Nay, I wonder if we shall be thought exceedingly absurd and hopelessly behind the times in view of this reasoning, if we maintain that this unexpected knowledge is indeed more natural for the beasts and the trees than dullness and ignorance are for us? Why, certain men have shown themselves wiser than all wisdom; yes, they have poured into their ears, not wax, as I believe they say that the sailors from Ithaca did that they might not hear the song of the Sirens, but a substance like lead, soft at once and impenetrable by the human voice, and they also methinks have hung before their eyes a curtain of deep darkness and mist like that which, according to Homer, kept the god from being recognized when he was caught; these men, then, despise all things divine, and having set up the image of one female divinity, depraved and monstrous, representing a kind of wantonness or self-indulgent ease and unrestrained lewdness, to which they gave the name of Pleasure â an effeminate god in very truth â her they prefer in honour and worship with softly tinkling cymbal-like instruments, or with pipes played under cover of darkness â <, a form of entertainment which nobody would grudge such men if their cleverness went only as far as singing, and they did not attempt to take our gods from us and send them into banishment, driving them out of their own state and kingdom, clean out of this ordered universe to alien regions, even as unfortunate human beings are banished to sundry uninhabited isles; and all this universe above us they assert is without purpose or intelligence or master, has no ruler, or even steward or overseer, but wanders at random and is swept aimlessly along, no master being there to take thought for it now, and no creator having made it in the first place, or even doing as boys do with their hoops, which they set in motion of their own accord, and then let them roll along of themselves. <, Now to explain this digression â my argument is responsible, having turned aside of itself; for perhaps it is not easy to check the course of a philosopher's thoughts and speech, no matter what direction they may take; for whatever suggests itself to his mind always seems profitable, nay indispensable, for his audience, and my speech has not been prepared to "suit the water-clock and the constraint of court procedure," to use somebody's expression, but allows itself a great deal of license. Well, it is not difficult to run back again, just as on a voyage it is not difficult for competent steersmen who have got a little off their course to get back upon it. <, To resume, then: of man's belief in the deity and his assumption that there is a god we were maintaining that the fountain-head, as we may say, or source, was that idea which is innate in all mankind and comes into being as the result of the actual facts and the truth, an idea that was not framed confusedly nor yet at random, but has been exceedingly potent and persistent since the beginning of time, and has arisen among all nations and still remains, being, one may almost say, a common and general endowment of rational beings. As the second source we designate the idea which has been acquired and indeed implanted in men's souls through no other means than narrative accounts, myths, and customs, in some cases ascribed to no author and also unwritten, but in others written and having as their authors men of very great fame. <, of this acquired notion of the divine being let us say that one part is voluntary and due to exhortation, another part compulsory and prescriptive. By the kind that depends upon voluntary acceptance and exhortation I mean that which is handed down by the poets, and by the kind that depends upon compulsion and prescription I mean that due to the lawgivers. I call these secondary because neither of them could possibly have gained strength unless that primary notion had been present to begin with; and because it was present, there took root in mankind, of their own volition and because they already possessed a sort of foreknowledge, the prescriptions of the lawgivers and the exhortations of the poets, some of them expounding things correctly and in consoce with the truth and their hearers' notions, and others going astray in certain matters. <, But which of the two influences mentioned should be called the earlier in time, among us Greeks at any rate, namely, poetry or legislation, I am afraid I cannot discuss at length on the present occasion; but perhaps it is fitting that the kind which depended, not upon penalties, but upon persuasion should be more ancient than the kind which employed compulsion and prescription. <, Now up to this point, we may almost say, the feelings of the human race towards their first and immortal parent, whom we who have a share in the heritage of Hellas call Ancestral Zeus, develop step by step along with those which men have toward their mortal and human parents. For in truth the goodwill and desire to serve which the offspring feel toward their parents is, in the first type, present in them, untaught, as a gift of nature and as a result of acts of kindness received, <, since that which has been begotten straightway from birth loves and cherishes in return, so far as it may, that which begat and nourishes and loves it, whereas the second and third types, which are derived from our poet and lawgivers, the former exhorting us not to withhold our gratitude from that which is older and of the same blood, besides being the author of life and being, the latter using compulsion and the threat of punishment for those who refuse obedience, without, however, making anything clear and showing plainly just who parents are and what the acts of kindness are for which they enjoin upon us not to leave unpaid a debt which is due. But to an even greater extent do we see this to be true in both particulars in their stories and myths about the gods. Now I am well aware that to most men strict exactness in any exposition is on every occasion irksome, and that exactness in a speech is no less so for those whose sole interest is in quantity alone; these without any preface whatever or any statements defining their subject-matter, nay, without even beginning their speeches with any beginning, but straight off 'with unwashen feet,' as the saying is, proceed to expound things most obvious and naked to the sight. Now as for 'unwashen feet,' though they do no great harm when men must pass through mud and piles of refuse, yet an ignorant tongue causes no little injury to an audience. However, we may reasonably expect that the educated men of the audience, of whom one ought to take some account, will keep up with us and go through the task with us until we merge from bypath and rough ground, as it were, and get our argument back upon the straight road. <, Now that we have set before us three sources of man's conception of the divine being, to wit, the innate, that derived from the poets, and that derived from the lawgivers, let us name as the fourth that derived from the plastic art and the work of skilled craftsmen who make statues and likenesses of the gods â I mean painters and sculptors and masons who work in stone, in a word, everyone who has held himself worthy to come forward as a portrayer of the divine nature through the use of art, whether (1) by means of a rough sketch, very indistinct or deceptive to the eye, or (2) by the blending of colours and by line-drawing, which produces a result which we can almost say is the most accurate of all, or (3) by the carving of stone, or (4) by the craft which makes images of wood, in which the artist little by little removes the excess of material until nothing remains but the shape which the observer sees, or (5) by the casting of bronze and the like precious metals, which are heated and then either beaten out or poured into moulds, or (6) by the moulding of wax, which most readily answers the artist's touch and affords the greatest opportunity for change of intention. <, To this class belong not only Pheidias but also Alcamenes and Polycleitus and further, Aglaophon and Polygnotus and Zeuxis and, earlier than all these, Daedalus. For these men were not satisfied to display their cleverness and skill on commonplace subjects, but by exhibiting all sorts of likenesses and representations of gods they secured for their patrons both private persons and the states, whose people they filled with an ample and varied conception of the divine; and here they did not differ altogether from the poets and lawgivers, in the one case that they might not be considered violators of the laws and thus make themselves liable to the penalties imposed upon such, and in the other case because they saw that they had been anticipated by the poets and that the poets' image-making was the earlier. <, Consequently they preferred not to appear to the many as untrustworthy and to be disliked for making innovations. In most matters, accordingly, they adhered to the myths and maintained agreement with them in their representations, but in some few cases they contributed their own ideas, becoming in a sense the rivals as well as fellow-craftsmen of the poets, since the latter appealed to the ear alone, whereas it was simply through the eye that they, for their part, interpreted the divine attributes to their more numerous and less cultivated spectators. And all these influences won strength from that primary impulse, as having originated with the honouring of the divine being and winning his favour. <, And furthermore, quite apart from that simple and earliest notion of the gods which develops in the hearts of all men along with their reasoning power, in addition to those three interpreters and teachers, the poets, the lawgivers, and creative artists, we must take on a fourth one, who is by no means indifferent nor believes himself unacquainted with the gods, I mean the philosopher, the one who by means of reason interprets and proclaims the divine nature, most truly, perhaps, and most perfectly. <, As to the lawgiver, let us omit for the present to hale him here for an accounting; a stern man is he and himself accustomed to hold all others to an accounting. Indeed, we ought to have consideration for ourselves and for our own preoccupation. But as for the rest, let us select the foremost man of each class, and consider whether they will be found to have done by their acts or words any good or harm to piety, and how they stand as to agreement with each other or divergence from one another, and which one of them adheres to the truth most closely, being in harmony with that primary and guileless view. Now in fact all these men speak with one voice, just as if they had taken the one track and were keeping to it, some clearly and others less plainly. Would the true philosopher, perhaps, not stand in need of consolation if he should be brought into comparison with the makers of statues or of poetic measures, and that too, before the throng of a national festive-gathering where the judges are predisposed in their favour? <, Suppose, for instance, that someone were to take Pheidias first and question him before the tribunal of the Hellenes, Pheidias, that wise and divinely-inspired creator of this awe-inspiring masterpiece of surpassing beauty, and should appoint as judges the men who are directing this contest in honour of the god, or better, a general court of all Peloponnesians and of the Boeotians, too, and Ionians and of the other Hellenes, wherever they are to be found in Asia as well as in Europe, and then suppose they should demand an accounting, not of the monies or of the sum spent on the statue â the number of talents paid for gold and ivory, and for cypress and citron-wood, which are durable and indestructible timber for the interior work, or of the expenditure for the maintece and wages of the workmen, who were not few in number and worked for so long a time, the wages not only of the men in general, who were no mean artisans, but of Pheidias also, to whom went the greatest and fullest reward on account of his artistic skill â of these items, I say, it was fitting that the Eleans, who poured out their money so lavishly and magnificently, should have called for a reckoning; <, but as for us, we shall maintain that it is for something else that Pheidias must submit to trial. Suppose, then, that someone should actually say to him: "O best and noblest of artists, how charming and pleasing a spectacle you have wrought, and a vision of infinite delight for the benefit of all men, both Greeks and barbarians, who have ever come here, as they have come in great throngs and time after time, no one will gainsay. <, For verily even the irrational brute creation would be so struck with awe if they could catch merely a glimpse of yonder statue, not only the bulls which are being continually led to the altar, so that they would willingly submit themselves to the priests who perform the rites of sacrifice, if so they would be giving some pleasure to the god, but eagles too, and horses and lions, so that they would subdue their untamed and savage spirits and preserve perfect quiet, delighted by the vision; and of men, whoever is sore distressed in soul, having in the course of his life drained the cup of many misfortunes and griefs, nor ever winning sweet sleep â even this man, methinks, if he stood before this image, would forget all the terrors and hardships that fall to our human lot. <, Such a wondrous vision did you devise and fashion, one in very truth a Charmer of grief and anger, that from men All the remembrance of their ills could loose! So great the radiance and so great the charm with which your art has clothed it. Indeed it is not reasonable to suppose that even Hephaestus himself would criticize this work if he judged it by the pleasure and delight which it affords the eye of man." "But, on the other hand, was the shape you by your artistry produced appropriate to a god and was its form worthy of the divine nature, when you not only used a material which gives delight but also presented a human form of extraordinary beauty and size; and apart from its being a man's shape, made also all the other attributes as you have made them? that is the question which I invite you to consider now. And if you make a satisfactory defence on these matters before those present and convince them that you have discovered the proper and fitting shape and form for the foremost and greatest god, then you shall receive in addition a second reward, greater and more perfect than the one given by the Eleans. <, For you see that the issue is no small one, nor the danger, for us. Since in times past, because we had no clear knowledge, we formed each his different idea, and each person, according to his capacity and nature, conceived a likeness for every divine manifestation and fashioned such likenesses in his dreams; and if we do perchance collect any small and insignificant likenesses made by the earlier artists, we do not trust them very much nor pay them very much attention. But you by the power of your art first conquered and united Hellas and then all others by means of this wondrous presentment, showing forth so marvellous and dazzling a conception, that none of those who have beheld it could any longer easily form a different one. <, Pray, do you imagine that it was owing to lack of money that Iphitus and Lycurgus and the Eleans of that period, while instituting the contest and the sacrifice in such wise as to be worthy of Zeus, yet failed to search for and find a statue to bear the name and show the aspect of the god, although they were, one might almost say, superior in power to their descendants? Or was it rather because they feared that they would never be able adequately to portray by human art the Supreme and most Perfect Being?" <, Perhaps in answer to this Pheidias would say, since he was not tongue-tied nor belonged to a tongue-tied city, and besides was the close friend and comrade of Pericles:"My Greek fellow-citizens, the issue is the greatest that has ever arisen. For it is not about empire or the presidency of one single state or the size of the navy or as to whether an army of infantry has or has not been correctly administered, that I am now being called to account, but concerning that god who governs the universe and my representation of him: whether it has been made with due respect to the dignity of the god and so as to be a true likeness of him, in no way falling short of the best portrayal of the divinity that is within the capacity of human beings to make, or is unworthy of him and unbefitting. <, "Remember, too, that it is not I who was your first expounder and teacher of the truth, for I was not even born as yet when Hellas began to be and while it still had no ideas that were firmly established about these matters, but when it was rather old, so to speak, and already had strong beliefs and convictions about the gods. And all the works of sculptors or painters earlier than my art which I found to be in harmony therewith, except so far as the perfection of the workmanship is concerned, I omit to mention; <, your views, however, I found to be ingrained, not to be changed, so that it was not possible to oppose them, and I found other artistic portrayers of the divinity who were older than I and considered themselves much wiser, namely the poets, for they were able through their poetry to lead men to accept any sort of idea, whereas our artistic productions have only this one adequate standard of comparison. <, For those divine manifestations â I mean the sun and the moon and the entire heavens and the stars â while in and of themselves they certainly appear marvellous, yet the artist's portrayal of them is simple and has no need of artistic skill, if one should wish merely to depict the moon's crescent or the sun's full orb; and furthermore, whereas those heavenly bodies certainly, taken by themselves, reveal in abundance character and purpose, yet in their representations they show nothing to suggest this: which perhaps is the reason why at first they were not yet regarded by the Greeks as deities. <, For mind and intelligence in and of themselves no statuary or painter will ever be able to represent; for all men are utterly incapable of observing such attributes with their eyes or of learning of them by inquiry. But as for that in which this intelligence manifests itself, men, having no mere inkling thereof but actual knowledge, fly to it for refuge, attributing to God a human body as a vessel to contain intelligence and rationality, in their lack of a better illustration, and in their perplexity seeking to indicate that which is invisible and unportrayable by means of something portrayable and visible, using the function of a symbol and doing so better than certain barbarians, who are said to represent the divine by animals â using as his starting-point symbols which are trivial and absurd. But that man who has stood out most above others in respect of beauty and majesty and splendour, he, we may say, has been by far the greatest creator of the images of the divine beings. <, For certainly no one would maintain that it had been better that no statue or picture of gods should have been exhibited among men, on the ground that we should look only at the heavens. For although the intelligent man does indeed reverence all those objects, believing them to be blessed gods that he sees from a great distance, yet on account of our belief in the divine all men have a strong yearning to honour and worship the deity from close at hand, approaching and laying hold of him with persuasion by offering sacrifice and crowning him with garlands. <, For precisely as infant children when torn away from father or mother are filled with terrible longing and desire, and stretch out their hands to their absent parents often in their dreams, so also do men to the gods, rightly loving them for their beneficence and kinship, and being eager in every possible way to be with them and to hold converse with them. Consequently many of the barbarians, because they lack artistic means and find difficulty in employing them, name mountains gods, and unhewn trees, too, and unshapen stones, things which are by no means whatever more appropriate in shape than is the human form. <, "But if you find fault with me for the human figure, you should make haste to be angry with Homer first; for he not only represented a form most nearly like this statue of mine by mentioning the flowing locks of the god and the chin too at the very beginning of the poem, when he says that Thetis made supplication for the bestowal of honour upon her son; but in addition to these things he ascribes to the gods meetings and counsellings and harangues, then also journeyings from Ida to the heavens and Olympus, and sleep-scenes and drinking-bouts and love-embraces, clothing everything in very lofty poetical language and yet keeping close to mortal likeness. And the most striking instance of this is when he ventured to liken Agamemnon to the god in respect to the most distinctive features by saying, His eye and lofty brow the counterpart of Zeus, the Lord of thunder. <, But as to the product of my workmanship nobody, not even an insane person, would liken it to any mortal man soever, if it be carefully examined from the point of view of a god's beauty or stature; since, if I shall not be found to be a better and more temperate artificer than Homer, whom you thought godlike in his skill, I am willing to pay any fines you wish! But I am speaking with an eye to what is possible in my art. <, For an extravagant thing is poetry and in every respect resourceful and a law unto itself, and by the assistance of the tongue and a multitude of words is able all by itself to express all the devisings of the heart, and whatever conception it may arrive at concerning any shape or action or emotion or magnitude, it can never be at a loss, since the voice of a Messenger can disclose with perfect clearness each and all these things. For, as Homer himself says, For glib runs the tongue, and can at will Give utterance to discourse in ev'ry vein; Wide is the range of language; and such words As one may speak, another may return. <, Indeed, the race of man is more likely to run short of everything else than of voice and speech; of this one thing it possesses a most astounding wealth. At any rate it has left unuttered and undesignated no single thing that reaches our sense perceptions, but straightway puts upon everything the mind perceives the unmistakable seal of a name, and often even several vocal signs for one thing, so that when man gives utterance to any one of them, they convey an impression not much less distinct than does the actual thing itself. Very great indeed is the ability and power of man to express in words any idea that comes into his mind. <, But the poets' art is exceedingly bold and not to be censured therefor; this was especially true of Homer, who practiced the greatest frankness and freedom of language; and he did not choose just one variety of diction, but mingled together every Hellenic dialect which before his time were separate â that of the Dorians and Ionians, and also that of the Athenians â mixing them together much more thoroughly than dyers do their colours â and not only the languages of his own day but also those of former generations; if perchance there survived any expression of theirs taking up this ancient coinage, as it were, out of some ownerless treasure-store, <, because of his love of language; and he also used many barbarian words as well, sparing none that he believed to have in it anything of charm or of vividness. Furthermore, he drew not only from things which lie next door or near at hand, but also from those quite remote, in order that he might charm the hearer by bewitching and amazing him; and even these metaphors he did not leave as he first used them, but sometimes expanded and sometimes condensed them, or changing them in some other way. <, "And, last of all, he showed himself not only a maker of verses but also of words, giving utterance to those of his own invention, in some cases by simply giving his own names to the things and in others adding his new ones to those current, putting, as it were, a bright and more expressive seal upon a seal. He avoided no sound, but in short imitated the voices of rivers and forests, of winds and fire and sea, and also of bronze and of stone, and, in short, of all animals and instruments without exception, whether of wild beasts or of birds or of pipes and reeds. He invented the terms 'clang' (kanache), 'boom' (bombos), 'crash' (ktupos), 'thud' (doupos), 'rattle' (arabos), and spoke of 'roaring rivers,' 'whizzing missiles,' 'thundering waves,' 'raging winds,' and other such terrifying and truly astonishing phenomena, thus filling the mind with great confusion and uproar. <, Consequently he had no lack of fear-inspiring names for things and of pleasant ones, and also of smooth and rough ones, as well as of those which have countless other differences in both their sounds and their meanings. As a result of this epic art of his he was able to implant in the soul any emotion he wished. "But our art, on the other hand, that which is dependent on the workman's hand and the artist's creative touch, by no means attains to such freedom; but first we need a material substance, a material so tough that it will last, yet can be worked without much difficulty and consequently not easy to procure; we need, too, no small number of assistants. <, And then, in addition, the sculptor must have worked out for himself a design that shows each subject in one single posture, and that too a posture that admits of no movement and is unalterable, so perfected that it will comprise within itself the whole of the god's nature and power. But for the poets it is perfectly easy to include very many shapes and all sorts of attitudes in their poetry, adding movements and periods of rest to them according to what they consider fitting at any given time, and actions and spoken words, and they have, I imagine, an additional advantage in the matter of difficulty and that of time. For the poet when moved by one single conception and one single impulse of his soul draws forth an immense volume of verses, as if from a gushing spring of water, before the vision and the conception he had grasped can leave him and flow away. But of our art the execution is laborious and slow, advancing with difficulty a step at a time, the reason being, no doubt, that it must work with a rock-like and hard material. <, "But the most difficult thing of all is that the sculptor must keep the very same image in his mind continuously until he finishes his work, which often takes many years. Indeed, the popular saying that the eyes are more trustworthy than the ears is perhaps true, yet they are much harder to convince and demand much greater clearness; for while the eye agrees exactly with what it sees, it is not impossible to excite and cheat the ear by filling it with representations under the spell of metre and sound. <, Then again, while the measures of our art are enforced upon us by considerations of numbers and magnitude, the poets have the power to increase even these elements to any extent. For this reason it was easy enough for Homer to give the size of Eris by saying, With humble crest at first, anon her head, While yet she treads the earth, affronts the skies. But I must be content, I suppose, merely to fill up the space designated by Eleans or Athenians. <, "Thou certainly wilt agree, O Homer, wisest of poets, who both in the power of thy poetry and in time dost by far excel and wast practically the first to show the Hellenes many beautiful images of all the gods, and especially of the greatest among them, some images mild but others fear-inspiring and dread. <, But our god is peaceful and altogether gentle, such as befits the guardian of a faction-free and concordant Hellas; and this I, with the aid of my art and of the counsel of the wise and good city of the Eleans have set up â a mild and majestic god in pleasing guise, the Giver of our material and our physical life and of all our blessings, the common Father and Saviour and Guardian of mankind, in so far as it was possible for a mortal man to frame in his mind and to represent the divine and inimitable nature. <, "And consider whether you will not find that the statue is in keeping with all the titles by which Zeus is known. For he alone of the gods is entitled 'Father and King,' 'Protector of Cities,' 'God of Friendship,' and 'God of Comradeship' and also 'Protector of Suppliants,' and 'God of Hospitality,' 'Giver of Increase,' and has countless other titles, all indicative of goodness: he is addressed as 'King' because of his dominion and power; as 'Father,' I think, on account of his solicitude for us and his kindness: as 'Protector of Cities' in that he upholds the law and the common weal; as 'Guardian of the Race' on account of the tie of kinship which unites gods and men; <, as 'God of Friendship' and 'God of Comradeship' because he brings all men together and wills that they be friends of one another and never enemy or foe; as 'Protector of Suppliants' since he inclines his ear and is gracious to men when they pray; as 'God of Refuge' because he gives refuge from evils; as 'God of Hospitality' because we should not be unmindful even of strangers, nor regard any human being as an alien; as 'Giver of Wealth and Increase' since he is the cause of all crops and is the giver of wealth and power. <, "And so far as it was possible to reveal these attributes without the help of words, is the god not adequately represented from the point of view of art? For his sovereignty and kingship are intended to be shown by the strength in the image and its grandeur; his fatherhood and his solicitude by its gentleness and kindliness; the 'Protector of Cities' and 'Upholder of the Law' by its majesty and severity; the kinship between gods and men, I presume, by the mere similarity in shape, being already in use as a symbol; the 'God of Friends, Suppliants, Strangers, Refugees,' and all such qualities in short, by the benevolence and gentleness and goodness appearing in his countece. The 'God of Wealth' and the "Giver of Increase' are represented by the simplicity and grandeur shown by the figure, for the god does in very truth seem like one who is giving and bestowing blessings. <, "As for these attributes, then, I have represented them in so far as it was possible to do so, since I was not able to name them. But the god who continually sends the lightning's flash, portending war and the destruction of many or a mighty downpour of rain, or of hail or of snow, or who stretches the dark blue rainbow across the sky, the symbol of war, or who sends a shooting star, which hurls forth a stream of sparks, a dread portent to sailors or soldiers, or who sends grievous strife upon Greeks and barbarians so as to inspire tired and despairing men with unceasing love for war and battle, and the god who weighed in the balance the fates of the godlike men or of whole armies to be decided by its spontaneous inclination â that god, I say, it was not possible to represent by my art; nor assuredly should I ever have desired to do so even had it been possible. <, For of thunder what sort of soundless image, or of lightning and of the thunderbolt what kind of a likeness without the lightning's flash could by any possibility be made from the metals taken from the subterranean workings of this land at least? Then when the earth was shaken and Olympus was moved by a slight inclination of the eyebrows, or a crown of cloud was about his head, it was easy enough for Homer to describe them, and great was the freedom he enjoyed for all such things; but for our art it is absolutely impossible, for it permits the observer to test it with his eyes from close at hand and in full view. <, "But if, again, anyone thinks that the material used is too lacking in distinction to be in keeping with the god, his belief is true and correct. But neither those who furnished it, nor the man who selected and approved it, has he any right to criticize. For there was no other substance better or more radiant to the sight that could have come into the hands of man and have received artistic treatment. To work up air, at any rate, or fire, or 'the copious source of water,' what tools possessed by mortal men can do that? <, These can work upon nothing but whatever hard residuary substance is held bound within all these elements. I do not mean gold or silver, for these are trivial and worthless things, but the essential substance, tough all through and heavy; and to select each kind of material and entwining them together to compose every species, both of animals and of plants â this is a thing which is impossible for even the gods, all except this God alone, one may almost say, whom another poet quite beautifully has addressed as follows: Lord of Dodona, father almighty, consummate artist. <, For he is indeed the first and most perfect artificer, who has taken as his coadjutor in his art, not the city of Elis, but the entire material of the entire universe. But of a Pheidias or of a Polycleitus you could not reasonably demand more than they have done; nay, even what they essayed is too great and august for our handiwork. <, Indeed, not even Hephaestus did Homer represent as showing his skill in other materials, but while he furnished a god as the craftsman for the making of the shield, he did not succeed in finding any different sort of material for it. For he speaks as follows: The stubborn brass, and tin, and precious gold, And silver, first he melted in the fire; Nay, I will not concede to any man that there ever has been a better sculptor than I, but to Zeus, who fashioned the whole universe, it is not right to compare any mortal." <, So if Pheidias had said these things in his defence, I believe that the assembled Hellenes would have been justified in conferring a crown upon him. But perhaps the majority of my hearers have failed to notice the several topics of my address, although, in my opinion, it has been quite as suitable for the multitude as for the philosophers to hear. It has dealt with the dedication of statues, how it should best be done, and with the poets, as to whether their conceptions of the gods are better or inferior, and also with the first conception of God, what it was and how it came into existence among men. And much too, I believe, was said about the power of Zeus and about his titles. If this was accompanied by a eulogy of the statue and of those who dedicated it, so much the better. <, For in reality the god now seems to us to have such an expression, altogether benevolent and solicitous, that I at least can almost fancy that he is speaking like this: "All this rite, you Eleans and all Hellas, you are carrying out, as one may see, very beautifully and fittingly, by offering sacrifices of a magnificence in keeping with your means, and, above all, by holding as from the beginning this most renowned contest of physical condition, strength, and speed, and lastly, because you are preserving in regard to festive occasions and secret rites all the customs which you have inherited. But with deep concern I observe that Yourself untended seem, and wretched age With mean attire and squalor is your lot." |
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26. New Testament, Romans, 1.18-1.32 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 30, 31, 59 1.18. Ἀποκαλύπτεται γὰρ ὀργὴ θεοῦ ἀπʼ οὐρανοῦ ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἀσέβειαν καὶ ἀδικίαν ἀνθρώπων τῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν ἀδικίᾳ κατεχόντων, 1.19. διότι τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς, ὁ θεὸς γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἐφανέρωσεν. 1.20. τὰ γὰρ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου τοῖς ποιήμασιν νοούμενα καθορᾶται, ἥ τε ἀΐδιος αὐτοῦ δύναμις καὶ θειότης, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτοὺς ἀναπολογήτους, 1.21. διότι γνόντες τὸν θεὸν οὐχ ὡς θεὸν ἐδόξασαν ἢ ηὐχαρίστησαν, ἀλλὰ ἐματαιώθησαν ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ἡ ἀσύνετος αὐτῶν καρδία· 1.22. φάσκοντες εἶναι σοφοὶ ἐμωράνθησαν, 1.23. καὶἤλλαξαν τὴν δόξαντοῦ ἀφθάρτου θεοῦἐν ὁμοιώματιεἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ πετεινῶν καὶ τετραπόδων καὶ ἑρπετῶν. 1.24. Διὸ παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῶν καρδιῶν αὐτῶν εἰς ἀκαθαρσίαν τοῦ ἀτιμάζεσθαι τὰ σώματα αὐτῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς, 1.25. οἵτινες μετήλλαξαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν τῷ ψεύδει, καὶ ἐσεβάσθησαν καὶ ἐλάτρευσαν τῇ κτίσει παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα, ὅς ἐστιν εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας· ἀμήν. 1.26. Διὰ τοῦτο παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς εἰς πάθη ἀτιμίας· αἵ τε γὰρ θήλειαι αὐτῶν μετήλλαξαν τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν εἰς τὴν παρὰ φύσιν, 1.27. ὁμοίως τε καὶ οἱ ἄρσενες ἀφέντες τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν τῆς θηλείας ἐξεκαύθησαν ἐν τῇ ὀρέξει αὐτῶν εἰς ἀλλήλους ἄρσενες ἐν ἄρσεσιν, τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην κατεργαζόμενοι καὶ τὴν ἀντιμισθίαν ἣν ἔδει τῆς πλάνης αὐτῶν ἐν αὑτοῖς ἀπολαμβάνοντες. 1.28. Καὶ καθὼς οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν τὸν θεὸν ἔχειν ἐν ἐπιγνώσει, παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς εἰς ἀδόκιμον νοῦν, ποιεῖν τὰ μὴ καθήκοντα, 1.29. πεπληρωμένους πάσῃ ἀδικίᾳ πονηρίᾳ πλεονεξίᾳ κακίᾳ, μεστοὺς φθόνου φόνου ἔριδος δόλου κακοηθίας, ψιθυριστάς, 1.30. καταλάλους, θεοστυγεῖς, ὑβριστάς, ὑπερηφάνους, ἀλαζόνας, ἐφευρετὰς κακῶν, γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς, ἀσυνέτους, 1.31. ἀσυνθέτους, ἀστόργους, ἀνελεήμονας· 1.32. οἵτινες τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιγνόντες,ὅτι οἱ τὰ τοιαῦτα πράσσοντες ἄξιοι θανάτου εἰσίν, οὐ μόνον αὐτὰ ποιοῦσιν ἀλλὰ καὶ συνευδοκοῦσιν τοῖς πράσσουσιν. | 1.18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 1.19. because that which is known of God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them. 1.20. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse. 1.21. Because, knowing God, they didn't glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. 1.22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 1.23. and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. 1.24. Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves, 1.25. who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 1.26. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature. 1.27. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men doing what is inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error. 1.28. Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 1.29. being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers, 1.30. backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 1.31. without understanding, covet-breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful; 1.32. who, knowing the ordice of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. |
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27. New Testament, Galatians, 1.12-2.14 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 48 |
28. New Testament, Ephesians, 6.16 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 6.16. ἐν πᾶσιν ἀναλαβόντες τὸν θυρεὸν τῆς πίστεως, ἐν ᾧ δυνήσεσθε πάντα τὰ βέλη τοῦ πονηροῦ [τὰ] πεπυρωμένα σβέσαι· | 6.16. above all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. 6. , Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. , "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with a promise: , "that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.", You fathers, don't provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. , Servants, be obedient to those who according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as to Christ; , not in the way of service only when eyes are on you, as men-pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; , with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men; , knowing that whatever good thing each one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is bound or free. , You masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him. , Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. , Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. , For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world's rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. , Therefore, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. , Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, , and having fitted your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; , above all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. , And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; , with all prayer and requests, praying at all times in the Spirit, and being watchful to this end in all perseverance and requests for all the saints: , on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, , for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. , But that you also may know my affairs, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make known to you all things; , whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our state, and that he may comfort your hearts. , Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. , Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. Amen. |
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29. New Testament, 2 Corinthians, 11-13, 10 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 48 |
30. Seneca The Younger, Letters, 90 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 59 90. humana temne. iam Styga et manes ferox | 90. Who can doubt, my dear Lucilius, that life is the gift of the immortal gods, but that living well[1] is the gift of philosophy? Hence the idea that our debt to philosophy is greater than our debt to the gods, in proportion as a good life is more of a benefit than mere life, would be regarded as correct, were not philosophy itself a boon which the gods have bestowed upon us. They have given the knowledge thereof to none, but the faculty of acquiring it they have given to all. ,For if they had made philosophy also a general good, and if we were gifted with understanding at our birth, wisdom would have lost her best attribute – that she is not one of the gifts of fortune. For as it is, the precious and noble characteristic of wisdom is that she does not advance to meet us, that each man is indebted to himself for her, and that we do not seek her at the hands of others. What would there be in philosophy worthy of your respect, if she were a thing that came by bounty? ,Her sole function is to discover the truth about things divine and things human. From her side religion never departs, nor duty, nor justice, nor any of the whole company of virtues which cling together in close-united fellowship. Philosophy has taught us to worship that which is divine, to love that which is human;[2] she has told us that with the gods lies dominion, and among men, fellowship. This fellowship remained unspoiled for a long time, until avarice tore the community asunder and became the cause of poverty, even in the case of those whom she herself had most enriched. For men cease to possess all things the moment they desire all things for their own. ,But the first men and those who sprang from them, still unspoiled, followed nature, having one man as both their leader and their law, entrusting themselves to the control of one better than themselves. For nature has the habit of subjecting the weaker to the stronger. Even among the dumb animals those which are either biggest or fiercest hold sway. It is no weakling bull that leads the herd; it is one that has beaten the other males by his might and his muscle. In the case of elephants, the tallest goes first; among men, the best is regarded as the highest. That is why it was to the mind that a ruler was assigned; and for that reason the greatest happiness rested with those peoples among whom a man could not be the more powerful unless he were the better. For that man can safely accomplish what he will who thinks he can do nothing except what he ought to do. ,Accordingly, in that age which is maintained to be the golden age,[3] Posidonius[4] holds that the government was under the jurisdiction of the wise. They kept their hands under control, and protected the weaker from the stronger. They gave advice, both to do and not to do; they showed what was useful and what was useless. Their forethought provided that their subjects should lack nothing; their bravery warded off dangers; their kindness enriched and adorned their subjects. For them ruling was a service, not an exercise of royalty. No ruler tried his power against those to whom he owed the beginnings of his power; and no one had the inclination, or the excuse, to do wrong, since the ruler ruled well and the subject obeyed well, and the king could utter no greater threat against disobedient subjects than that they should depart from the kingdom. ,But when once vice stole in and kingdoms were transformed into tyrannies, a need arose for laws; and these very laws were in turn framed by the wise. Solon, who established Athens upon a firm basis by just laws, was one of the seven men renowned for their wisdom.[5] Had Lycurgus lived in the same period, an eighth would have been added to that hallowed number seven. The laws of Zaleucus and Charondas are praised; it was not in the forum or in the offices of skilled counsellors, but in the silent and holy retreat of Pythagoras, that these two men learned the principles of justice which they were to establish in Sicily (which at that time was prosperous) and throughout Grecian Italy. ,Up to this point I agree with Posidonius; but that philosophy discovered the arts of which life makes use in its daily round[6] I refuse to admit, nor will I ascribe to it an artisan's glory. Posidonius says: "When men were scattered over the earth, protected by caves or by the dug-out shelter of a cliff or by the trunk of a hollow tree, it was philosophy that taught them to build houses." But I, for my part, do not hold that philosophy devised these shrewdly-contrived dwellings of ours which rise story upon story, where city crowds against city, any more than that she invented the fish-preserves, which are enclosed for the purpose of saving men's gluttony from having to run the risk of storms, and in order that, no matter how wildly the sea is raging, luxury may have its safe harbours in which to fatten fancy breeds of fish. ,What! Was it philosophy that taught the use of keys and bolts? Nay, what was that except giving a hint to avarice? Was it philosophy that erected all these towering tenements, so dangerous to the persons who dwell in them? Was it not enough for man to provide himself a roof of any chance covering, and to contrive for himself some natural retreat without the help of art and without trouble? Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders! ,All this sort of thing was born when luxury was being born, – this matter of cutting timbers square and cleaving a beam with unerring hand as the saw made its way over the marked-out line. The primal man with wedges split his wood.[7] For they were not preparing a roof for a future banquet-ball; for no such use did they carry the pine-trees or the firs along the trembling streets[8] with a long row of drays – merely to fasten thereon panelled ceilings heavy with gold. ,Forked poles erected at either end propped up their houses. With close-packed branches and with leaves heaped up and laid sloping they contrived a drainage for even the heaviest rains. Beneath such dwellings, they lived, but they lived in peace. A thatched roof once covered free men; under marble and gold dwells slavery. ,On another point also I differ from Posidonius, when he holds that mechanical tools were the invention of wise men. For on that basis one might maintain that those were wise who taught the arts of setting traps for game, and liming twigs For birds, and girdling mighty woods with dogs.[9] It was man's ingenuity, not his wisdom, that discovered all these devices. ,And I also differ from him when he says that wise men discovered our mines of iron and copper, "when the earth, scorched by forest fires, melted the veins of ore which lay near the surface and caused the metal to gush forth."[10] Nay, the sort of men who discover such things are the sort of men who are busied with them. ,Nor do I consider this question so subtle as Posidonius thinks, namely, whether the hammer or the tongs came first into use. They were both invented by some man whose mind was nimble and keen, but not great or exalted; and the same holds true of any other discovery which can only be made by means of a bent body and of a mind whose gaze is upon the ground. The wise man was easy-going in his way of living. And why not? Even in our own times he would prefer to be as little cumbered as possible. ,How, I ask, can you consistently admire both Diogenes and Daedalus? Which of these two seems to you a wise man – the one who devised the saw, or the one who, on seeing a boy drink water from the hollow of his hand, forthwith took his cup from his wallet and broke it, upbraiding himself with these words:[11] "Fool that I am, to have been carrying superfluous baggage all this time!" and then curled himself up in his tub and lay down to sleep? ,In these our own times, which man, pray, do you deem the wiser – the one who invents a process for spraying saffron perfumes to a tremendous height from hidden pipes, who fills or empties canals by a sudden rush of waters, who so cleverly constructs a dining-room with a ceiling of movable panels that it presents one pattern after another, the roof changing as often as the courses,[12]– or the one who proves to others, as well as to himself, that nature has laid upon us no stern and difficult law when she tells us that we can live without the marble-cutter and the engineer, that we can clothe ourselves without traffic in silk fabrics, that we can have everything that is indispensable to our use, provided only that we are content with what the earth has placed on its surface? If mankind were willing to listen to this sage, they would know that the cook is as superfluous to them as the soldier. ,Those were wise men, or at any rate like the wise, who found the care of the body a problem easy to solve. The things that are indispensable require no elaborate pains for their acquisition; it is only the luxuries that call for labour. Follow nature, and you will need no skilled craftsmen. Nature did not wish us to be harassed. For whatever she forced upon us, she equipped us. "But cold cannot be endured by the naked body." What then? Are there not the skins of wild beasts and other animals, which can protect us well enough, and more than enough, from the cold? Do not many tribes cover their bodies with the bark of trees? Are not the feathers of birds sewn together to serve for clothing? Even at the present day does not a large portion of the Scythian tribe garb itself in the skins of foxes and mice, soft to the touch and impervious to the winds? ,For all that, men must have some thicker protection than the skin, in order to keep off the heat of the sun in summer. What then? Has not antiquity produced many retreats which, hollowed out either by the damage wrought by time or by any other occurrence you will, have opened into caverns? What then? Did not the very first-comers take twigs[13] and weave them by hand into wicker mats, smear them with common mud, and then with stubble and other wild grasses construct a roof, and thus pass their winters secure, the rains carried off by means of the sloping gables? What then? Do not the peoples on the edge of the Syrtes dwell in dug-out houses – and indeed all the tribes who, because of the too fierce blaze of the sun, possess no protection sufficient to keep off the heat except the parched soil itself? ,Nature was not so hostile to man that, when she gave all the other animals an easy rôle in life, she made it impossible for him alone to live without all these artifices. None of these was imposed upon us by her; none of them had to be painfully sought out that our lives might be prolonged. All things were ready for us at our birth; it is we that have made everything difficult for ourselves, through our disdain for what is easy. Houses, shelter, creature comforts, food, and all that has now become the source of vast trouble, were ready at hand, free to all, and obtainable for trifling pains. For the limit everywhere corresponded to the need; it is we that have made all those things valuable, we that have made them admired, we that have caused them to be sought for by extensive and manifold devices. ,Nature suffices for what she demands. Luxury has turned her back upon nature; each day she expands herself, in all the ages she has been gathering strength, and by her wit promoting the vices. At first, luxury began to lust for what nature regarded as superfluous, then for that which was contrary to nature; and finally she made the soul a bondsman to the body, and bade it be an utter slave to the body's lusts. All these crafts by which the city is patrolled – or shall I say kept in uproar – are but engaged in the body's business; time was when all things were offered to the body as to a slave, but now they are made ready for it as for a master. Accordingly, hence have come the workshops of the weavers and the carpenters; hence the savoury smells of the professional cooks; hence the wantonness of those who teach wanton postures, and wanton and affected singing. For that moderation which nature prescribes, which limits our desires by resources restricted to our needs, has abandoned the field; it has now come to this – that to want only what is enough is a sign both of boorishness and of utter destitution. ,It is hard to believe, my dear Lucilius, how easily the charm of eloquence wins even great men away from the truth. Take, for example, Posidonius – who, in my estimation, is of the number of those who have contributed most to philosophy – when he wishes to describe the art of weaving. He tells how, first, some threads are twisted and some drawn out from the soft, loose mass of wool; next, how the upright warp keeps the threads stretched by means of hanging weights; then, how the inserted thread of the woof, which softens the hard texture of the web which holds it fast on either side, is forced by the batten to make a compact union with the warp. He maintains that even the weaver's art was discovered by wise men, forgetting that the more complicated art which he describes was invented in later days – the art wherein The web is bound to frame; asunder now The reed doth part the warp. Between the threads Is shot the woof by pointed shuttles borne; The broad comb's well-notched teeth then drive it home.[14] Suppose he had had the opportunity of seeing the weaving of our own day, which produces the clothing that will conceal nothing, the clothing which affords – I will not say no protection to the body, but none even to modesty! ,Posidonius then passes on to the farmer. With no less eloquence he describes the ground which is broken up and crossed again by the plough, so that the earth, thus loosened, may allow freer play to the roots; then the seed is sown, and the weeds plucked out by hand, lest any chance growth or wild plant spring up and spoil the crop. This trade also, he declares, is the creation of the wise, – just as if cultivators of the soil were not even at the present day discovering countless new methods of increasing the soil's fertility! ,Furthermore, not confining his attention to these arts, he even degrades the wise man by sending him to the mill. For he tells us how the sage, by imitating the processes of nature, began to make bread. "The grain,"[15] he says, "once taken into the mouth, is crushed by the flinty teeth, which meet in hostile encounter, and whatever grain slips out the tongue turns back to the selfsame teeth. Then it is blended into a mass, that it may the more easily pass down the slippery throat. When this has reached the stomach, it is digested by the stomach's equable heat; then, and not till then, it is assimilated with the body. ,Following this pattern," he goes on, "someone placed two rough stones, the one above the other, in imitation of the teeth, one set of which is stationary and awaits the motion of the other set. Then, by the rubbing of the one stone against the other, the grain is crushed and brought back again and again, until by frequent rubbing it is reduced to powder. Then this man sprinkled the meal with water, and by continued manipulation subdued the mass and moulded the loaf. This loaf was, at first, baked by hot ashes or by an earthen vessel glowing hot; later on ovens were gradually discovered and the other devices whose heat will render obedience to the sage's will." Posidonius came very near declaring that even the cobbler's trade was the discovery of the wise man. ,Reason did indeed devise all these things, but it was not right reason. It was man, but not the wise man, that discovered them; just as they invented ships, in which we cross rivers and seas – ships fitted with sails for the purpose of catching the force of the winds, ships with rudders added at the stern in order to turn the vessel's course in one direction or another. The model followed was the fish, which steers itself by its tail, and by its slightest motion on this side or on that bends its swift course. ,But, says Posidonius, "the wise man did indeed discover all these things; they were, however, too petty for him to deal with himself and so he entrusted them to his meaner assistants." Not so; these early inventions were thought out by no other class of men than those who have them in charge to-day. We know that certain devices have come to light only within our own memory – such as the use of windows which admit the clear light through transparent tiles,[16] and such as the vaulted baths, with pipes let into their walls for the purpose of diffusing the heat which maintains an even temperature in their lowest as well as in their highest spaces. Why need I mention the marble with which our temples and our private houses are resplendent? Or the rounded and polished masses of stone by means of which we erect colonnades and buildings roomy enough for nations? Or our signs[17] for whole words, which enable us to take down a speech, however rapidly uttered, matching speed of tongue by speed of hand? All this sort of thing has been devised by the lowest grade of slaves. ,Wisdom's seat is higher; she trains not the hands, but is mistress of our minds. Would you know what wisdom has brought forth to light, what she has accomplished? It is not the graceful poses of the body, or the varied notes produced by horn and flute, whereby the breath is received and, as it passes out or through, is transformed into voice. It is not wisdom that contrives arms, or walls, or instruments useful in war; nay, her voice is for peace, and she summons all mankind to concord. ,It is not she, I maintain, who is the artisan of our indispensable implements of daily use. Why do you assign to her such petty things? You see in her the skilled artisan of life. The other arts, it is true, wisdom has under her control; for he whom life serves is also served by the things which equip life. But wisdom's course is toward the state of happiness; thither she guides us, thither she opens the way for us. ,She shows us what things are evil and what things are seemingly evil; she strips our minds of vain illusion. She bestows upon us a greatness which is substantial, but she represses the greatness which is inflated, and showy but filled with emptiness; and she does not permit us to be ignorant of the difference between what is great and what is but swollen; nay, she delivers to us the knowledge of the whole of nature and of her own nature. She discloses to us what the gods are and of what sort they are; what are the nether gods, the household deities, and the protecting spirits; what are the souls which have been endowed with lasting life and have been admitted to the second class of divinities,[18] where is their abode and what their activities, powers, and will. Such are wisdom's rites of initiation, by means of which is unlocked, not a village shrine, but the vast temple of all the gods – the universe itself, whose true apparitions and true aspects she offers to the gaze of our minds. For the vision of our eyes is too dull for sights so great. ,Then she goes back to the beginnings of things, to the eternal Reason[19] which was imparted to the whole, and to the force which inheres in all the seeds of things, giving them the power to fashion each thing according to its kind. Then wisdom begins to inquire about the soul, whence it comes, where it dwells, how long it abides, into how many divisions it falls. Finally, she has turned her attention from the corporeal to the incorporeal, and has closely examined truth and the marks whereby truth is known, inquiring next how that which is equivocal can be distinguished from the truth, whether in life or in language; for in both are elements of the false mingled with the true. ,It is my opinion that the wise man has not withdrawn himself, as Posidonius thinks, from those arts which we were discussing, but that he never took them up at all.[20] For he would have judged that nothing was worth discovering that he would not afterwards judge to be worth using always. He would not take up things which would have to be laid aside. ,But Anacharsis, says Posidonius, "invented the potter's wheel, whose whirling gives shape to vessels."[21] Then because the potter's wheel is mentioned in Homer, people prefer to believe that Homer's verses are false rather than the story of Posidonius! But I maintain that Anacharsis was not the creator of this wheel; and even if he was, although he was a wise man when he invented it, yet he did not invent it qua "wise man" – just as there are a great many things which wise men do as men, not as wise men. Suppose, for example, that a wise man is exceedingly fleet of foot; he will outstrip all the runners in the race by virtue of being fleet, not by virtue of his wisdom. I should like to show Posidonius some glass-blower who by his breath moulds the glass into manifold shapes which could scarcely be fashioned by the most skilful hand. Nay, these discoveries have been made since we men have ceased to discover wisdom. ,But Posidonius again remarks: "Democritus is said to have discovered the arch,[22] whose effect was that the curving line of stones, which gradually lean toward each other, is bound together by the keystone." I am inclined to pronounce this statement false. For there must have been, before Democritus, bridges and gateways in which the curvature did not begin until about the top. ,It seems to have quite slipped your memory that this same Democritus discovered how ivory could be softened, how, by boiling, a pebble could be transformed into an emerald,[23]– the same process used even to-day for colouring stones which are found to be amenable to this treatment! It may have been a wise man who discovered all such things, but he did not discover them by virtue of being a wise man; for he does many things which we see done just as well, or even more skilfully and dexterously, by men who are utterly lacking in sagacity. ,Do you ask what, then, the wise man has found out and what he has brought to light? First of all there is truth, and nature; and nature he has not followed as the other animals do, with eyes too dull to perceive the divine in it. In the second place, there is the law of life, and life he has made to conform to universal principles; and he has taught us, not merely to know the gods, but to follow them, and to welcome the gifts of chance precisely as if they were divine commands. He has forbidden us to give heed to false opinions, and has weighed the value of each thing by a true standard of appraisement. He has condemned those pleasures with which remorse is intermingled, and has praised those goods which will always satisfy; and he has published the truth abroad that he is most happy who has no need of happiness, and that he is most powerful who has power over himself. ,I am not speaking of that philosophy which has placed the citizen outside his country and the gods outside the universe, and which has bestowed virtue upon pleasure,[24] but rather of that philosophy which counts nothing good except what is honourable, – one which cannot be cajoled by the gifts either of man or of fortune, one whose value is that it cannot be bought for any value. That this philosophy existed in such a rude age, when the arts and crafts were still unknown and when useful things could only be learned by use, – this I refuse to believe. ,Next there came the fortune-favoured period when the bounties of nature lay open to all, for men's indiscriminate use, before avarice and luxury had broken the bonds which held mortals together, and they, abandoning their communal existence, had separated and turned to plunder. The men of the second age were not wise men, even though they did what wise men should do.[25],Indeed, there is no other condition of the human race that anyone would regard more highly; and if God should commission a man to fashion earthly creatures and to bestow institutions upon peoples, this man would approve of no other system than that which obtained among the men of that age, when No ploughman tilled the soil, nor was it right To portion off or bound one's property. Men shared their gains, and earth more freely gave Her riches to her sons who sought them not.[26] ,What race of men was ever more blest than that race? They enjoyed all nature in partnership. Nature sufficed for them, now the guardian, as before she was the parent, of all; and this her gift consisted of the assured possession by each man of the common resources. Why should I not even call that race the richest among mortals, since you could not find a poor person among them? But avarice broke in upon a condition so happily ordained, and, by its eagerness to lay something away and to turn it to its own private use, made all things the property of others, and reduced itself from boundless wealth to straitened need. It was avarice that introduced poverty and, by craving much, lost all. ,And so, although she now tries to make good her loss, although she adds one estate to another, evicting a neighbour either by buying him out or by wronging him, although she extends her country-seats to the size of provinces and defines ownership as meaning extensive travel through one's own property, – in spite of all these efforts of hers, no enlargement of our boundaries will bring us back to the condition from which we have departed. When there is no more that we can do, we shall possess much; but we once possessed the whole world! ,The very soil was more productive when untilled, and yielded more than enough for peoples who refrained from despoiling one another. Whatever gift nature had produced, men found as much pleasure in revealing it to another as in having discovered it. It was possible for no man either to surpass another or to fall short of him; what there was, was divided among unquarrelling friends. Not yet had the stronger begun to lay hands upon the weaker; not yet had the miser, by hiding away what lay before him, begun to shut off his neighbour from even the necessities of life; each cared as much for his neighbour as for himself. ,Armour lay unused, and the hand, unstained by human blood, had turned all its hatred against wild beasts. The men of that day, who had found in some dense grove protection against the sun, and security against the severity of winter or of rain in their mean hiding-places, spent their lives under the branches of the trees and passed tranquil nights without a sigh. Care vexes us in our purple, and routs us from our beds with the sharpest of goads; but how soft was the sleep the hard earth bestowed upon the men of that day! ,No fretted and panelled ceilings hung over them, but as they lay beneath the open sky the stars glided quietly above them, and the firmament, night's noble pageant, marched swiftly by, conducting its mighty task in silence. For them by day, as well as by night, the visions of this most glorious abode were free and open. It was their joy to watch the constellations as they sank from mid-heaven, and others, again, as they rose from their hidden abodes. ,What else but joy could it be to wander among the marvels which dotted the heavens far and wide? But you of the present day shudder at every sound your houses make, and as you sit among your frescoes the slightest creak makes you shrink in terror. They had no houses as big as cities. The air, the breezes blowing free through the open spaces, the flitting shade of crag or tree, springs crystal-clear and streams not spoiled by man's work, whether by water-pipe[27] or by any confinement of the channel, but running at will, and meadows beautiful without the use of art, – amid such scenes were their rude homes, adorned with rustic hand. Such a dwelling was in accordance with nature; therein it was a joy to live, fearing neither the dwelling itself nor for its safety. In these days, however, our houses constitute a large portion of our dread. ,But no matter how excellent and guileless was the life of the men of that age, they were not wise men; for that title is reserved for the highest achievement. Still, I would not deny that they were men of lofty spirit and – I may use the phrase – fresh from the gods. For there is no doubt that the world produced a better progeny before it was yet worn out. However, not all were endowed with mental faculties of highest perfection, though in all cases their native powers were more sturdy than ours and more fitted for toil. For nature does not bestow virtue; it is an art to become good. ,They, at least, searched not in the lowest dregs of the earth for gold, nor yet for silver or transparent stones; and they still were merciful even to the dumb animals – so far removed was that epoch from the custom of slaying man by man, not in anger or through fear, but just to make a show! They had as yet no embroidered garments nor did they weave cloth of gold; gold was not yet even mined. ,What, then, is the conclusion of the matter? It was by reason of their ignorance of things that the men of those days were innocent; and it makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.[28] Justice was unknown to them, unknown prudence, unknown also self-control and bravery; but their rude life possessed certain qualities akin to all these virtues. Virtue is not vouchsafed to a soul unless that soul has been trained and taught, and by unremitting practice brought to perfection. For the attainment of this boon, but not in the possession of it, were we born; and even in the best of men, before you refine them by instruction, there is but the stuff of virtue, not virtue itself. Farewell. Tellus in longas est patefacta vias! Cf. § 46, summing up the message of Seneca's letter. Serraco veniente abies, atque altera pinum Plaustra vehunt, nutant alte populoque mitur. Compare also the "towering tenements" of § ,Et densi frutices et vinctae cortice virgae. Among many accounts by Roman writers of early man, compare this passage of Ovid, and that in the fifth book of Lucretius. Quam quae per pronum trepidat cum murmure rivum? XCI. On the Lesson to be Drawn from the Burning of Lyons[1] ,Our friend Liberalis[2] is now downcast; for he has just heard of the fire which has wiped out the colony of Lyons. Such a calamity might upset anyone at all, not to speak of a man who dearly loves his country. But this incident has served to make him inquire about the strength of his own character, which he has trained, I suppose, just to meet situations that he thought might cause him fear. I do not wonder, however, that he was free from apprehension touching an evil so unexpected and practically unheard of as this, since it is without precedent. For fire has damaged many a city, but has annihilated none. Even when fire has been hurled against the walls by the hand of a foe, the flame dies out in many places, and although continually renewed, rarely devours so wholly as to leave nothing for the sword. Even an earthquake has scarcely ever been so violent and destructive as to overthrow whole cities. Finally, no conflagration has ever before blazed forth so savagely in any town that nothing was left for a second. ,So many beautiful buildings, any single one of which would make a single town famous, were wrecked in one night. In time of such deep peace an event has taken place worse than men can possibly fear even in time of war. Who can believe it? When weapons are everywhere at rest, and when peace prevails throughout the world, Lyons, the pride of Gaul,[3] is missing! Fortune has usually allowed all men, when she has assailed them collectively, to have a foreboding of that which they were destined to suffer. Every great creation has had granted to it a period of reprieve before its fall; but in this case, only a single night elapsed between the city at its greatest and the city non-existent. In short, it takes me longer to tell you it has perished than it took for the city to perish. ,All this has affected our friend Liberalis, bending his will, which is usually so steadfast and erect in the face of his own trials. And not without reason has he been shaken; for it is the unexpected that puts the heaviest load upon us. Strangeness adds to the weight of calamities, and every mortal feels the greater pain as a result of that which also brings surprise. ,Therefore, nothing ought to be unexpected by us. Our minds should be sent forward in advance to meet all problems, and we should conside r, not what is wont to happen, but what can happen. For what is there in existence that Fortune, when she has so willed, does not drag down from the very height of its prosperity? And what is there that she does not the more violently assail the more brilliantly it shines? What is laborious or difficult for her? ,She does not always attack in one way, or even with her full strength; at one time she summons our own hands against us; at another time, content with her own powers, she makes use of no agent in devising perils for us. No time is exempt; in the midst of our very pleasures there spring up causes of suffering. War arises in the midst of peace, and that which we depended upon for protection is transformed into a cause of fear; friend becomes enemy, ally becomes foeman. The summer calm is stirred into sudden storms, wilder than the storms of winter.[4] With no foe in sight we are victims of such fates as foes inflict, and if other causes of disaster fail, excessive good fortune finds them for itself. The most temperate are assailed by illness, the strongest by wasting disease, the most innocent by chastisement, the most secluded by the noisy mob. Chance chooses some new weapon by which to bring her strength to bear against us, thinking we have forgotten her. ,Whatever structure has been reared by a long sequence of years, at the cost of great toil and through the great kindness of the gods, is scattered and dispersed by a single day. Nay, he who has said "a day" has granted too long a postponement to swift-coming misfortune; an hour, an instant of time, suffices for the overthrow of empires! It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works, if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid. ,Nothing, whether public or private, is stable; the destinies of men, no less than those of cities, are in a whirl. Amid the greatest calm terror arises, and though no external agencies stir up commotion, yet evils burst forth from sources whence they were least expected. Thrones which have stood the shock of civil and foreign wars crash to the ground though no one sets them tottering. How few the states which have carried their good fortune through to the end! We should therefore reflect upon all contingencies, and should fortify our minds against the evils which may possibly come. ,Exile, the torture of disease, wars, shipwreck, – we must think on these.[5] Chance may tear you from your country or your country from you, or may banish you to the desert; this very place, where throngs are stifling, may become a desert. Let us place before our eyes in its entirety the nature of man's lot, and if we would not be overwhelmed, or even dazed, by those unwonted evils, as if they were novel, let us summon to our minds beforehand, not as great an evil as oftentimes happens, but the very greatest evil that possibly can happen. We must reflect upon fortune fully and completely. ,How often have cities in Asia, how often in Achaia, been laid low by a single shock of earthquake! How many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been swallowed up! How often has this kind of devastation laid Cyprus[6] in ruins! How often has Paphos collapsed! Not infrequently are tidings brought to us of the utter destruction of entire cities; yet how small a part of the world are we, to whom such tidings often come! Let us rise, therefore, to confront the operations of Fortune, and whatever happens, let us have the assurance that it is not so great as rumour advertises it to be. ,A rich city has been laid in ashes, the jewel of the provinces, counted as one of them and yet not included with them;[7] rich though it was, nevertheless it was set upon a single hill,[8] and that not very large in extent. But of all those cities, of whose magnificence and grandeur you hear today, the very traces will be blotted out by time. Do you not see how, in Achaia, the foundations of the most famous cities have already crumbled to nothing, so that no trace is left to show that they ever even existed?[9],Not only does that which has been made with hands totter to the ground, not only is that which has been set in place by man's art and man's efforts overthrown by the passing days; nay, the peaks of mountains dissolve, whole tracts have settled, and places which once stood far from the sight of the sea are now covered by the waves. The mighty power of fires has eaten away the hills through whose sides they used to glow, and has levelled to the ground peaks which were once most lofty – the sailor's solace and his beacon. The works of nature herself are harassed; hence we ought to bear with untroubled minds the destruction of cities. ,They stand but to fall! This doom awaits them, one and all; it may be that some internal force, and blasts of violence which are tremendous because their way is blocked, will throw off the weight which holds then down; or that a whirlpool of raging currents, mightier because they are hidden in the bosom of the earth, will break through that which resists its power; or that the vehemence of flames will burst asunder the framework of the earth's crust; or that time, from which nothing is safe, will reduce them little by little; or that a pestilential climate will drive their inhabitants away and the mould will corrode their deserted walls. It would be tedious to recount all the ways by which fate may come; but this one thing I know: all the works of mortal man have been doomed to mortality, and in the midst of things which have been destined to die, we live! ,Hence it is thoughts like these, and of this kind, which I am offering as consolation to our friend Liberalis, who burns with a love for his country that is beyond belief. Perhaps its destruction has been brought about only that it may be raised up again to a better destiny. oftentimes a reverse has but made room for more prosperous fortune. Many structures have fallen only to rise to a greater height. Timagenes,[10] who had a grudge against Rome and her prosperity, used to say that the only reason he was grieved when conflagrations occurred in Rome was his knowledge that better buildings would arise than those which had gone down in the flames. ,And probably in this city of Lyons, too, all its citizens will earnestly strive that everything shall be rebuilt better in size and security than what they have lost. May it be built to endure and, under happier auspices, for a longer existence! This is indeed but the hundredth year since this colony was founded – not the limit even of a man's lifetime.[11] Led forth by Plancus, the natural advantages of its site have caused it to wax strong and reach the numbers which it contains to-day; and yet how many calamities of the greatest severity has it endured within the space of an old man's life! ,Therefore let the mind be disciplined to understand and to endure its own lot, and let it have the knowledge that there is nothing which fortune does not dare – that she has the same jurisdiction over empires as over emperors, the same power over cities as over the citizens who dwell therein. We must not cry out at any of these calamities. Into such a world have we entered, and under such laws do we live. If you like it, obey; if not, depart whithersoever you wish. Cry out in anger if any unfair measures are taken with reference to you individually; but if this inevitable law is binding upon the highest and the lowest alike, be reconciled to fate, by which all things are dissolved. ,You should not estimate our worth by our funeral mounds or by these monuments of unequal size which line the road; their ashes level all men! We are unequal at birth, but are equal in death. What I say about cities I say also about their inhabitants: Ardea was captured as well as Rome.[12] The great founder of human law has not made distinctions between us on the basis of high lineage or of illustrious names, except while we live. When, however, we come to the end which awaits mortals, he says: "Depart, ambition! To all creatures that burden the earth let one and the same[13] law apply!" For enduring all things, we are equal; no one is more frail than another, no one more certain of his own life on the morrow. ,Alexander, king of Macedon, began to study geometry;[14] unhappy man, because he would thereby learn how puny was that earth of which he had seized but a fraction! Unhappy man, I repeat, because he was bound to understand that he was bearing a false title. For who can be "great" in that which is puny? The lessons which were being taught him were intricate and could be learned only by assiduous application; they were not the kind to be comprehended by a madman, who let his thoughts range beyond the ocean.[15] "Teach me something easy!" he cries; but his teacher answers: "These things are the same for all, as hard for one as for another." ,Imagine that nature is saying to us: "Those things of which you complain are the same for all. I cannot give anything easier to any man, but whoever wishes will make things easier for himself." In what way? By equanimity. You must suffer pain, and thirst, and hunger, and old age too, if a longer stay among men shall be granted you; you must be sick, and you must suffer loss and death. ,Nevertheless, you should not believe those whose noisy clamour surrounds you; none of these things is an evil, none is beyond your power to bear, or is burdensome. It is only by common opinion that there is anything formidable in them. Your fearing death is therefore like your fear of gossip. But what is more foolish than a man afraid of words? Our friend Demetrius[16] is wont to put it cleverly when he says: "For me the talk of ignorant men is like the rumblings which issue from the belly. For," he adds, "what difference does it make to me whether such rumblings come from above or from below?" ,What madness it is to be afraid of disrepute in the judgment of the disreputable! Just as you have had no cause for shrinking in terror from the talk of men, so you have no cause now to shrink from these things, which you would never fear had not their talk forced fear upon you. Does it do any harm to a good man to be besmirched by unjust gossip? ,Then let not this sort of thing damage death, either, in our estimation; death also is in bad odour. But no one of those who malign death has made trial of it. Meanwhile it is foolhardy to condemn that of which you are ignorant. This one thing, however, you do know – that death is helpful to many, that it sets many free from tortures, want, ailments, sufferings, and weariness. We are in the power of nothing when once we have death in our own power! Farewell. Sed fortuna fuit. XCII. On the Happy Life[1] ,You and I will agree, I think, that outward things are sought for the satisfaction of the body, that the body is cherished out of regard for the soul, and that in the soul there are certain parts which minister to us, enabling us to move and to sustain life, bestowed upon us just for the sake of the primary part of us.[2] In this primary part there is something irrational, and something rational. The former obeys the latter, while the latter is the only thing that is not referred back to another, but rather refers all things to itself. For the divine reason also is set in supreme command over all things, and is itself subject to none; and even this reason which we possess is the same, because it is derived from the divine reason. ,Now if we are agreed on this point, it is natural that we shall be agreed on the following also – namely, that the happy life depends upon this and this alone: our attainment of perfect reason. For it is naught but this that keeps the soul from being bowed down, that stands its ground against Fortune; whatever the condition of their affairs may be, it keeps men untroubled. And that alone is a good which is never subject to impairment. That man, I declare, is happy whom nothing makes less strong than he is; he keeps to the heights, leaning upon none but himself; for one who sustains himself by any prop may fall. If the case is otherwise, then things which do not pertain to us will begin to have great influence over us. But who desires Fortune to have the upper hand, or what sensible man prides himself upon that which is not his own? ,What is the happy life? It is peace of mind, and lasting tranquillity. This will be yours if you possess greatness of soul; it will be yours if you possess the steadfastness that resolutely clings to a good judgment just reached. How does a man reach this condition? By gaining a complete view of truth, by maintaining, in all that he does, order, measure, fitness, and a will that is inoffensive and kindly, that is intent upon reason and never departs therefrom, that commands at the same time love and admiration. In short, to give you the principle in brief compass, the wise man's soul ought to be such as would be proper for a god. ,What more can one desire who possesses all honourable things? For if dishonourable things can contribute to the best estate, then there will be the possibility of a happy life under conditions which do not include an honourable life. And what is more base or foolish than to connect the good of a rational soul with things irrational? ,Yet there are certain philosophers who hold that the Supreme Good admits of increase because it is hardly complete when the gifts of fortune are adverse.[3] Even Antipater,[4] one of the great leaders of this school, admits that he ascribes some influence to externals, though only a very slight influence. You see, however, what absurdity lies in not being content with the daylight unless it is increased by a tiny fire. What importance can a spark have in the midst of this clear sunlight? ,If you are not contented with only that which is honourable, it must follow that you desire in addition either the kind of quiet which the Greeks call "undisturbedness," or else pleasure. But the former may be attained in any case. For the mind is free from disturbance when it is fully free to contemplate the universe, and nothing distracts it from the contemplation of nature. The second, pleasure, is simply the good of cattle. We are but adding[5] the irrational to the rational, the dishonourable to the honourable. A pleasant physical sensation affects this life of ours; ,why, therefore, do you hesitate to say that all is well with a man just because all is well with his appetite? And do you rate, I will not say among heroes, but among men, the person whose Supreme Good is a matter of flavours and colours and sounds? Nay, let him withdraw from the ranks of this, the noblest class of living beings, second only to the gods; let him herd with the dumb brutes – an animal whose delight is in fodder! ,The irrational part of the soul is twofold:[6] the one part is spirited, ambitious, uncontrolled; its seat is in the passions; the other is lowly, sluggish, and devoted to pleasure. Philosophers have neglected the former, which, though unbridled, is yet better, and is certainly more courageous and more worthy of a man, and have regarded the latter, which is nerveless and ignoble, as indispensable to the happy life. ,They have ordered reason to serve this latter; they have made the Supreme Good of the noblest living being an abject and mean affair, and a monstrous hybrid, too, composed of various members which harmonize but ill. For as our Vergil, describing Scylla, says[7] Above, a human face and maiden's breast, – A beauteous breast, – below, a monster huge of bulk and shapeless, with a dolphin's tail Joined to a wolf-like belly. And yet to this Scylla are tacked on the forms of wild animals, dreadful and swift; but from what monstrous shapes have these wiseacres compounded wisdom! ,Man's primary art is virtue itself; there is joined to this the useless and fleeting flesh, fitted only for the reception of food, as Posidonius remarks. This divine virtue ends in foulness, and to the higher parts, which are worshipful and heavenly, there is fastened a sluggish and flabby animal. As for the second desideratum, – quiet, – although it would indeed not of itself be of any benefit to the soul, yet it would relieve the soul of hindrances; pleasure, on the contrary, actually destroys the soul and softens all its vigour. What elements so inharmonious as these can be found united? To that which is most vigorous is joined that which is most sluggish, to that which is austere that which is far from serious, to that which is most holy that which is unrestrained even to the point of impurity. ,What, then, comes the retort, "if good health, rest, and freedom from pain are not likely to hinder virtue, shall you not seek all these?" of course I shall seek them, but not because they are goods, – I shall seek them because they are according to nature and because they will be acquired through the exercise of good judgment on my part. What, then, will be good in them? This alone, – that it is a good thing to choose them. For when I don suitable attire, or walk as I should, or dine as I ought to dine, it is not my dinner, or my walk, or my dress that are goods, but the deliberate choice which I show in regard to them, as I observe, in each thing I do, a mean that conforms with reason. ,Let me also add that the choice of neat clothing is a fitting object of a man's efforts; for man is by nature a neat and well-groomed animal. Hence the choice of neat attire, and not neat attire in itself, is a good; since the good is not in the thing selected, but in the quality of the selection. Our actions are honourable, but not the actual things which we do. ,And you may assume that what I have said about dress applies also to the body. For nature has surrounded our soul with the body as with a sort of garment; the body is its cloak. But who has ever reckoned the value of clothes by the wardrobe which contained them? The scabbard does not make the sword good or bad. Therefore, with regard to the body I shall return the same answer to you, – that, if I have the choice, I shall choose health and strength, but that the good involved will be my judgment regarding these things, and not the things themselves. ,Another retort is: "Granted that the wise man is happy; nevertheless, he does not attain the Supreme Good which we have defined, unless the means also which nature provides for its attainment are at his call. So, while one who possesses virtue cannot be unhappy, yet one cannot be perfectly happy if one lacks such natural gifts as health, or soundness of limb." ,But in saying this, you grant the alternative which seems the more difficult to believe, – that the man who is in the midst of unremitting and extreme pain is not wretched, nay, is even happy; and you deny that which is much less serious, – that he is completely happy. And yet, if virtue can keep a man from being wretched, it will be an easier task for it to render him completely happy. For the difference between happiness and complete happiness is less than that between wretchedness and happiness. Can it be possible that a thing which is so powerful as to snatch a man from disaster, and place him among the happy, cannot also accomplish what remains, and render him supremely happy? Does its strength fail at the very top of the climb? ,There are in life things which are advantageous and disadvantageous, – both beyond our control. If a good man, in spite of being weighed down by all kinds of disadvantages, is not wretched, how is he not supremely happy, no matter if he does lack certain advantages? For as he is not weighted down to wretchedness by his burden of disadvantages, so he is not withdrawn from supreme happiness through lack of any advantages; nay, he is just as supremely happy without the advantages as he is free from wretchedness though under the load of his disadvantages. Otherwise, if his good can be impaired, it can be snatched from him altogether. ,A short space above,[8] I remarked that a tiny fire does not add to the sun's light. For by reason of the sun's brightness any light that shines apart from the sunlight is blotted out. "But," one may say, "there are certain objects that stand in the way even of the sunlight." The sun, however, is unimpaired even in the midst of obstacles, and, though an object may intervene and cut off our view thereof, the sun sticks to his work and goes on his course. Whenever he shines forth from amid the clouds, he is no smaller, nor less punctual either, than when he is free from clouds; since it makes a great deal of difference whether there is merely something in the way of his light or something which interferes with his shining. ,Similarly, obstacles take nothing away from virtue; it is no smaller, but merely shines with less brilliancy. In our eyes, it may perhaps be less visible and less luminous than before; but as regards itself it is the same and, like the sun when he is eclipsed, is still, though in secret, putting forth its strength. Disasters, therefore, and losses, and wrongs, have only the same power over virtue that a cloud has over the sun. ,We meet with one person who maintains that a wise man who has met with bodily misfortune is neither wretched nor happy. But he also is in error, for he is putting the results of chance upon a parity with the virtues, and is attributing only the same influence to things that are honourable as to things that are devoid of honour. But what is more detestable and more unworthy than to put contemptible things in the same class with things worthy of reverence! For reverence is due to justice, duty, loyalty, bravery, and prudence; on the contrary, those attributes are worthless with which the most worthless men are often blessed in fuller measure, – such as a sturdy leg, strong shoulders, good teeth, and healthy and solid muscles. ,Again, if the wise man whose body is a trial to him shall be regarded as neither wretched nor happy, but shall be left in a sort of half-way position, his life also will be neither desirable nor undesirable. But what is so foolish as to say that the wise man's life is not desirable? And what is so far beyond the bounds of credence as the opinion that any life is neither desirable nor undesirable? Again, if bodily ills do not make a man wretched, they consequently allow him to be happy. For things which have no power to change his condition for the worse, have not the power, either, to disturb that condition when it is at its best. ,But, someone will say, "we know what is cold and what is hot; a lukewarm temperature lies between. Similarly, A is happy, and B is wretched, and C is neither happy nor wretched." I wish to examine this figure, which is brought into play against us. If I add to your lukewarm water a larger quantity of cold water, the result will be cold water. But if I pour in a larger quantity of hot water, the water will finally become hot. In the case, however, of your man who is neither wretched nor happy, no matter how much I add to his troubles, he will not be unhappy, according to your argument; hence your figure offers no analogy. ,Again, suppose that I set before you a man who is neither miserable nor happy. I add blindness to his misfortunes; he is not rendered unhappy. I cripple him; he is not rendered unhappy. I add afflictions which are unceasing and severe; he is not rendered unhappy. Therefore, one whose life is not changed to misery by all these ills is not dragged by them, either, from his life of happiness. ,Then if, as you say, the wise man cannot fall from happiness to wretchedness, he cannot fall into non-happiness. For how, if one has begun to slip, can one stop at any particular place? That which prevents him from rolling to the bottom, keeps him at the summit. Why, you urge, may not a happy life possibly be destroyed? It cannot even be disjointed; and for that reason virtue is itself of itself sufficient for the happy life.[9] ,But, it is said, "is not the wise man happier if he has lived longer and has been distracted by no pain, than one who has always been compelled to grapple with evil fortune?" Answer me now, – is he any better or more honourable? If he is not, then he is not happier either. In order to live more happily, he must live more rightly; if he cannot do that, then he cannot live more happily either. Virtue cannot be strained tighter,[10] and therefore neither can the happy life, which depends on virtue. For virtue is so great a good that it is not affected by such insignificant assaults upon it as shortness of life, pain, and the various bodily vexations. For pleasure does not deserve that. virtue should even glance at it. ,Now what is the chief thing in virtue? It is the quality of not needing a single day beyond the present, and of not reckoning up the days that are ours; in the slightest possible moment of time virtue completes an eternity of good. These goods seem to us incredible and transcending man's nature; for we measure its grandeur by the standard of our own weakness, and we call our vices by the name of virtue. Furthermore, does it not seem just as incredible that any man in the midst of extreme suffering should say, "I am happy"? And yet this utterance was heard in the very factory of pleasure, when Epicurus said:[11] "To-day and one other day have been the happiest of all!" although in the one case he was tortured by strangury, and in the other by the incurable pain of an ulcerated stomach. ,Why, then, should those goods which virtue bestows be incredible in the sight of us, who cultivate virtue, when they are found even in those who acknowledge pleasure as their mistress? These also, ignoble and base-minded as they are, declare that even in the midst of excessive pain and misfortune the wise man will be neither wretched nor happy. And yet this also is incredible, – nay, still more incredible than the other case. For I do not understand how, if virtue falls from her heights, she can help being hurled all the way to the bottom. She either must preserve one in happiness, or, if driven from this position, she will not prevent us from becoming unhappy. If virtue only stands her ground, she cannot be driven from the field; she must either conquer or be conquered. ,But some say: "Only to the immortal gods is given virtue and the happy life; we can attain but the shadow, as it were, and semblance of such goods as theirs. We approach them, but we never reach them." Reason, however, is a common attribute of both gods and men; in the gods it is already perfected, in us it is capable of being perfected. ,But it is our vices that bring us to despair; for the second class of rational being, man, is of an inferior order, – a guardian, as it were, who is too unstable to hold fast to what is best, his judgment still wavering and uncertain. He may require the faculties of sight and hearing, good health, a bodily exterior that is not loathsome, and, besides, greater length of days conjoined with an unimpaired constitution. ,Though by means of reason he can lead a life which will not bring regrets, yet there resides in this imperfect creature, man, a certain power that makes for badness, because he possesses a mind which is easily moved to perversity. Suppose, however, the badness which is in full view, and has previously been stirred to activity, to be removed; the man is still not a good man, but he is being moulded to goodness. One, however, in whom there is lacking any quality that makes for goodness, is bad. ,But He in whose body virtue dwells, and spirit E'er present[12] is equal to the gods; mindful of his origin, he strives to return thither. No man does wrong in attempting to regain the heights from which he once came down. And why should you not believe that something of divinity exists in one who is a part of God? All this universe which encompasses us is one, and it is God; we are associates of God; we are his members. Our soul has capabilities, and is carried thither,[13] if vices do not hold it down. Just as it is the nature of our bodies to stand erect and look upward to the sky, so the soul, which may reach out as far as it will, was framed by nature to this end, that it should desire equality with the gods. And if it makes use of its powers and stretches upward into its proper region it is by no alien path that it struggles toward the heights. ,It would be a great task to journey heavenwards; the soul but returns thither. When once it has found the road, it boldly marches on, scornful of all things. It casts, no backward glance at wealth; gold and silver – things which are fully worthy of the gloom in which they once lay – it values not by the sheen which smites the eyes of the ignorant, but by the mire of ancient days, whence our greed first detached and dug them out. The soul, I affirm, knows that riches are stored elsewhere than in men's heaped-up treasure-houses; that it is the soul, and not the strong-box, which should be filled. ,It is the soul that men may set in dominion over all things, and may install as owner of the universe, so that it may limit its riches only by the boundaries of East and West, and, like the gods, may possess all things; and that it may, with its own vast resources, look down from on high upon the wealthy, no one of whom rejoices as much in his own wealth as he resents the wealth of another. ,When the soul has transported itself to this lofty height, it regards the body also, since it is a burden which must be borne, not as a thing to love, but as a thing to oversee; nor is it subservient to that over which it is set in mastery. For no man is free who is a slave to his body. Indeed, omitting all the other masters which are brought into being by excessive care for the body, the sway which the body itself exercises is captious and fastidious. ,Forth from this body the soul issues, now with unruffled spirit, now with exultation, and, when once it has gone forth, asks not what shall be the end of the deserted clay. No; just as we do not take thought for the clippings of the hair and the beard, even so that divine soul, when it is about to issue forth from the mortal man, regards the destination of its earthly vessel – whether it be consumed by fire, or shut in by a stone, or buried in the earth, or torn by wild beasts – as being of no more concern to itself than is the afterbirth to a child just born. And whether this body shall be cast out and plucked to pieces by birds, or devoured when thrown to the sea-dogs as prey,[14] how does that concern him who is nothing? ,Nay even when it is among the living, the soul fears nothing that may happen to the body after death; for though such things may have been threats, they were not enough to terrify the soul previous to the moment of death. It says: "I am not frightened by the executioner's hook,[15] nor by the revolting mutilation of the corpse which is exposed to the scorn of those who would witness the spectacle. I ask no man to perform the last rites for me; I entrust my remains to none. Nature has made provision that none shall go unburied. Time will lay away one whom cruelty has cast forth." Those were eloquent words which Maecenas uttered: I want no tomb; for Nature doth provide For outcast bodies burial.[16] You would imagine that this was the saying of a man of strict principles. He was indeed a man of noble and robust native gifts, but in prosperity he impaired these gifts by laxness.[17] Farewell. |
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31. Plutarch, On Hearing, 13, 18, 21, 22-23, 356a, 356b, 358a, 358b, 359c, 359d, 359d-60b, 23 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 45 |
32. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 531 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 |
33. Hippolytus, Against Noetus, 531 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107 |
34. Sextus, Against The Mathematicians, 9.12, 9.17-9.18 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 32, 37, 45 |
35. Apuleius, The Golden Ass, 11.16, 11.20-11.26 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 291 | 11.16. Drawing a deep breath after this inspired utterance, the high-priest fell silent, while I joined the sacred procession and marched along behind the holy emblems, famous now to all, and conspicuous, the subject of their nods and pointing fingers. The whole crowd spoke of me: 'There's the man who was turned back into a human being by the august powers of the omnipotent goddess. How happy he is, by Hercules, thrice blessed, who no doubt through the purity and loyalty of his past life has earned such astounding favour from heaven that he was, as it were, reborn and accepted at once into her holy service.' Meanwhile amidst the tumult of the festive celebrations we had slowly progressed towards the seashore, and arrived at the very place where as an ass I had been stabled the previous day. There, once the emblems of the gods had been properly disposed, the high-priest consecrated a finely-crafted ship decorated with marvellous Egyptian hieroglyphics. Taking a lighted torch, an egg, and some sulphur, he uttered solemn prayers with reverent lips, and purified the ship thoroughly, dedicating it, and naming it for the Goddess. The shining sail of this happy vessel bore an inscription, its letters woven in gold, the text of a prayer for prosperous sailing throughout the new season. The mast of smooth pine was raised now, tall and splendid, the flag at its tip conspicuous from afar; gold-leaf glittered from the stern which was shaped like Isis' sacred goose; while the whole hull of highly-polished citron-wood gleamed pale. Then the crowd of priests and laity alike vied in loading the vessel with winnowing fans spread with spices and the like and poured libations of milk and grain over the waves. Once the ship had received a wealth of gifts and auspicious prayers, the mooring ropes were loosed and she was given to the waters, accompanied by a gentle breeze that rose in greeting. And when she was so far out to sea we could no longer see her clearly, the priests took up their burdens again and set out joyfully for the shrine, in the same fine and orderly procession as before. 11.16. After the great priest had prophesied in this manner, he, regaining his breath, made a conclusion of his words. Then I went amongst the rest of the company and followed the procession. Everyone of the people knew me and, pointing at me with their fingers, spoke in this way, “Behold him who was this day transformed into a man by the power of the sovereign goddess. Verily he is blessed and most blessed, who has merited such great grace from heaven both because of the innocence of his former life. He has been reborn in the service of the goddess. In the meantime, little by little we approached near to the sea cost, near that place where I lay the night before, still an ass. Thereafter the images and relics were disposed in order. The great priest was surrounded by various pictures according to the fashion of the Aegyptians. He dedicated and consecrated with certain prayers a fair ship made very cunningly, and purified it with a torch, an egg, and sulfur. The sail was of white linen cloth on which was written certain letters which testified that the navigation would be prosperous. The mast was of a great length, made of a pine tree, round and very excellent with a shining top. The cabin was covered over with coverings of gold, and the whole ship was made of citron tree, very fair. Then all the people, religious as well as profane, took a great number of baskets filled with odors and pleasant smells and threw them into the sea, mingled with milk, until the ship was filled with many gifts and prosperous devotions. Then, with a pleasant wind, the ship was launched out into the deep. But when they had lost the sight of the ship, every man carried again that he brought, and went toward the temple in like procession and order as they had come to the sea side. 11.20. One night I dreamed the high-priest appeared to me, his arms full of gifts. When I asked the meaning of these offerings he replied that they were things of mine from Thessaly, and that my servant Candidus was here too. On waking I reflected on my vision for hours, wondering what it portended, having no servant of that name. Yet, whatever the dream might presage, I felt certain from the gifts I would know profit, and so was happily expectant of some fortunate event as I waited for the doors of the shrine to open. The bright white sanctuary curtains were drawn, and we prayed to the august face of the Goddess, as a priest made his ritual rounds of the temple altars, praying and sprinkling water in libation from a chalice filled from a spring within the walls. When the service was finally complete, at the first hour of the day, just as the worshippers with loud cries were greeting the dawn light, the servants I had left behind me in Hypata after Photis condemned me to my sad wanderings, suddenly appeared. Hearing the news they had even brought my horse, sold to various buyers but identifiable by the markings on his back and regained. And then it was that I marvelled at my prophetic dream, whose promise of good had not only been confirmed but also the retrieval of my white horse, foretold in the dream-servant's name of Candidus. 11.21. From then on I became ever more solicitous in my constant attendance on the deity, believing that my present blessings were a guarantee of future good. Moreover, day by day, my desire for holy orders intensified, and time and again I entreated the high-priest to hasten my initiation into the mysteries of the sacred night. But he, being a grave man, remarkable for his close observance of the strictest religious discipline, restrained my insistence gently and kindly, as parents will restrain their children's unripe urges, calming my natural eagerness with a comforting expectation of good to come. He told me the proper day for a person's initiation is always marked by a sign from the Goddess, that the officiating priest was likewise indicated by her, and even the costs of the ceremony to be defrayed. He advised me to suffer the delay with reverence and patience, since over-eagerness and disobedience were faults to be guarded against assiduously, and neither to hang back when called nor advance myself when not. None of his order had been so wrong-minded, so determined on their own destruction, as to dare to take office rashly or sacrilegiously, and without the Goddess' direct command, and thereby to commit a deadly sin. The gates of the underworld and the guardianship of life are both in her hands, he said, and the rites of initiation are akin to a willing death and salvation through her grace. Indeed, those whose term of life was drawing to its close, who already stood on the last threshold of light, if the sect's unspoken mysteries could be safely entrusted to them, were often summoned by the power of the Goddess to be in a manner reborn through her grace and set again on a path of renewed life. I too, he suggested, should bow likewise to heavens' decree, even though I had been destined for and called long since to the blessed service of the Goddess by clear and evident signs of that great deity's favour. And I should, as the priests did, abstain from unholy and forbidden foods, so as to enter more deeply into the secret mysteries of the purest of faiths. 11.21. This done, I retired to the service of the goddess in hope of greater benefits. I considered that I had received a sign and token whereby my courage increased more and more each day to take up the orders and sacraments of the temple. Thus I often communed with the priest, desiring him greatly to give me the degree of the religion. But he, a man of gravity and well-renowned in the order of priesthood, deferred my desire from day to day. He comforted me and gave me better hope, just like as parents who commonly bridle the desires of their children when they attempt or endeavor any unprofitable thing. He said that the day when any one would be admitted into their order is appointed by the goddess. He said that the priest who would minister the sacrifice is chosen by her providence, and the necessary charges of the ceremonies is allotted by her command. Regarding all these things he urged me to attend with marvelous patience, and he told me that I should beware either of too much haste or too great slackness. He said that there was like danger if, being called, I should delay or, not being called. I should be hasty. Moreover he said that there were none in his company either of so desperate a mind or who were so rash and hardy that they would attempt anything without the command of the goddess. If anyone were to do so, he should commit a deadly offence, considering how it was in the power of the goddess to condemn and save all persons. And if anyone should be at the point of death and on the path to damnation, so that he might be capable of receiving the secrets of the goddess, it was in her power by divine providence to reduce him to the path of health, as though by a certain kind of regeneration. Finally he said that I must attend the celestial precept, although it was evident and plain that the goddess had already vouchsafed to call and appoint me to her ministry. He urged me to refrain from profane and unlawful foods just like those priests who had already been received. This was so that I might come more apt and clean to the knowledge of the secrets of religion. 11.22. Thus spoke the high-priest, and, patient in my obedience, I performed my tasks each day at celebrations of the holy rites, zealously, diligently, in calm tranquility and laudable silence. Nor did the Great Goddess's saving goodness fail me, nor did she torment me with long delay. One dark night, in commands as clear as day, she proclaimed that the hoped-for time had arrived, when she would grant me my dearest wish. She told me what resources must be found for the ceremony, and decreed that her high-priest, Mithras, who she explained was linked to me celestially by a certain conjunction of the planets, would himself perform the rite. These and other kind decrees of the Great Goddess raised my spirits, and before the light of day shone I shook off sleep and hastening to the high-priest's rooms I met and greeted him at the entrance. I was set on demanding my initiation more vigorously than ever, believing it was now my due, but the instant he saw me he pre-empted my plea, saying: 'Ah, Lucius, how blessed, how fortunate you are, that the august deity so strongly favours you in her benevolence. Why do you linger here in idleness when the day has come which you've longed and prayed for endlessly, when at the divine command of the many-titled Goddess these very hands of mine will introduce you to the most sacred mysteries of her religion.' Then that most generous of men took my arm and led me to the doors of the vast temple, and when he had opened them according to the ritual prescribed, and then performed the morning sacrifice, he brought from the inner sanctuary various books written in characters strange to me. Some shaped like creatures represented compressed expressions of profound concepts, in others the tops and tails of letters were knotted, coiled, interwoven like vine-tendrils to hide their meaning from profane and ignorant eyes. From these books he read aloud for me the details of what was needed for my initiation. 11.22. I obeyed these words and, attentive with meek and laudable silence, I daily served at the temple. In the end the wholesome gentleness of the goddess did not deceive me, for in the night she appeared to me in a vision. She showed me that the day had come which I had wished for so long. She told me what provision and charges I should attend to, and how she had appointed her principal priest Mithras to be minister with me in my sacrifices.When I heard these divine commands I greatly rejoiced. I arose before dawn to speak with the great priest, whom I happened to see coming out of his chamber. Then I saluted him and thought that I should ask for his counsel with a bold courage. But as soon as he perceived me, he began first to say: “O Lucius, now I know well that you are most happy and blessed, whom the divine goddess accepts with such mercy. Why do you delay? Behold, it is the day which you desired, when you shall receive at my hands the order of religion and know the most pure secrets of the gods.” Whereupon the old man took me by the hand and led me to the gate of the great temple. Immediately upon entering he made a solemn celebration and, after morning sacrifice had ended, he brought books out of the secret place of the temple. These were partly written in unknown characters, and partly painted with figures of beasts declaring briefly every sentence. The heads and tails of some were turned in the shape of a wheel and were strange and impossible for profane people to read. There he interpreted to me such things as were necessary for the use and preparation of my order. 11.23. At once I set about acquiring those things myself or procuring them zealously through friends, while sparing no expense. Then the high-priest escorted by a band of devotees led me to the nearest baths, saying the occasion required it. When I had bathed according to the custom, he asked favour of the gods, and purified me by a ritual cleansing, sprinkling me with water. Then in the early afternoon he led me to the shrine again, and placed me at the Goddess' feet. He gave me certain orders too sacred for open utterance then, with all the company as witnesses, commanded me to curb my desire for food for the ten days following, to eat of no creature, and drink no wine. I duly observed all this with reverence and restraint, and now came the evening destined for my appearance before the Goddess. The sun was setting, bringing twilight on, when suddenly a crowd flowed towards me, to honour me with sundry gifts, in accord with the ancient and sacred rite. All the uninitiated were ordered to depart, I was dressed in a new-made robe of linen and the high-priest, taking me by the arm, led me into the sanctuary's innermost recess. And now, diligent reader, you are no doubt keen to know what was said next, and what was done. I'd tell you, if to tell you, were allowed; if you were allowed to hear then you might know, but ears and tongue would sin equally, the latter for its profane indiscretion, the former for their unbridled curiosity. Oh, I shall speak, since your desire to hear may be a matter of deep religious longing, and I would not torment you with further anguish, but I shall speak only of what can be revealed to the minds of the uninitiated without need for subsequent atonement, things which though you have heard them, you may well not understand. So listen, and believe in what is true. I reached the very gates of death and, treading Proserpine's threshold, yet passed through all the elements and returned. I have seen the sun at midnight shining brightly. I have entered the presence of the gods below and the presence of the gods above, and I have paid due reverence before them. 11.23. This done, I gave charge to certain of my companions to buy liberally whatever was necessary and appropriate. Then the priest brought me to the baths nearby, accompanied with all the religious sort. He, demanding pardon of the goddess, washed me and purified my body according to custom. After this, when no one approached, he brought me back again to the temple and presented me before the face of the goddess. He told me of certain secret things that it was unlawful to utter, and he commanded me, and generally all the rest, to fast for the space of ten continual days. I was not allowed to eat any beast or drink any wine. These strictures I observed with marvelous continence. Then behold, the day approached when the sacrifice was to be made. And when night came there arrived on every coast a great multitude of priests who, according to their order, offered me many presents and gifts. Then all the laity and profane people were commanded to depart. When they had put on my back a linen robe, they brought me to the most secret and sacred place of all the temple. You will perhaps ask (o studious reader) what was said and done there. Verily I would tell you if it were lawful for me to tell. You would know if it were appropriate for you to hear. But both your ears and my tongue shall incur similar punishment for rash curiosity. However, I will content your mind for this present time, since it is perhaps somewhat religious and given to devotion. Listen therefore and believe it to be true. You shall understand that I approached near to Hell, and even to the gates of Proserpina. After I was brought through all the elements, I returned to my proper place. About midnight I saw the sun shine, and I saw likewise the celestial and infernal gods. Before them I presented myself and worshipped them. Behold, now have I told you something which, although you have heard it, it is necessary for you to conceal. This much have I declared without offence for the understanding of the profane. 11.24. The initiate of IsisWhen dawn came and the ceremony was complete, I emerged wearing twelve robes as a sign of consecration, sacred dress indeed though nothing stops me from speaking of it, since a host of people were there and saw me. As instructed, I stood on a wooden dais placed at the centre of the holy shrine, before the statue of the Goddess, conspicuous in my fine elaborately embroidered linen. The precious outer cloak hung from shoulder to ankle, so that I was wrapped around with creatures worked in various colours: here Indian serpents, there Hyperborean gryphons, winged lions of that distant region of the world. The priests call this garment the Olympian Stole. I held a burning torch in my right hand, and my head was gracefully garlanded with a wreath of gleaming palm leaves projecting outwards like rays of light. Adorned thus in the likeness of the Sun, and standing there like a statue, the curtains suddenly being opened, I was exposed to the gaze of the crowd who strayed around me. That day my initiation into the mysteries was marked, as a festive occasion, by a splendid feast among a convivial gathering. On the next day, the third, a similar ritual ceremony was performed, with a sacred breakfast bringing an official end to the proceedings. I stayed at the temple a few days longer, enjoying the ineffable pleasure of gazing on the Goddess's sacred image, bound to her by an act of beneficence I could never repay. But finally, as instructed by her, for it was only with immense difficulty that I could sever the ties born of my fervent longing for her, I paid my debts of gratitude at last, in accordance with my small means if not in full, and began to prepare for my journey home. I ended my stay by prostrating myself before her, washing the Goddess' feet with my welling tears, as I prayed to her, gulping my words, my voice broken by repeated sobbing: 11.24. When morning came, and that the solemnities were finished, I came forth sanctified with twelve robes and in a religious habit. I am not forbidden to speak of this since many persons saw me at that time. There I was commanded to stand upon a seat of wood which stood in the middle of the temple before the image of the goddess. My vestment was of fine linen, covered and embroidered with flowers. I had a precious cloak upon my shoulders hung down to the ground. On it were depicted beasts wrought of diverse colors: Indian dragons and Hyperborean griffins which the other world engenders in the form of birds. The priests commonly call such a habit a celestial robe. In my right hand I carried a lit torch. There was a garland of flowers upon my head with palm leaves sprouting out on every side. I was adorned like un the sun and made in fashion of an image such that all the people came up to behold me. Then they began to solemnize the feast of the nativity and the new procession, with sumptuous banquets and delicacies. The third day was likewise celebrated with like ceremonies with a religious dinner, and with all the consummation of the order. After I had stayed there a good space, I conceived a marvelous pleasure and consolation in beholding the image of the goddess. She at length urged me to depart homeward. I rendered my thanks which, although not sufficient, yet they were according to my power. However, I could not be persuaded to depart before I had fallen prostrate before the face of the goddess and wiped her steps with my face. Then I began greatly to weep and sigh (so uch so that my words were interrupted) and, as though devouring my prayer, I began to speak in this way: 11.25. 'O holy and eternal saviour of humankind, ever-bountiful in cherishing mortal beings, bringing a mother's sweet affections to the miseries of the wretched. No day, no night, not even an instant passes empty of your beneficence, you who protect men on land and sea, who extend your saving hand and dispel life's tempests, quelling Fortune's storms, untwisting the inextricable windings of Fate, restricting the planets' harmful aspects. The powers above adore you, the powers below pay you reverence. You set the globe spinning, fuel the sun, command the universe and press Tartarus beneath our feet. You the stars obey; for you the seasons turn, in you the deities rejoice, and you it is that all the elements serve. At your order breezes sigh, clouds yield nourishment, seeds quicken and seedlings grow. The birds flying in the sky, the wild beasts that prowl the mountains, the serpents that lurk underground, the very monsters of the deep tremble at your power. But my eloquence is unfit to sing your praises; my wealth of words too meagre to render proper sacrifice, my voice too weak to express my reverence for your majesty, nor would a thousand tongues in as many mouths and an eternal flow of inexhaustible speech suffice. I must therefore try to do the sole thing the poor but devout can do, and keep the memory of your divine face always in my thoughts, and the vision of your sacred presence forever in my heart.' Ending this prayer to the power on high, I embraced Mithras my priest and now my spiritual father, and clasping his neck and kissing him again and again begged him to forgive my inability to repay his great kindnesses to me as he deserved. 11.25. “O holy and blessed lady, the perpetual comfort of humankind: you, by your bounty and grace, nourish all the world and listen with great affection to the adversities of the miserable. As a loving mother you take no rest, neither are you idle at any time in bestowing benefits and succoring all men on land as well as on the sea. You are she who puts away all storms and dangers from man’s life by your right hand. Whereby also you restrain the fatal dispositions, appease the great tempests of fortune, and keep back the course of the stars. The celestial gods honor you and the infernal gods keep you in reverence. You encompass all the world, you give light to the sun, you govern the world, you strike down the power of hell. Because of you the times return and the planets rejoice, and the elements serve you. At your command the winds blow, the clouds increase, the seeds prosper, and the fruits prevail. The birds of the air, the beasts of the hill, the serpents of the den, and the fishes of the sea tremble at your majesty. But my spirit is not able to give you sufficient praise, my patrimony is unable to satisfy your sacrifice, my voice has no power to utter that which I think. No, not if I had a thousand mouths and so many tongues. However, as a good religious person and, according to my estate, I will always keep you in remembrance and close you within my breast.” When I had ended my prayer, I went to embrace the great priest Mithras, my spiritual father, and to demand his pardon, since I was unable to recompense the good which he had done to me. 11.26. Then, after lingering a long while in renewed expressions of thanks, I at last set out to re-visit my ancestral home after so long away, yet hastily, for after a few days stay I swiftly gathered my things and, at the Great Goddess's command, took ship for Rome. Blown by favouring winds, I soon arrived safely at Portus Augustus, near Ostia, and taking a fast carriage reached the holy city, in the evening of December the 13th, the Ides of December. My most pressing business was to visit the temple of royal Isis, the Great Goddess, in the Campus Martius where she was worshipped with utmost reverence under the name of Isis Campensis, and pray to her there daily. A newcomer to that shrine, but an initiate of her sect, I was a constant presence there. When the mighty Sun had circled the zodiac and a year had gone, the ever-vigilant Goddess who kindly watched over me, once more troubled my sleep and spoke again of rites and initiation. Since I had long been hers, I wondered what new task she was prompting, what new future she foretold, 11.26. After great greeting and thanks I departed from him to visit my parents and friends. And after a while, by the exhortation of the goddess, I made up my packet, and took shipping toward the city of Rome, where (with a favorable wind) I arrived about the twelfth day of December. And the greatest desire I had there was to make my daily prayers to the sovereign goddess Isis. She, because of the place where her temple was built, was called Campensis, and was continually adored of the people of Rome. Although I was her minister and worshipper, I was a stranger to her temple and unknown to her religion there. When a year had gone by, the goddess advised me again to receive this new order and consecration. I marveled greatly what it signified and what should happen, considering that I was a sacred person already. |
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36. Irenaeus, Refutation of All Heresies, 3.3.4 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 107, 178 | 3.3.4. But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time,--a man who was of much greater weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles,--that, namely, which is handed down by the Church. There are also those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, "Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within." And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Dost thou know me?" "I do know thee, the first-born of Satan." Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself." There is also a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who choose to do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his faith, and the preaching of the truth. Then, again, the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles. |
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37. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, 3.27.1 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 178 | 3.27.1. The evil demon, however, being unable to tear certain others from their allegiance to the Christ of God, yet found them susceptible in a different direction, and so brought them over to his own purposes. The ancients quite properly called these men Ebionites, because they held poor and mean opinions concerning Christ. |
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38. Cleanthes, Hymn To Zeus, 32, 36-39, 10 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 37 |
39. [Anacharsis], Ep., 9 Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 50, 59 |
40. Prodicus, Fr., Dk 84, b5 Tagged with subjects: •religion passim, myth Found in books: Rothschold, Blanton and Calhoun, The History of Religions School Today: Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts (2014) 32 |