Julian the Emperor, Letters

ToposText · Julian the Emperor of Rome · 178 sections

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§ 50.170 Or rather, no one is so foolish as to suspect you of that. But the very opposite, that which Hermolaus lamented that he had endured, and which was the reason for his plotting, as they say, to kill Alexander —everyone believes this about you also, do they not? I call the gods to witness that I have heard many persons assert that they were very fond of you and who made many excuses for this offence of yours, but I have found just one person who did not believe it. However he is that one swallow who does not make a spring. But perhaps the reason why Alexander seemed in your eyes a great man was that he cruelly murdered Callisthenes, that Cleitus fell a victim to his drunken fury, and Philotas too, and Parmenio and Parmenio's son; for that affair of Hector, who was smothered in the whirlpools of the Nile in Egypt or the Euphrates —the story is told of both rivers— I say nothing about, or of his other follies, lest I should seem to speak ill of a man who by no means maintained the ideal of rectitude but nevertheless excelled as a general in the works of war. Whereas you are less endowed with both these, namely, good principles and courage, than a fish with hair. Now listen to my advice and do not resent it too much. “Not to thee, my child, have been given the works of war.” The verse that follows I do not write out for you, because, by the gods, I am ashamed to do so.
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§ 50.172 However I ask you to understand it as said. For it is only fair that words should follow on deeds, and that he who has never avoided deeds should not avoid the phrases that describe them. Nay, if you revere the pious memory of Magnentius and Constans, why do you wage war against the living and abuse those who excel in any way? Is it because the dead are better able than the living to avenge themselves on those who vex them? Yet it does not become you to say this. For you are, as your letter says, “Very brave indeed.” But if this is not the reason, perhaps there is a different one. Perhaps you do not wish to satirise them because they cannot feel it. But among the living is there anyone so foolish or so cowardly as to demand that you should take any notice of him at all, and who will not prefer if possible to be altogether ignored by you; but if that should be impossible, to be abused by you, as indeed I am now abused rather than honoured? May I never be so ill-advised—may I never aspire to win praise rather than blame from you! But perhaps you will say that the very fact that I am writing to you is a proof that I am stung? No, I call the Saviour Gods to witness that I am but trying to check your excessive audacity and boldness, the license of your tongue and the ferocity of your soul, the madness of your wits and your perverse fury on all occasions. In any case it was in my power, if I had been stung, to chastise you with deeds and not merely with words, and I should have been entirely within the law.
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§ 50.174 For you are a citizen and of senatorial rank and you disobeyed a command of your Emperor; and such behaviour was certainly not permissible to anyone who could not furnish the excuse of real necessity. Therefore I was not satisfied with inflicting on you any sort of penalty for this conduct, but I thought I ought to write to you first, thinking that you might be cured by a short letter. But since I have discovered that you persist in the same errors, or rather how great your frenzy is which I previously did not know.., lest you should be thought to be a man, when that you are not, or brimful of freedom of speech, when you are only full of insanity, or that you have had the advantage of education when you have not the smallest acquaintance with literature, as far, at any rate, as one may reasonably judge from your letters. For instance, no one of the ancients ever used φροῦδος to mean “manifest” as you do here,—for, as for the other blunders displayed in your letter, no one could describe them even in a long book, or that obscene and abominable character of yours that leads you to prostitute yourself. You tell me indeed that it is not those who arrive offhand or those who are hunting for public office whom we ought to choose, but those who use sound judgement and in accordance with this prefer to do their duty rather than those who are ready and eager to obey. Fair, truly, are the hopes you hold out to me though I made no appeal to you, implying that you will yield if I again summon you to take part in public business.
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§ 50.176 But I am so far from doing that, that, when the others were admitted, I never even addressed you at any time. And yet I did address many who were known and unknown to me and dwell in Rome, beloved of the gods. Such was my desire for your friendship, so worthy of consideration did I think you! Therefore it is likely that my future conduct towards you will be much the same. And indeed I have written this letter now, not for your perusal alone, since I knew it was needed by many besides yourself, and I will give it to all, since all, I am convinced, will be glad to receive it. For when men see you more haughty and more insolent than befits your past life, they resent it. You have here a complete answer from me, so that you can desire nothing more. Nor do I ask for any further communication from you. But when you have read my letters use them for whatever purpose you please. For our friendship is at an end. Farewell, and divide your time between luxurious living and abuse of me!
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§ 51 To the community of the Jews [Late 362 CE or early 363 CE, ANTIOCH] In times past, by far the most burdensome thing in the yoke of your slavery has been the fact that you were subjected to unauthorised ordinances and had to contribute an untold amount of money to the accounts of the treasury. Of this I used to see many instances with my own eyes, and I have learned of more, by finding the records which are preserved against you. Moreover, when a tax was about to be levied on you again I prevented it, and compelled the impiety of such obloquy to cease here; and I threw into the fire the records against you that were stored in my desks; so that it is no longer possible for anyone to aim at you such a reproach of impiety. My brother Constantius of honoured memory was not so much responsible for these wrongs of yours as were the men who used to frequent his table, barbarians in mind, godless in soul. These I seized with my own hands and put them to death by thrusting them into the pit, that not even any memory of their destruction might still linger amongst us. And since I wish that you should prosper yet more, I have admonished my brother Iulus, your most venerable patriarch, that the levy which is said to exist among you should be prohibited, and that no one is any longer to have the power to oppress the masses of your people by such exactions; so that everywhere, during my reign, you may have security of mind, and in the enjoyment of peace may offer more fervid prayers for my reign to the Most High God, the Creator, who has deigned to crown me with his own immaculate right hand. For it is natural that men who are distracted by any anxiety should be hampered in spirit, and should not have so much confidence in raising their hands to pray; but that those who are in all respects free from care should rejoice with their whole hearts and offer their suppliant prayers on behalf of my imperial office to Mighty God, even to him who is able to direct my reign to the noblest ends, according to my purpose. This you ought to do, in order that, when I have successfully concluded the war with Persia, I may rebuild by my own efforts the sacred city of Jerusalem, which for so many years you have longed to see inhabited, and may bring settlers there, and, together with you, may glorify the Most High God therein.
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§ 52 To Libanius [Winter 362 CE, ANTIOCH] Since you have forgotten your promise—at any rate three days have gone by and the philosopher Priscus has not come himself but has sent a letter to say that he still delays—I remind you of your debt by demanding payment. The thing you owe is, as you know, easy for you to pay and very pleasant for me to receive. So send your discourse and your “divine counsel,” and do it promptly, in the name of Hermes and the Muses, for I assure you, in these three days you have worn me out, if indeed the Sicilian poet speaks the truth when he says, “Those who long grow old in a day.” And if this be true, as in fact it is, you have trebled my age, my good friend. I have dictated this to you in the midst of public business. For I was not able to write myself because my hand is lazier than my tongue. Though indeed my tongue also has come to be somewhat lazy and inarticulate from lack of exercise. Farewell, brother, most dear and most beloved!
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§ 53 To Libanius [362 CE, Winter at ANTIOCH] You have requited Aristophanes for his piety towards the gods and his devotion to yourself by changing and transforming what was formerly a reproach against him so that it redounds to his honour, and not for to-day only but for the future also, since the malicious charges of Paul and the verdict of So-and-so have no force compared with words written by you. For their calumnies were detested even while they flourished, and perished along with their perpetrators, whereas your speeches are not only prized by genuine Hellenes to-day but will still be prized in future times, unless I am mistaken in my verdict. For the rest, you shall judge whether you have convinced, or rather converted, me on behalf of Aristophanes. I now agree not to believe that he is too weak to resist pleasure and money. What point would I not yield to the most philosophic and truth-loving of orators? Naturally you will proceed to ask me why, in that case, I do not alter his unhappy lot for the better and blot out the disgrace that attaches to him on account of his ill fortune. “Two walking together,”1 as the proverb says, namely, you and I, must take counsel. And you have the right, not only to advise that we ought to assist a man who has honoured the gods so straightforwardly, but also as to how it ought to be done. Indeed, you did hint at this in an obscure way. But it is perhaps better not to write about such matters, but to talk it over together. Farewell, brother, most dear and most beloved! I read yesterday almost all your speech before breakfast, and after breakfast, before resting, I gave myself up to reading the remainder. Happy man to be able to speak so well, or rather to have such ideas! Ο what a discourse! what wit! what wisdom! what analysis! what logic! what method! what openings! what diction! what symmetry! what structure! 2
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§ 54 To Eustochius [Late in 362 CE, from ANTIOCH] The wise Hesiod thinks that we ought to invite our neighbours to our feasts that they may rejoice with us, since they sorrow and mourn with us when any unexpected misfortune befals us. But I say that it is our friends that we ought to invite, rather than our neighbours; and for this reason, that it is possible to have a neighbour who is one's enemy, but that a friend should be an enemy is no more possible than for white to be black, or hot cold. And if there were no other proof that you are my friend not now only, but for a long time past, and that you have steadily maintained your regard for me, nevertheless the fact that my feeling for you has been and is what it is, would be strong evidence of that friendship. Come, therefore, that you may in person share my consulship. The state post will bring you, and you may use one carriage and an extra horse. And in case we ought to pray for further aid, I have invoked for you the blessing of the goddess of the Crossroads and the god of the Ways.
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§ 55 To Photinus Moreover the Emperor Julian, faithless to Christ, in his attack on Diodorus writes as follows to Photinus the heresiarch: Ο Photinus, you at any rate seem to maintain what is probably true, and come nearest to being saved, and do well to believe that he whom one holds to be a god can by no means be brought into the womb. But Diodorus, a charlatan priest of the Nazarene, when he tries to give point to that nonsensical theory about the womb by artifices and juggler's tricks, is clearly a sharp-witted sophist of that creed of the country-folk. A little further on he says: But if only the gods and goddesses and all the Muses and Fortune will lend me their aid, I hope to show that he is feeble and a corrupter of laws and customs, of pagan Mysteries and Mysteries of the gods of the underworld, and that that new-fangled Galilaean god of his, whom he by a false myth styles eternal, has been stripped by his humiliating death and burial of the divinity falsely ascribed to him by Diodorus. Then, just as people who are convicted of error always begin to invent, being the slaves of artifice rather than of truth, he goes on to say: For the fellow sailed to Athens to the injury of the general welfare, then rashly took to philosophy and engaged in the study of literature, and by the devices of rhetoric armed his hateful tongue against the heavenly gods, and being utterly ignorant of the Mysteries of the pagans he so to speak imbibed most deplorably the whole mistaken folly of the base and ignorant creed-making fishermen. For this conduct he has long ago been punished by the gods themselves. For, for many years past, he has been in danger, having contracted a wasting disease of the chest, and he now suffers extreme torture. His whole body has wasted away. For his cheeks have fallen in and his body is deeply lined with wrinkles. But this is no sign of philosophic habits, as he wishes it to seem to those who are deceived by him, but most certainly a sign of justice done and of punishment from the gods which has stricken him down in suitable proportion to his crime, since he must live out to the very end his painful and bitter life, his appearance that of a man pale and wasted.
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§ 56.190 Edict on Funerals [363 CE, February 12. ANTIOCH] It was my duty, after considering with myself, to restore the ancient custom which I have now decided to confirm by a law. For when they considered the matter, the men of old, who made wise laws, believed that there is the greatest possible difference between life and death and thought that each of these two states has customs and practices peculiarly appropriate to it. For they thought that death is an unbroken rest, —and this is surely that “brazen sleep” of which the poets sing,—but that life, on the contrary, brings many pains and many pleasures, and now adversity, now greater prosperity.
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§ 56.192 Considering thus, they enjoined that expiations connected with the departed should be conducted apart, and that apart from them the daily business of life should be carried on. Moreover, they held that the gods are the beginning and end of all things, and believed that while we live we are subject to the gods, and when we depart from this life we travel back to the gods. But perhaps it is not right to speak openly about these matters or to divulge whether both are in the hands of the same gods or one set of gods has charge of the living and another set the dead. However, if, as the Sun is the cause of day and night and winter and summer by his departure and arrival, so also the most venerable one of the gods themselves, unto whom are all things and from whom all things proceed, has appointed rulers over the living and allotted lords over the dead, then we ought to assign to both of these classes in turn what is fitting for them, and to imitate in our daily life the orderly arrangement of the gods in things which exist. As I have said, death is rest; and night harmonises with rest. Therefore I think it is fitting that business connected with the burials of the dead should be performed at night, since for many reasons we ought to forbid anything of the sort to go on by day. Throughout the city men are going to and fro each on his own business, and all the streets are full of men going to the lawcourts, or to or from the market, or sitting at work at their crafts, or visiting the sanctuaries to confirm the good hopes that the gods have vouchsafed. And then some persons or other, having laid a corpse on the bier, push their way into the midst of those who are busy about such matters. The thing is in every way intolerable.
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§ 56.194 For those who meet the funeral are often filled with disgust, some because they regard it as an evil omen, while for others who are on the way to the sanctuaries it is not permitted to approach for worship till they have cleansed themselves from the pollution. For after such a sight it is not permitted to approach the gods who are the cause of life and of all things least akin to decay. And I have still to mention what is worse than this. And what is that? The sacred precincts and temples of the gods lie open; and it often happens that in one of them someone is sacrificing or pouring libations or praying, at the moment when men carrying a corpse are passing close by the sanctuary itself, and the voice of lamentations and speech of ill omen is carried even to the altars. Do you not understand that the functions belonging to the day and the night have been separated more than all other things? With good reason, therefore, has burial been taken out of the day and would be reserved for the night. For it is not right to deprecate the wearing of white for mourning and yet to bury the dead in the daytime and sunlight. The former was better, at least if it was not offensive to any of the gods, but the latter cannot escape being an act of impiety towards all the gods. For thereby men wrongly assign burial to the Olympian gods and wrongly alienate it from the gods of the underworld, or whatever else the guardians and lords of souls prefer to be called. And I know that those who are thoroughly versed and punctilious in sacred rites think it right to perform at night the ritual to the gods below or in any case not till after the tenth hour of the day.
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§ 56.196 But if this is the better time for the worship of these gods, we will certainly not assign another time for the service of the dead. What I have said suffices for those who are willing to obey. For now that they have learned what errors they used to commit, let them change to the better way. But if there be any man of such a character that he needs threat and penalty, let him know that he will incur the severest punishment if, before the tenth hour of the day, he shall venture to perform the offices for the corpse of any dead person and to carry it through the city. But let these things be done at sunset and before sunrise, and let the pure day be consecrated for pure deeds and the pure Olympian gods.
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§ 57 To Arsaces, Satrap of Armenia [363 CE, Antioch, just before Julian's Persian campaign] Make haste, Arsacius, to meet the enemy's battle line and quicker than I tell you arm your right hand against the madness of the Persians. For my military preparations and my set purpose are for one of two things; either to pay the debt of nature within the Parthian frontier, after I have won the most glorious victories and inflicted on my foes the most terrible reverses, or to defeat them under the leadership of the gods and return to my native land as a conquering hero, after I have set up trophies of the enemy's defeat. Accordingly you must discard all sloth and cheating, and the Emperor Constantine of blessed memory, and the wealth of the nobles which was lavished in vain on you and on barbarians of your character by the most luxurious and extravagant Constantius, and now I warn you, take heed of me, Julian, supreme pontiff, Caesar, Augustus, the servant of the gods and of Ares, the destroyer of the Franks and barbarians, the liberator of the Gauls and of Italy. But if you form some other design,—for I learn that you are a rascal and a coward in war and a boaster, as the present condition of affairs proves; indeed I have heard that you are secretly trying to conceal at your court a certain enemy of the public welfare,—for the present I postpone this matter because of the fortune of war; for my alliance with the gods is enough to secure the destruction of the enemy. But if Destiny should also play some part in the decision,—for the purpose of the gods is her opportunity,—I will endure it fearlessly and like a brave man. Be assured that you will be an easy victim of the power of Persia when your hearth and home, your whole race and the kingdom of Armenia all blaze together. And the city of Nisibis also will share in your misfortune, for this the heavenly gods long since foretold to me.
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§ 58.200 To Libanius, Sophist and Quaestor [363 CE, Mar. 10. From HIERAPOLIS] I travelled as far as Litarbae,—it is a village of Chalcis,—and came on a road that still had the remains of a winter camp of Antioch. The road, I may say, was partly swamp, partly hill, but the whole of it was rough, and in the swamp lay stones which looked as though they had been thrown there purposely, as they lay together without any art, after the fashion followed also by those who build public highways in cities and instead of cement make a deep layer of soil and then lay the stones close together as though they were making a boundary-wall. When I had passed over this with some difficulty and arrived at my first halting-place it was about the ninth hour, and then I received at my headquarters the greater part of your senate. You have perhaps learned already what we said to one another, and, if it be the will of heaven, you shall know it from my own lips. From Litarbae I proceeded to Beroea, and there Zeus by showing a manifest sign from heaven declared all things to be auspicious. I stayed there for a day and saw the acropolis
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§ 58.202 and sacrificed to Zeus in imperial fashion a white bull. Also I conversed briefly with the senate about the worship of the gods. But though they all applauded my arguments very few were converted by them, and these few were men who even before I spoke seemed to me to hold sound views. But they were cautious and would not strip off and lay aside their modest reserve, as though afraid of too frank speech. For it is the prevailing habit of mankind, Ο ye gods, to blush for their noble qualities, manliness of soul and piety, and to plume themselves, as it were, on what is most depraved, sacrilege and weakness of mind and body. Next, Batnae entertained me, a place like nothing that I have ever seen in your country, except Daphne; but that is now very like Batnae, though not long ago, while the temple and statue were still unharmed, I should not have hesitated to compare Daphne with Ossa and Pelion or the peaks of Olympus, or Thessalian Tempe, or even to have preferred it to all of them put together. But you have composed an oration on Daphne such as no other man “of such sort as mortals now are” could achieve, even though he used his utmost energies on the task, yes, and I think not very many of the ancient writers either. Why then should I try to write about it now, when so brilliant a monody has been composed in its honour? Would that none had been needed!
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§ 58.204 However, to return to Batnae. Its name is barbarous but the place is Hellenic; I say so because through all the country round about the fumes of frankincense arose on all sides, and I saw everywhere victims ready for sacrifice. But though this gave me very great pleasure, nevertheless it looked to me like overheated zeal, and alien to proper reverence for the gods. For things that are sacred to the gods and holy ought to be away from the beaten track and performed in peace and quiet, so that men may resort thither to that end alone and not on the way to some other business. But this matter will perhaps before long receive the attention that is appropriate. Batnae I saw to be a thickly wooded plain containing groves of young cypresses; and among these there was no old or decaying trunk, but all alike were in vigorous leafage. The imperial lodging was by no means sumptuous, for it was made only of clay and logs and had no decorations; but its garden, though inferior to that of Alcinous, was comparable to the garden of Laertes. In it was a quite small grove full of cypresses and along the wall many trees of this sort have been planted in a row one after the other. Then in the middle were beds, and in these, vegetables and trees bearing fruits of all sorts. What did I do there, you ask? I sacrificed in the evening and again at early dawn, as I am in the habit of doing practically every day. And since the omens were favourable, we kept on to Hierapolis where the inhabitants came to meet us. Here I am being entertained by a friend who,
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§ 58.206 though I have only lately met him for the first time has long been dear to me. I know that you yourself are well aware of the reason, but for all that it gives me pleasure to tell you. For it is like nectar to me to hear and to speak of these things continually. Sopater, the pupil of the god-like Iamblichus, was a relative by marriage of this Sopater. Not to love even as myself all that belonged to those men is in my opinion equivalent to the lowest baseness. But there is another more powerful reason than this. Though he often entertained my cousin and my half-brother and was often urged by them, naturally enough, to abandon his piety towards the gods, and though this is hard to withstand, he was not infected with this disease. Thus much, then, I was able to write to you from Hierapolis about my own affairs. But as regards the military or political arrangements, you ought, I think, to have been present to observe and pay attention to them yourself. For, as you well know, the matter is too long for a letter, in fact so vast that if one considered it in detail it would not be easy to confine it to a letter even three times as long as this. But I will tell you of these matters also, summarily, and in a very few words.
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§ 58.208 I sent an embassy to the Saracens and suggested that they could come if they wished. That is one affair of the sort I have mentioned. For another, I despatched men as wide-awake as I could obtain that they might guard against anyone's leaving here secretly to go to the enemy and inform them that we are on the move. After that I held a court martial and, I am convinced, showed in my decision the utmost clemency and justice. I have procured excellent horses and mules and have mustered all my forces together. The boats to be used on the river are laden with corn, or rather with baked bread and sour wine. You can understand at what length I should have to write in order to describe how every detail of this business was worked out and what discussions arose over every one of them. As for the number of letters I have signed, and papers,—for these too follow me everywhere like my shadow,— why should I take the trouble to enumerate them now? 1
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§ 59 To Maximus the Philosopher We are told in the myth that the eagle, when he would test which of his brood are genuine, carries them still unfledged into the upper air and exposes them to the rays of the sun, to the end that he may become, by the testimony of the god, the sire of a true nursling and disown any spurious offspring. Even so I submit my speeches to you as though to Hermes the god of eloquence; and, if they can bear the test of being heard by you, it rests with you to decide concerning them whether they are fit to take flight to other men also. But if they are not, then fling them away as though disowned by the Muses, or plunge them in a river as bastards. Certainly the Rhine does not mislead the Celts, for it sinks deep in its eddies their bastard infants, like a fitting avenger of an adulterous bed; but all those that it recognises to be of pure descent it supports on the surface of the water and gives them back to the arms of the trembling mother, thus rewarding her with the safety of her child as incorruptible evidence that her marriage is pure and without reproach.
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§ 60 To Eugenius the Philosopher We are told that Daedalus dared to do violence to nature by his art, and moulded wings of wax for Icarus. But for my part, though I applaud him for his art, I cannot admire his judgement. For he is the only man who ever had the courage to entrust the safety of his son to soluble wax. But if it were granted me, in the words of the famous lyric poet of Teos, to change my nature to a bird's, I should certainly not “fly to Olympus for Love,” —no, not even to lodge a complaint against him— but I should fly to the very foothills of your mountains to embrace “thee, my darling,” as Sappho says. But since nature has confined me in the prison of a human body and refuses to lighten and raise me aloft, I approach you with such wings as I possess, the wings of words, and I write to you, and am with you in such fashion as I can. Surely for this reason and this only Homer calls words “winged,” that they are able to go to and fro in every direction, darting where they will, like the swiftest of birds. But do you for your part write to me too, my friend! For you possess an equal if not a larger share of the plumage of words, with which you are able to travel to your friends and from wherever you may be, just as though you were present, to cheer them.
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§ 61 To Sopater It is an occasion to rejoice the more when one has the chance to address friends through an intimate friend. For then it is not only by what you write that you unite the image of your own soul with your readers. And this is what I myself am doing. For when I despatched the custodian of my children, Antiochus, to you, I could not bear to leave you without a word of greeting. So that if you want to have news of me, you can have from him information of a more intimate sort. And if you care at all for your admirers, as I believe you do care, you will prove it by never missing an opportunity while you are able to write.
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§ 62 To Eucleides the Philosopher Nay, when did you ever leave me, so that I need to write, or when do I not behold you with the eyes of the soul as though you were here with me? For not only do I seem to be with you continually and to converse with you, but I pay attention to my duties now just as zealously as when you were here to guide me. But if you do wish me to write to you, just as though you were not here, then take care that you do not yourself create the impression of not being with me all the more by your very wish that I should write. However, if you do really find pleasure in it I am willing to obey you in this also. At any rate, by your request, you will, as the proverb says, lead a galloping horse into the plain. Come then, see that you return like for like, and in answer to my counter-summons do not grow weary of the unbroken series of letters exchanged between us. And yet I have no wish to hinder the zeal that you display on behalf of the public welfare, nevertheless, in proportion as I keep you free for the pursuit of noble studies, I shall be thought, far from injuring it, to benefit the whole body of Hellenes at once, that is to say, if I leave you like a young and well-bred dog without interference, free to give all your time to tracking down, with a mind wholly free from all else, the art of writing discourses; but if you possess such swiftness that you need neither neglect your friends nor slacken in those other pursuits, come, take both courses and run at full speed!
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§ 63 To Hecebolius Pindar thinks that the Muses are “silvery,” and it is as though he likened the clearness and splendour of their art to the substance that shines most brilliantly. And the wise Homer calls silver “shining,” and gives to water the epithet “silvery” because it gleams with the very brightness of the reflected image of the sun, as though under its direct rays. And Sappho the fair says that the moon is “silvery,” and that because of this it dims the radiance of the other stars. Similarly one might imagine silver to be more appropriate to the gods than gold; but that to man, at any rate, silver is more precious than gold and more familiar to them because it is not, like gold, hidden under the earth and does not avoid their eyes, but is both beautiful to the eye and more serviceable in daily life,— this, I say, is not my own theory but was held by men of old. If, therefore, in return for the gold coin sent by you I give you a piece of silver of equal value, think not that the favour is less and do not imagine that, as with Glaucus, the exchange is to your disadvantage; for perhaps not even Diomedes would have exchanged silver armour for golden, seeing that the former is far more serviceable than the latter, and like lead well fitted to turn the points of spears. All this I am saying in jest, and I take the cue for my freedom of speech to you from what you write yourself. But if you really wish to send me gifts more precious than gold, write, and keep on writing regularly. For even a short letter from you I hold to be more precious than any other blessing that one could name.
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§ 64 To Lucian the Sophist Not only do I write to you but I demand to receive payment in kind. And if I treat you ill by writing continually, then I beg you to ill-treat me in return and make me suffer in the same way.
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§ 65 To Elpidius, a Philosopher Even a short letter gives more pleasure when the writer's affection can be measured by the greatness of his soul rather than by the meagre proportions of what he writes. So that if I now address you briefly, do not even so conclude that the accompanying affection is equally slight, but since you know the full extent of my love for you, forgive the brevity of my letter and do not hesitate to answer me in one equally short. For whatever you send me, however trifling, keeps alive in my mind a remembrance of all that is good.
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§ 66 To Georgios, a Revenue Official Well, let us grant that Echo is a goddess, as you say she is, and a chatterbox, and, if you like, the wife of Pan also; for I shall not object. And even though nature would fain inform me that Echo is only the sound of the voice answering back when the air is struck, and bent back upon that which is opposite the ear that hears it, nevertheless, since I put my faith in the account given by men both ancient and modern, and in your own account no less, I am abashed into admitting that Echo is a goddess. What, in any case, would that matter to me, if only, in my expressions of friendship towards you, I excel Echo in a considerable degree? For she does not reply to all the sounds that she hears, but rather to the last syllables uttered by the voice, like a grudging sweetheart who returns her lover's kisses with the merest touch of her lips. I, on the other hand, in my correspondence with you, lead off sweetly, and then again, in reply to your challenge, I return you like for like as though I threw back a ball. Therefore you cannot be too quick in recognising that your letters put you in default, and that it is yourself, since you receive more and give back very little, whom you consign to the similitude of the figure, and not me, since I am eager to score off you in both ways. However, whether you give in just the same degree as you receive, or not, whatever I am permitted to receive from you is a boon, and is credited as sufficient to balance the whole.
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§ 67 To Georgios, a Revenue Official “Thou hast come, Telemachus!” as the verse says, but in your letters I have already seen you and the image of your noble soul, and have received the impression thereof as of an imposing device on a small seal. For it is possible for much to be revealed in little. Nay even Pheidias the wise artist not only became famous for his statue at Olympia or at Athens, but he knew also how to confine a work of great art within the limits of a small piece of sculpture; for instance, they say that his grasshopper and bee, and, if you please, his fly also, were of this sort; for every one of these, though naturally composed of bronze, through his artistic skill became a living thing. In those works, however, the very smallness of the living models perhaps contributed the appearance of reality to his skilful art; and do you, please, look at his Alexander hunting on horseback, for its whole measurement is no larger than a fingernail. Yet the marvellous skill of the workmanship is so lavished on every detail that Alexander at one and the same time strikes his quarry and intimidates the spectator, scaring him by his whole bearing, while the horse, reared on the very tips of his hoofs, is about to take a step and leave the pedestal, and by creating the illusion of vigorous action is endowed with movement by the artist's skill. This is exactly the effect that you have on me, my excellent friend. For after having been crowned often, already, as victor over the whole course, so to speak, in the lists of Hermes, the God of Eloquence, you now display the highest pitch of excellence in a few written words. And in very truth you imitate Homer's Odysseus, who, by merely saying who he was, was able to dazzle the Phaeacians. But if even from me you require some of what you call “friendly smoke,” I shall not begrudge it. Surely the mouse who saved the lion in the fable is proof enough that something useful may come even from one's inferiors.
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§ 68 To Dositheus I am almost in tears—and yet the very utterance of your name ought to have been an auspicious sound, —for I recall to mind our noble and wholly admirable father. If you make it your aim to imitate him, not only will you yourself be happy but also you will give to human life, as he did, an example of which it will be proud. But if you are indolent you will grieve me, and you will blame yourself when blaming will not avail.
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§ 69 To Himerius I could not read without tears the letter which you wrote after your wife's death, in which you told me of your surpassing grief. For not only does the event in itself call for sorrow, when a young and virtuous wife, the joy of her husband's heart, and moreover the mother of precious children, is prematurely snatched away like a torch that has been kindled and shines brightly, and in a little while its flame dies down, but over and above this, the fact that it is you to whom this sorrow has come seems to me to make it still more grievous. For least of all men did our good Himerius deserve to experience any affliction, excellent orator that he is, and of all my friends the best beloved. Moreover, if it were any other man to whom I had to write about this, I should certainly have had to use more words in dealing with it; for instance, I should have said that such an event is the common lot, that we must needs submit, that nothing is gained by excessive grief, and I should have uttered all the other commonplaces considered appropriate for the alleviation of suffering, that is if I were exhorting one who did not know them. But since I think it unbecoming to offer to a man who well knows how to instruct others the sort of argument by which one must school those who are too ignorant for self-control, see now, I will forbear all such phrases; but I will relate to you a fable, or it may be a true story, of a certain wise man, which perhaps is not new to you, though it is probably unfamiliar to most people; and if you will use this and this alone, as though it were a drug to relieve pain, you will find release from your sorrow, as surely as from that cup which the Spartan woman is believed to have offered to Telemachus when his need was as great as your own. Now the story is that when Darius was in great grief for the death of a beautiful wife, Democritus of Abdera could not by any argument succeed in consoling him; and so he promised him that he would bring back the departed to life, if Darius were willing to undertake to supply him with everything necessary for the purpose. Darius bade him spare no expense but take whatever he needed and make good his promise. After waiting a little, Democritus said that he was provided with everything else for carrying out his task, but still needed one thing only, which he himself did not know how to obtain; Darius, however, as King of all Asia, would perhaps find it without difficulty. And when the King asked him what it might be, this great thing which it was possible for only a king to know of, they say that Democritus in reply declared that if he would inscribe on his wife's tomb the names of three persons who had never mourned for anyone, she would straightway come to life again, since she could not disobey the authority of this mystic rite. Then Darius was in a dilemma, and could not find any man who had not had to bear some great sorrow, whereupon Democritus burst out laughing, as was his wont, and said: “Why, then, Ο most absurd of men, do you mourn without ceasing, as though you were the only man who had ever been involved in so great a grief, you who cannot discover a single person of all who have ever lived who was without his share of personal sorrow?” But though it was necessary to say these things to Darius, a barbarian and a man of no education, the slave both of pleasure and of grief, you, on the other hand, are a Greek, and honour true learning, and you must find your remedy from within; for surely it would be a disgrace to the reasoning faculty if it had not the same potency as time.
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§ 70 To Diogenes Your son Diogenes, whom I saw after you went away, told me that you had been much irritated with him for some reason that would naturally make a father feel vexed with his child, and he implored me to act as mediator in a reconciliation between him and yourself. Now, if he has committed some error of a mild and not intolerable kind, do you yield to nature, recognise that you are a father, and again turn your thoughts to your child. But if his offence is too serious to admit of immediate forgiveness, it is right for you yourself rather than for me to decide whether you ought to bear even that with a generous spirit and overcome your son's purpose by wiser thoughts, or to entrust the offender's probation to a longer period of discipline.
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§ 71 To Commander Gregory Even a short letter from you is enough to provide me with grounds for feeling greatly pleased. Accordingly, since I was exceedingly pleased with what you wrote to me, I in turn send you a letter of the same length, because in my judgement the friendly greetings of comrades ought to be rewarded not by length of letter so much as by magnitude of goodwill.
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§ 72 To Plutarch In all respects my bodily health is fairly good, and indeed my state of mind is no less satisfactory. I fancy there can be no better prelude than this to a letter sent from one friend to another. And to what is this the prelude? To a request, of course! And what is the request? It is for letters in return, and in their sentiments may they harmonise with my own letters and bring me similar news from you, and equally auspicious.
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§ 73 To Maximinus I have given orders that there shall be ships at Cenchreae. The number of these you will learn from the governor of the Hellenes, but as to how you are to discharge your commission you may now hear from me. It must be without bribery and without delay. I will myself, with the help of the gods, see that you do not repent of having done your duty as I have indicated.
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§ 74 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] To Iamblichus I ought indeed to have obeyed the Delphic inscription “Know Thyself,” and not have ventured to affront the ears of so great a man as yourself; for only to look you in the face, when one meets your eye, is no easy matter, and it is much less easy to try to rival you when you wake the harmony of your unfailing wisdom, seeing that if Pan roused the echoes with his shrill song everyone would yield him place, yes, even though it were Aristaeus himself, and when Apollo played the lyre everyone would keep silence, even though he knew the music of Orpheus. For it is right that the inferior, in so far as it is inferior, should yield to the superior, that is if it is to know what is appropriate to itself and what is not. But he who has conceived the hope of matching his mortal song with inspired music has surely never heard of the sad fate of Marsyas the Phrygian, or of the river which is named after him and bears witness to the punishment of that insane flute-player, nor has he heard of the end of Thamyris, the Thracian who, in an evil hour, strove in song against the Muses. Need I mention the Sirens, whose feathers the victorious Muses still wear on their brows? But each one of those that I have named is still even now paying in the tradition the fitting penalty for his boorishness and temerity, and I, as I said, ought to have stayed within my own boundaries and held my peace while I enjoyed my fill of the music uttered by you, like those who receive in silence the oracle of Apollo when it issues from the sacred shrine. But since you yourself furnish me with the keynote of my song, and by your words, as though with the wand of Hermes, arouse and wake me from sleep, lo now, even as when Dionysus strikes his thyrsus his followers rush riotous to the dance, so let me too in response to your plectron make answering music, like those who accompany the choirmaster, keeping time to the call of the rhythm. And in the first place let me make a first-offering to you, since this is your pleasure, of the speeches which I recently composed at the Emperor's command in honour of the glorious bridging of the strait, though what I offer you is returning small for great and in very truth bronze for gold; yet I am entertaining our Hermes with such fare as I have. Surely Theseus did not disdain the plain meal that Hecale provided, but knew how to content himself with humble fare when the need arose. Nor was Pan, the god of shepherds, too proud to set to his lips the pipe of the boy neat-herd. Then do you also in your turn accept my discourse in a gracious spirit and do not refuse to lend your mighty ear to my humble strain. But if it has any cleverness at all, then not only is my discourse itself fortunate but so too is its author, in that he has obtained the testimony of Athene's vote. And if it still needs a finishing touch to complete it as a whole, do not refuse to add to it yourself what it needs. Before now the god in answer to prayer has stood by the side of a bowman and set his hand to the arrow, and again, when a bard was playing the cithara and singing a high and stirring strain, the Pythian god, when the string failed, assumed the guise of a cicada and uttered a note of the same tone.
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§ 75 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] To Iamblichus Ο Zeus, how can it be right that I should spend my time in the middle of Thrace and winter in the grain-pits here, while from charming Iamblichus, as though from a sort of spring in the East, letters come to me like swallows and I cannot yet go to him nor can he come to me? Who would be willing to put up with this unless he were some Thracian and as bad as Tereus? “Lord Zeus do thou rescue the Achaeans from Thrace and make clear weather an grant us to see with our eyes” our own Hermes some day, and salute his shrine and embrace his statue as they tell us Odysseus did when after his wandering he beheld Ithaca. Nay, but he was still asleep when the Phaeacians unloaded him from their ship like a piece of freight and went their way; but as for me sleep can never lay hold on me till it be my lot to see you that are the benefactor of the whole world. And yet you say in jest that I and my friend Sopater have transported the whole East into Thrace. Yet, if I must speak the truth, Cimmerian gloom abides with me so long as Iamblichus is not here. And you demand one of two things, that I should go to you or that you yourself should come to me. To my mind one of these alternatives is both desirable and expedient, I mean that I should go to you and benefit by the blessings that you bestow, while the other surpasses all my prayers. But since this is impossible for you and inexpedient, do you remain at home and prosper and preserve the tranquillity that you enjoy, while I will endure with a brave spirit whatever God may send. For we are told that it is the proof of a good man to keep hoping for the best, to do his duty and follow his fate and the will of God.
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§ 76 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] To Iamblichus I confess that I had paid a full and sufficient penalty for leaving you, not only in the annoyances that I encountered on my journey, but far more in the very fact that I have been away from you for so long, though I have indeed endured so many and various fortunes everywhere, that I have left nothing untried. But though I have undergone the alarms of war, the rigour of a siege, the wandering of exile and all sorts of terrors, and moreover the extreme cold of winter, the dangers of disease and countless mischances of many kinds in my journey from Upper Pannonia till I crossed the Chalcedonian straits, I may say that nothing so painful or so distressing has happened to me as the fact that after I left the East I have not, for so long a time, seen you, the universal blessing of the Hellenes. So do not be surprised if I say that a sort of mist and thick cloud overshadows my eyes. For only then will a clear atmosphere and the brilliant light of the sun, and, so to speak, the fairest and truest springtime of my life, encompass me when I can embrace you, the delight and glory of the whole world, and, like the true son of a noble father who when hope is given up is seen returning from war, it may be, or from the stormy billows of the sea, can proceed to recount to you all that I have suffered and what dangers I have been through, and as I, so to speak, ride safely on a sacred anchor, can find at last a sufficient consolation for my misfortunes. For naturally it is a consolation and lightens the weight of sorrow when one unburdens one's experiences to others and shares with them the knowledge of one's sufferings in the intercourse of speech. Meanwhile, however, with what means I have I will, so far as I can approach you; and indeed I shall not cease, for the whole period of our separation, to conciliate you with letters by way of a token. And if I only receive the like from you, I shall be somewhat more submissive and shall hold converse with your letters, regarding them as a sort of symbol that you are safe and well. Do you, then, graciously accept what arrives from me, and show yourself still more gracious in making requital, since every noble utterance of yours, every written word, is reckoned by me as equivalent to the voice of Hermes the god of eloquence, or to the hand of Asclepius.
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§ 77 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] To Iamblichus “Thou hast come! well hast thou done!” You have indeed come, even though absent, by means of your letter—"And I was yearning for thee, and thou didst set ablaze my heart, already aflame with longing for thee." Nay, I neither refuse the love-philtre nor do I ever leave you at all, but with my soul I behold you as though you were present, and am with you when absent, and nothing is enough to quench my insatiate desire. Moreover, you also never slacken, but without ceasing you benefit those who are present with you and by your letters not only cheer but even heal those who are absent. At any rate, when someone not long ago gave me the news that a friend had come and brought letters from you, it happened that for three days I had been suffering from a disorder of the stomach, and in fact I was in acute physical pain, so that I was not even free from fever. But, as I said, when I was told that the person who had the letters was at my door I jumped up like one possessed, who has lost control of himself, and rushed out before what I wanted could arrive. And the moment that I merely took the letter in my hands, I swear by the very gods and by the love that burns in me for you, that instant my pains forsook me and at once the fever let me go, as though it were abashed by some manifest saving presence. But when I broke the seal and read the letter, can you imagine what feelings took possession of my soul at that moment or with what delight I was filled, or how I praised to the skies that dearest of winds, to quote your words, the lover's wind in very truth, the messenger of glad tidings—and loved it with good reason, since it had done me this service of bringing a letter from you, and like a winged thing had guided straight to me, with a fair and hurrying blast, that letter which brought me not only the pleasure of hearing good news of you but also salvation at your hands in my own illness? But how could I describe my other sensations when first I read the letter, or how could I find adequate words to betray my own passion? How often did I hark back from the middle to the beginning? How often did I fear that I should finish it before I was aware? How often, as though I were going round in a circle in the evolutions of a strophe, did I try to connect the contents of the last paragraph with the first, just as though in a song set to music I were making the leading note of the beginning the same as the closing bars of the measure? Or how describe what I did next—how often I held the letter to my lips, as mothers embrace their children, how often I kissed it with those lips as though I were embracing my dearest sweetheart, how often I invoked and kissed and held to my eyes even the superscription which had been signed by your own hand as though by a clear cut seal, and how I clung to the imprint of the letters as I should to the fingers of that sacred right hand of yours! I too “wish thee joy in full measure,” as fair Sappho says, and not only " for just so long as we have been parted from one another," but may you rejoice evermore, and write to me and remember me with kindly thoughts. For no time shall ever pass by me in which I shall forget you, in any place, at any hour, in any word I speak. “But if ever Zeus permits me to return to my native land,” and once more I humbly approach that sacred hearth of yours, do not spare me hereafter as you would a runaway, but fetter me, if you will, to your own beloved dwelling, making me captive like a deserter from the Muses, and then discipline me with such penalties as suffice for my punishment. Assuredly I shall submit to your jurisdiction not unwillingly, but with a good will and gladly, as to a kind father's provident and salutary correction. Moreover, if you would consent to trust me to sentence myself and allow me to suffer the penalty that I prefer, I would gladly fasten myself to your tunic, my noble friend, so that I might never for a moment leave your side but be with you always and closely attached to you wherever you are, like those two-bodied beings invented in the myths. Unless, indeed, in this case also the myths, though they tell us the story in jest, are describing in enigmatical words an extraordinary sort of friendship and by that close tie of a common being express the kinship of soul in both beings.
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§ 78.252 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] TO IAMBLICHUS I am sensible of the sweet-tempered manner in which you reproach me, and that you achieve two things with equal success, for you do me honour by what you write and instruct me by your criticisms. And for my part, if I were conscious of even the least failure in the attention due to you, I should certainly try by making reasonable excuses to parry your criticism, or if I were in fault I should not hesitate to ask your forgiveness, especially as I know that you are not implacable towards your friends when they have involuntarily failed in some friendly office to you. But as it is—since it was not right either for you to be neglected or for me to be careless
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§ 78.254 [if we were to attain that which we ever seek after and desire—come, I will plead my case before you as though by the rules of a lawsuit, and I will prove that far from having neglected any of my duties towards you I have never even ventured to postpone them. It is now three years since I arrived from Pannonia, with difficulty escaping safely from the dangers and troubles that you know of. When I had crossed the Chalcedonian strait and approached the city of Nicomedia, to you first as though to the god of my fathers I paid vows as the first thank-offering for my deliverance, by sending you as a token of my arrival my salutation in place of a sacred offering. The man who took charge of my letter was one of the imperial guard named Julian, the son of Bacchylus, a native of Apamea, and to him I all the more readily entrusted the letter because he asserted that he was going in your direction and that he knew you very well. Afterwards, as though from Apollo, a sacred letter came to me from you, in which you declared that you had been pleased to hear of my arrival. This was to my mind an auspicious omen and a fount of fairest hopes,— Iamblichus the wise and the letter of Iamblichus to me. Need I say how I rejoiced or assure you how deeply I was moved by your letter? For if you had received what I wrote to you with no other purpose—and it was sent to you by one of the couriers who came from where you are,—you would certainly know from what I then said how great was the pleasure that I felt on receiving it. Again, when the custodian of my children was returning home,
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§ 78.256 [I began another letter to you in which I at the same time spoke to you of my gratitude for your previous favours and begged for a like return from you for the immediate future. After this the excellent Sopater came on an embassy to our city. When I recognised him I at once started up and flew to him and when I had embraced him I wept for joy, dreaming of nothing else but you and a letter from you to me. And when I received it I kissed it and held it to my eyes and kept tight hold of it as though I were afraid that while I was in the act of reading your letter the phantom of your image might elude me and fly away. And, moreover, I at once wrote an answer, not to you only but also to the revered Sopater, that great man's son, telling him, as though giving myself airs, that I accepted our mutual friend from Apamea as a sort of hostage for your absence. This is the third letter that I have written to you since that time, but I have myself received no other letter from you save that in which you seem to reproach me. Now if you are accusing me merely for the purpose of providing me with further motives for writing to you, and only pretend to reproach me, then I am very glad to receive your criticism, and in this very letter that has now come I take to myself the whole of the kindness implied. But if you really accuse me of being in any way remiss in my duty to you, " who could be more wretched than I " through the wrongdoing or negligence of letter-carriers,
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§ 78.258 [when I, least of all men, deserve the reproach? And yet even if I do not write oftener I may well claim indulgence from you—I do not mean because of the many affairs which I have on my hands—for may I never sink so low as not to count you more important than any business whatever, as Pindar says!—but because there is more wisdom in hesitating to write more than is fitting to so great a man as yourself, whom one cannot so much as think of without awe, than in being too presumptuous. For even as those who venture to gaze steadily at the bright beams of Helios, unless indeed they be in some sort divine and like the genuine offspring of eagles can brave his rays, are unable to behold what is not lawful for their eyes to see, and the more they strive for this the more do they show that they have not the power to attain it, even so, I say, he who ventures to write to you shows clearly that the more he allows himself to presume the more he ought to be afraid. For you, however, my noble friend, who have been appointed as the saviour, so to speak, of the whole Hellenic world, it would have been becoming not only to write to me without stint, but also to allay as far as you could the scruples felt by me. For as Helios —if my argument may again employ in reference to you a simile from the god,— even as Helios, I say, when he shines in full splendour with his brilliant rays rejects naught of what encounters his beams, but ever performs his function,
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§ 78.260 [so ought you also not to shrink from bountifully pouring forth the flood of your blessings like light over the Hellenic world even when, whether from modesty, or fear of you, one is too bashful to make any return. Asclepius, again, does not heal mankind in the hope of repayment, but everywhere fulfils his own function of beneficence to mankind. This, then, you ought to do also, as though you were the physician of souls endowed with eloquence, and you ought to keep up on all occasions the preaching of virtue, like a skilled archer who, even though he have no opponent, keeps training his hand by every means in view of future need. For in truth we two have not the same ambition, since mine is to secure the wise teachings that flow from you and yours is to read letters sent by me. But as for me, though I should write ten thousand times, mine is still mere child's play, and I am like the boys in Homer who on the sea-shores model something in wet sand and then abandon it all for the sea to wash away; whereas even a short letter from you is more potent than any fertilising flood, and for my part I would rather receive one letter from Iamblichus than possess all the gold of Lydia. If, then, you care at all for your fond admirers—and you do care if I am not mistaken—do not neglect me who am like a fledgling constantly in need of sustenance from you, but write regularly, and moreover do not be reluctant to feast me on the good things that come from you. And if I prove to be remiss, do you take on yourself to provide both things, not only what you yourself give but equally what you furnish in my place. For it befits you as a pupil of Hermes, the god of eloquence, or, if you prefer, his nursling, to desire to imitate his use of the wand, not by putting men to sleep, but by rousing and awakening them.
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§ 79 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] To Iamblichus When Odysseus was trying to remove his son's illusion about him, it was enough for him to say: “No God am I. Why then do you liken me to the immortals?” But I might say that I do not exist at all among men so long as I am not with Iamblichus. Nay, I admit that I am your lover, even as Odysseus that he was the father of Telemachus. For even though someone should say that I am unworthy, not even so shall he deprive me of my longing. For I have heard that many men have fallen in love with beautiful statues and far from injuring the art of the craftsman they have by their passion for them imparted to the workmanship the added delight in what lives and breathes. But as for the wise men of old among whom you are pleased to reckon me in jest, I should say that I fall as far short of them as I believe that you are to be ranked among them. And indeed you have succeeded in combining with yourself not only Pindar or Democritus or most ancient Orpheus, but also that whole genius of the Hellenes which is on record as having attained to the summit of philosophy, even as in a lyre by the harmonious combination of various notes the perfection of music is achieved. And just as the myths give Argus, Io's guardian, an encircling ring of ever-wakeful eyes as he keeps watch over the darling of Zeus, so too does true report endow you, the trusted guardian of virtue, with the light of the countless eyes of culture. They say that Proteus the Egyptian used to change himself into various shapes as though he feared being taken unawares and showing those who needed his aid that he was wise. But for my part, if Proteus was really wise and the sort of man to know the truth about many things, as Homer says, I applaud him for his talent, but I cannot admire his attitude of mind, since he played the part, not of one who loves mankind, but of an impostor by concealing himself in order to avoid being of service to mankind. But who, my noble friend, would not genuinely admire you, since though you are inferior in no way to wise Proteus if not even more fully initiated than he in consummate virtues, you do not begrudge mankind the blessings that you possess, but, like the bright sun, you cause the rays of your pure wisdom to shine on all men, not only by associating, as is natural, with those near you, but also as far as possible by making the absent proud through your writings. And in this way by your achievements you surpass even charming Orpheus; for he squandered on the ears of wild beasts his own peculiar musical gift, but you, as though you had been born to save the whole human race, emulate everywhere the hand of Asclepius and pervade all things with the saving power of your eloquence. Wherefore I think that Homer, too, if he were to return to life, would with far more justice allude to you in the verse: “One is still alive and is detained in the wide world.” For, in very truth, for those of us who are of the antique mould, a sacred spark, so to speak, of true and life-giving culture is kindled by your aid alone. And grant, Ο Zeus the saviour, and Hermes, god of eloquence, that this blessing which is the common property of the whole world, even the charming Iamblichus, may be preserved for the longest possible period of time! Indeed, there is no doubt that in the case of Homer and Plato and Socrates and others who were worthy to be of that company, the prayers of the just were successful and did avail men of old, and thus increased and prolonged the natural term of those great men's lives. So there is no reason why in our day, also, a man who in his eloquence and virtuous life is the peer of those famous men, should not by means of similar prayers be conducted to the extreme limit of old age for the happiness of mankind.
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§ 80.268 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] To the most illustrious Sarapion People observe the public festivals in various ways. But I am sending you a hundred long-stalked, dried, homegrown figs as a sweet token of this pleasant festal season. If you measure the gift by its size, the pleasure I offer you is trifling, but if measured by its beauty it will perhaps suffice. It is the opinion of Aristophanes that figs are sweeter than anything else except honey, and on second thoughts he does not allow that even honey is sweeter than figs. Herodotus the historian also, in order to describe a really barren desert thought it enough to say: “They have no figs or anything else that is good”; as though to say that among the fruits of the earth there is none to be ranked above figs, and that where men had figs they did not wholly lack something good. Again, the wise Homer praises other fruits for their size or colour or beauty, but to the fig alone he allows the epithet “sweet.” And he calls honey “yellow,” for fear he should inadvertently call “sweet” what is in fact often bitter; accordingly, to the fig alone he assigns this epithet for its own, just as he does to nectar, because alone of all things it is sweet. Indeed Hippocrates says that honey, though it is sweet to the taste, is quite bitter to the digestion, and I can believe his statement; for all agree that it produces bile and turns the juices to the very opposite of its original flavour, which fact even more surely convicts it of being in its origin naturally bitter. For it would not change to this bitterness if in the beginning this quality had not belonged to it, from which it changed to the reverse.
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§ 80.270 But the fig is not only sweet to taste but it is still better for digestion. And it is so beneficial to mankind that Aristotle even says that it is an antidote for every deadly poison, and that for no other reason than this is it served before other food as a first course at meals and then at the end for dessert, as though we embraced it in preference to any other sacred means of averting the injury caused by the things we eat. Moreover, that the fig is offered to the gods also, and is set on the altar in every sacrifice, and that it is better than any frankincense for making fragrant fumes, this is a statement not made by me alone, but whoever is acquainted with its use knows that it is the statement of a wise man, a hierophant. Again, the admirable Theophrastus in his precepts of agriculture, when he is describing the kinds of grafted trees and what sorts admit of being grafted on one another, commends the fig tree above all other plants, if I am not mistaken, as being able to receive various and different kinds, and as the only one of them all that easily bears a growth of any other sort, if you cut out every one of its boughs and then break off and insert a different engrafted stock into each of the cleft stumps; hence to look at it is often equivalent to a complete garden, since it returns you the variegated and manifold splendours of other fruits, as happens in the loveliest orchard. And whereas the fruits of other fruit-bearing trees are short-lived and cannot last for any time, the fig alone can survive beyond the year,
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§ 80.272 and is present at the birth of the fruit that is to follow it. Hence Homer also says that in the garden of Alcinous the fruits “wax old on” one another. Now in the case of other fruits this might perhaps seem to be a poetic fiction, but for the fig alone it would be consistent with the plain fact, because alone of all fruits it lasts for some time. Such, I think, is the nature of the fig in general, but the kind that grows with us is much better than others; so that in proportion as the fig is more valuable than other plants, our fig is more admirable than the fig in general; and while the latter in its kind surpasses all other fruits, it is in its turn excelled by ours, and again holds its own by comparison in both respects, first in being plainly superior, and secondly, in points where it seems to be inferior it wins on the general count. And it is quite natural that this should be so in our country alone. For it was fitting, I think, that the city which in very truth belongs to Zeus and is the eye of the whole East,—I mean sacred and most mighty Damascus,— which in all other respects bears the palm, for instance, for the beauty of its shrines and the size of its temples and for its exquisitely tempered climate and the splendour of its fountains, the number of its rivers and the fertility of its soil— I say it is fitting that she alone should keep up her reputation by the possession of a plant of this excellence and thus excite an excess of admiration. Accordingly our tree does not brook transplanting, nor does it overstep the natural boundaries of its growth, but as though by a law that governs the indigenous plant refuses to grow in colonies abroad. The same sorts of gold and silver are, I believe,
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§ 80.274 produced in many places, but our country alone gives birth to a plant that cannot be grown anywhere else. And just like the wares of India, or Persian silks, or all that is produced and collected in the country of the Ethiopians but travels everywhere by the law of commerce, so, too, our native fig does not grow anywhere else on earth, but is exported by us to all parts, and there is no city or island to which it does not travel, because it is so much admired for its sweet flavour. Moreover it even adorns the imperial table and is the boast and ornament of every feast; and there is no cake or roll or pastry or any kind of confectionery to match it as a sweetmeat wherever it comes; so far does it surpass in admirable qualities all other dainties, and moreover all figs from any other place. Again, other figs are either eaten in autumn, or are dried and go to the store-room, but the fig of our country alone can be used in both ways, and though it is good while on the tree it is far better when it has been dried. And should you see with your own eyes their beauty while they are still on the trees, and how from each one of the branches they hang by long stalks like flower-buds, so to speak, or again, how with their fruit they completely encircle the tree, then you would say that by this circular series one above another they compose a splendid and varied picture even as a neck in its necklace.
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§ 80.276 Then again, the manner in which they are taken from the tree and the means employed for preserving them for a long time involve quite as much outlay as the pleasure derived from their use. For they are not, like other kinds of figs, thrown together in one place, nor are they dried in the sun in heaps or promiscuously; but first they are gathered carefully by hand from the trees, then they are hung-on walls by means of sticks or thorny twigs, so that they may be bleached by exposure to the direct rays of the sun while they are also safe from the attacks of animals and small birds, since the protection of the prickles furnishes them with a sort of bodyguard. So far my letter to you deals with their origin, sweetness, beauty, confection, and use, and is in lighter vein. Now to consider the number one hundred, which is more honourable than any other and contains in itself the perfection of all numbers, as one may learn from the following considerations. I am indeed well aware that there is a saying of wise men of old that an odd number is to be preferred to an even, and they declare that the source of increase is that which does not couple. For in a pair the one term being equal to the other remains of the same quality, but when there are two numbers the third produces oddness. But for my part, even though the statement is somewhat bold, I would nevertheless say this: Numbers surely depend on a generative principle, and can carry on consecutive increase through the whole series. But I hold that it is far more just to assign the cause of that increase to the even than to the odd number.
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§ 80.278 For the number one is not odd, when it has no number in respect to which it were odd. But its coupling with two produces twofold oddness, and the number three, coming from the two, naturally proceeds as increase. Then again when we add two to two, the result is the higher stage of the number four, and, in a word, their conjunction, while making oddness clear in each of their two elements, is constituted in the number two. This being granted, I should say, of course, that when the first decad is revolving on itself in a circle, the whole series progresses to the number one hundred, so that by the number one the increase amounts to ten, and the decad in turn is added each time to itself, and the total is reached in the number one hundred. And starting again from this point, with the hundreds, the whole series of numbers derive their power, by the activity of the number one, except that it is the number two when combined with it that ever produces the odd and again recalls it to itself, until again it concludes with a second hundred the sum of all the numbers, and, making it complete, proceeds again from it to another and under the denomination of hundreds continually carries forward the sum to the conception of infinity. So I think that Homer too in his poems does not lightly or idly assign to Zeus the hundred-tasselled aegis, but in a lofty and obscure saying he hinted at this that
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§ 80.280 to the most perfect god he attached the most perfect number, that number by which alone beyond all the others he would most fittingly be adorned, or because the whole universe which he has comprehended in the shape of an aegis, by reason of the roundness of that image, no other number than the hundred describes, and so with the round number one hundred he harmonises the conception of the intelligible world as a whole. Again, on the same principle he makes Briareus with his hundred hands the assessor of Zeus and allows him to rival his father's might, as though he expressed the perfection of his strength by means of the perfect number. Again, Pindar the Theban, when he celebrates the destruction of Typhoeus in his odes of victory, and ascribes to the most mighty ruler of the gods power over this most mighty giant, rises to the highest pitch of praise simply because with one blow he was able to lay low the hundred-headed giant, as though no other giant was held worthy to fight hand to hand with Zeus than he whom, alone of all the rest, his mother had armed with a hundred heads; and as though no other of the gods save Zeus only were worthy to win a victory by the destruction of so great a giant. Simonides also, the lyric poet, thinks it enough for his praise of Apollo that he should call the god “Hekatos” and adorn him with this title rather than with any other sacred symbol; for this reason, that he overcame the Python, the serpent, with a hundred shafts, as he says,
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§ 80.282 and the god himself took more pleasure in being addressed as “Hekatos” than as “the Pythian,” as if he were thus invoked by the symbolic expression of his complete title. Then again, the island Crete which nurtured Zeus, has received as her reward, as though it were her fee for sheltering Zeus, the honour of cities to the number of one hundred. Homer too praises Thebes the hundred-gated for no other reason than this that there was a marvellous beauty in her hundred gates. I say nothing of the hecatombs of the gods and temples a hundred feet long, altars with a hundred steps, rooms that hold a hundred men, fields of a hundred acres and other things divine and human which are classed together because they have this number for their epithet. It is a number, moreover, that has the power to adorn official rank both for war and peace, and while it lends brilliance to a company of a hundred soldiers it also confers distinction on the title of judges when their number is one hundred. And I could say more than this, but the etiquette of letter-writing deters me. But do you be indulgent to my discourse, for what I have said already is more than enough. And if my essay has in your judgement even a mediocre elegance it shall surely go forth for others to read, after receiving the testimonial of your vote; but if it need another hand to make it fulfil its aim, who better than you should know how to polish the manuscript to the point of elegance and make it smooth so as to give pleasure to the eye?
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§ 81.284 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] To Basil Up to the present I have displayed the innately mild and humane temper that I have shown since childhood, and have brought under my sway all who dwell on the earth beneath the sun. For lo, every tribe of barbarians as far as the boundaries of the river of Ocean has come bringing gifts to lay at my feet! And likewise the Sagadares who are bred on the banks of the Danube, and the Cotti with headdresses of many shapes and colours, who are not like the rest of mankind to look at, but have a fierce and wild appearance. These at the present time are grovelling in my footprints and promise to do whatever suits my majesty's pleasure. And not only am I distracted by this, but I must with all speed occupy the country of the Persians and put to flight the great Sapor, who is the descendant of Darius, until he consents to pay me tribute and taxes. Afterwards I must also sack the settlements of the Indians and Saracens, until they too shall all take second place in my Empire and consent to pay tribute and taxes. But you have in your own person displayed a pride far exceeding the power of all these, when you say that you are clothed in pious reserve, but in fact flaunt your impudence,
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§ 81.286 and spread a rumour on all sides that I am not worthy to be Emperor of the Romans. What! Do you not yourself know that I am a descendant of the most mighty Constans? And although this your conduct has come to my knowledge I have not, as concerns you, departed from my former attitude—I mean that mutual regard which you and I had when we were young men of the same age. But with no harshness of temper I decree that you shall despatch to me one thousand pounds weight of gold, as I march by Caesarea, to be paid without my leaving the high-road, since I purpose to march with all speed to carry on the war with Persia, and I am prepared, if you do not do this, to lay waste the whole district of Caesarea, to tear down on the spot those fine buildings erected long ago, and to set up instead temples and images, that so I may persuade all men to submit to the Emperor of Rome and not be inflated with conceit. Accordingly, weigh the above-mentioned gold to that amount on Campanian scales, oversee it yourself and measure it carefully and despatch it safely to me by someone of your household in whom you have confidence, and first seal it with your own seal-ring, so that, if you have recognised, late though it be, that the occasion admits of no evasion, I may deal mildly with your errors of the past. For what I read, I understood and condemned.
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§ 82.288 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] Letter from Gallus Caesar to his brother Julian Gallus Caesar to his brother Julian, Greeting. My nearness to the country, I mean to Ionia, has brought me the greatest possible gain. For it gave me comfort when I was troubled and pained at the first reports that came to me. You will understand what I mean. It came to my ears that you had abandoned your former mode of worship which was handed down by our ancestors, and goaded by some evil kind of madness that incited you to this, had betaken yourself to that vain superstition. What pain should I not have suffered? For just as whenever I learn by public rumour of any noble quality in you I regard it as a personal gain, so too if I hear of anything disturbing, which, however, I do not think I shall, in the same way I consider it even more my personal loss. Therefore when I was troubled about these matters, the presence of our father Aetius cheered me, for he reported the very contrary, which was what I prayed to hear. Moreover he said that you were zealous in attendance at the houses of prayer, and that you are not being drawn away from pious remembrance of the martyrs, and he affirmed that you entirely adhere to the religion of our family. So I would say to you in the words of Homer, “Shoot on in this wise,” and rejoice those who love you by being spoken of in such terms, remembering that nothing is higher than religion. For supreme virtue teaches us to hate a lie as treachery and to cling to the truth, which truth is most clearly made manifest in the worship of the Divine Being. For a crowd is wholly contentious and unstable; but the Deity, ministering alone with but one other, rules the universe, not by division or lot, like the sons of Cronos, but existing from the beginning and having power over all things, not having received it from another by violence, but existing before all. This is verily God, whom we must adore with the reverence that we owe to him. Farewell!
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§ 83 [PROBABLY SPURIOUS] Eustathius the Philosopher to Julian What an advantage it was for me that the token came late! For instead of riding, in fear and trembling, in the public carriage and, in encounters with drunken mule-drivers and mules made restive, as Homer says, from idleness and overfeeding, having to endure clouds of dust and a strange dialect and the cracking of whips, it was my lot to travel at leisure by a road arched over with trees and well-shaded, a road that had numerous springs and resting-places suitable to the summer season for a traveller who seeks relief from his weariness on the way; and where I always found a good place to stop, airy and shaded by plane trees or cypresses, while in my hand I held the Phaedrus or some other of Plato's dialogues. Now all this profit, Ο beloved, I gained from the freedom with which I travelled; therefore I considered that it would be unnatural not to communicate this also to you, and announce it.
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§ 89.297 Fragment of a letter to a priest (Letter 89b).....Only that they chastise, then and there, any whom they see rebelling against their king. And the tribe of evil demons is appointed to punish those who do not worship the gods, and stung to madness by them many atheists are induced to court death in the belief that they will fly up to heaven when they have brought their lives to a violent end. Some men there are also who, though man is naturally a social and civilised being, seek out desert places instead of cities, since they have been given over to evil demons and are led by them into this hatred of their kind. And many of them have even devised fetters and stocks to wear; to such a degree does the evil demon to whom they have of their own accord given themselves abet them in all ways, after they have rebelled against the everlasting and saving gods. But on this subject what I have said is enough, and I will go back to the point at which I digressed.
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§ 89.299 Though just conduct in accordance with the laws of the state will evidently be the concern of the governors of cities, you in your turn will properly take care to exhort men not to transgress the laws of the gods, since those are sacred. Moreover, inasmuch as the life of a priest ought to be more holy than the political life, you must guide and instruct men to adopt it. And the better sort will naturally follow your guidance. Nay I pray that all men may, but at any rate I hope that those who are naturally good and upright will do so; for they will recognise that your teachings are peculiarly adapted to them. You must above all exercise philanthropy, for from it result many other blessings, and moreover that choicest and greatest blessing of all, the good will of the gods. For just as those who are in agreement with their masters about their friendships and ambitions and loves are more kindly treated than their fellow slaves, so we must suppose that God, who naturally loves human beings, has more kindness for those men who love their fellows. Now philanthropy has many divisions and is of many kinds. For instance it is shown when men are punished in moderation with a view to the betterment of those punished, as schoolmasters punish children; and again in ministering to men's needs, even as the gods minister to our own. You see all the blessings of the earth that they have granted to us, food of all sorts, and in an abundance that they have not granted to all other creatures put together. And since we were born naked they covered us with the hair of animals, and with things that grow in the ground and on trees. Nor were they content to do this simply or off-hand, as Moses bade men take
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§ 89.301 coats of skins, but you see how numerous are the gifts of Athene Ergane (Craftswoman). What other animals use wine, or olive oil? Except indeed in cases where we let them share in these things, even though we do not share them with our fellowmen. What creature of the sea uses corn, what land animal uses things that grow in the sea? And I have not yet mentioned gold and bronze and iron, though in all these the gods have made us very rich; yet not to the end that we may bring reproach on them by disregarding the poor who go about in our midst, especially when they happen to be of good character— men for instance who have inherited no paternal estate, and are poor because in the greatness of their souls they have no desire for money. Now the crowd when they see such men blame the gods. However it is not the gods who are to blame for their poverty, but rather the insatiate greed of us men of property becomes the cause of this false conception of the gods among men, and besides of unjust blame of the gods. Of what use, I ask, is it for us to pray that God will rain gold on the poor as he did on the people of Rhodes? For even though this should come to pass, we should forthwith set our slaves underneath to catch it, and put out vessels everywhere, and drive off all comers so that we alone might seize upon the gifts of the gods meant for all in common. And anyone would naturally think it strange if we should ask for this, which is not in the nature of things, and is in every way unprofitable, while we do
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§ 89.303 not do what is in our power. Who, I ask, ever became poor by giving to his neighbours? Indeed I myself, who have often given lavishly to those in need, have recovered my gifts again many times over at the hands of the gods, though I am a poor man of business; nor have I ever repented of that lavish giving. And of the present time I will say nothing, for it would be altogether irrational of me to compare the expenditure of private persons with that of an Emperor; but when I was myself still a private person I know that this happened to me many times. My grandmother's estate for instance was kept for me untouched, though others had taken possession of it by violence, because from the little that I had I spent money on those in need and gave them a share. We ought then to share our money with all men, but more generously with the good, and with the helpless and poor so as to suffice for their need. And I will assert, even though it be paradoxical to say so, that it would be a pious act to share our clothes and food even with the wicked. For it is to the humanity in a man that we give, and not to his moral character. Hence I think that even those who are shut up in prison have a right to the same sort of care; since this kind of philanthropy will not hinder justice. For when many have been shut up in prison to await trial, of whom some will be found guilty, while others will prove to be innocent, it would be harsh indeed if out of regard for the guiltless we should not bestow some pity on the guilty also, or again, if on account of the guilty we should behave ruthlessly and inhumanly to those also who have done no wrong. This too, when I consider it,
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§ 89.305 seems to me altogether wrong; I mean that we call Zeus by the title “ Xenios ” (God of strangers/guests) while we show ourselves more inhospitable to strangers than are the very Scythians. How, I ask, can one who wishes to sacrifice to Zeus Xenios, even approach his temple? With what conscience can he do so, when he has forgotten the saying “From Zeus come all beggars and strangers; and a gift is precious though small ”? Again, the man who worships Zeus Hetaireios (of Comrades), and who, though he sees his neighbours in need of money, does not give them even so much as a drachma, how, I say, can he think that he is worshipping Zeus aright? When I observe this I am wholly amazed, since I see that these titles of the gods are from the beginning of the world their express images, yet in our practice we pay no attention to anything of the sort. The gods are called by us “gods of kindred,” and Zeus Homognios (God of Kindred) but we treat our kinsmen as though they were strangers. I say “kinsmen” because every man, whether he will or no, is akin to every other man, whether it be true, as some say, that we are all descended from one man and one woman, or whether it came about in some other way, and the gods created us all together, at the first when the world began, not one man and one woman only, but many men and many women at once. For they who had the power to create one man and one woman, were able to create many men and women at once; since the manner of creating one man and one woman is the same as that of creating many men and many women. And
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§ 89.307 one must have regard to the differences in our habits and laws, or still more to that which is higher and more precious and more authoritative, I mean the sacred tradition of the gods which has been handed down to us by the theurgists of earlier days, namely that when Zeus was setting all things in order there fell from him drops of sacred blood, and from them, as they say, arose the race of men. It follows therefore that we are all kinsmen, whether, many men and women as we are, we come from two human beings, or whether, as the gods tell us, and as we ought to believe, since facts bear witness thereto, we are all descended from the gods. And that facts bear witness that many men came into the world at once, I shall maintain elsewhere, and precisely, but for the moment it will be enough to say this much, that if we were descended from one man and one woman, it is not likely that our laws would show such great divergence; nor in any case is it likely that the whole earth was filled with people by one man; nay, not even if the women used to bear many children at a time to their husbands, like swine. But when the gods all together had given birth to men, just as one man came forth, so in like manner came forth many men who had been allotted to the gods who rule over births; and they brought them forth, receiving their souls from the Demiurge from eternity. It is proper also to bear in mind how many discourses have been devoted by men in the past to show that man is by nature a social animal. And shall we, after asserting this and enjoining it, bear
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§ 89.309 ourselves unsociably to our neighbours? Then let everyone make the basis of his conduct moral virtues, and actions like these, namely reverence towards the gods, benevolence towards men, personal chastity; and thus let him abound in pious acts, I mean by endeavouring always to have pious thoughts about the gods, and by regarding the temples and images of the gods with due honour and veneration, and by worshipping the gods as though he saw them actually present. For our fathers established images and altars, and the maintenance of undying fire, and, generally speaking, everything of the sort, as symbols of the presence of the gods, not that we may regard such things as gods, but that we may worship the gods through them. For since being in the body it was in bodily wise that we must needs perform our service to the gods also, though they are themselves without bodies; they therefore revealed to us in the earliest images the class of gods next in rank to the first, even those that revolve in a circle about the whole heavens. But since not even to these can due worship be offered in bodily wise—for they are by nature not in need of anything—another class of images was invented on the earth, and by performing our worship to them we shall make the gods propitious to ourselves. For just as those who make offerings to the statues of the emperors, who are in need of nothing, nevertheless induce goodwill towards themselves thereby, so too those who make offerings to the images of the gods, though the gods need nothing, do nevertheless thereby persuade them to help and
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§ 89.311 to care for them. For zeal to do all that is in one's power is, in truth, a proof of piety, and it is evident that he who abounds in such zeal thereby displays a higher degree of piety; whereas he who neglects what is possible, and then pretends to aim at what is impossible, evidently does not strive after the impossible, since he overlooks the possible. For even though God stands in need of nothing, it does not follow that on that account nothing ought to be offered to him. He does not need the reverence that is paid in words. What then? Is it rational to deprive him of this also? By no means. It follows then that one ought not to deprive him either of the honour that is paid to him through deeds, an honour which not three years or three thousand years have ordained, but all past time among all the nations of the earth. Therefore, when we look at the statues of the gods, let us not indeed think they are stones or wood, but neither let us think they are the gods themselves; and indeed we do not say that the royal likenesses (eikones) are mere wood and stone and bronze, but still less do we say they are the emperors themselves, but rather likenesses of the emperors. He therefore who loves the emperor delights to see the emperor's statue, and he who loves his son delights to see his son's statue, and he who loves his father delights to see his father's statue. It follows that he who loves the gods delights to gaze on the statues of the gods, and their likenesses, and he feels reverence and shudders with awe of the gods who look at him from the unseen world. Therefore if any man thinks that because they have once been called likenesses of the gods, they are incapable of being destroyed, he is, it
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§ 89.313 seems to me, altogether foolish; for surely in that case they were incapable of being made by men's hands. But what has been made by a wise and good man can be destroyed by a bad and ignorant man. But those beings which were fashioned by the gods as the living images of their invisible nature, I mean the gods who revolve in a circle in the heavens, abide imperishable for all time. Therefore let no man disbelieve in gods because he sees and hears that certain persons have profaned their statues and temples. Have they not in many cases put good men to death, like Socrates and Dion and the great Empedotimus? And yet I am very sure that the gods cared more for these men than for the temples. But observe that since they knew that the bodies even of these men were destructible, they allowed them to yield to nature and to submit, but later on they exacted punishment from their slayers; and this has happened in the sight of all, in our own day also, in the case of all who have profaned the temples. Therefore let no man deceive us with his sayings or trouble our faith in a divine providence. For as for those who make such profanation a reproach against us, I mean the prophets of the Jews, what have they to say about their own temple, which was overthrown three times and even now is not being raised up again? This I mention not as a reproach against them, for I myself, after so great a lapse of time, intended to restore it, in honour of the god whose name has been associated with it. But in the present case I have used this instance because I wish to prove that nothing made by man can be
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§ 89.315 indestructible, and that those prophets who wrote such statements were uttering nonsense, due to their gossipping with silly old women. In my opinion there is no reason why their god should not be a mighty god, even though he does not happen to have wise prophets or interpreters. But the real reason why they are not wise is that they have not submitted their souls to be cleansed by the regular course of study, nor have they allowed those studies to open their tightly closed eyes, and to clear away the mist that hangs over them. But since these men see as it were a great light through a fog, not plainly or clearly, and since they think that what they see is not a pure light but a fire, and they fail to discern all that surrounds it, they cry with a loud voice: “Tremble, be afraid, fire, flame, death, a dagger, a broad-sword!” thus describing under many names the harmful might of fire. But on this subject it will be better to demonstrate separately how much inferior to our own poets are these teachers of tales about the gods. It is our duty to adore not only the images of the gods, but also their temples and sacred precincts and altars. And it is reasonable to honour the priests also as officials and servants of the gods; and because they minister to us what concerns the gods, and they lend strength to the gods' gift of good things to us; for they sacrifice and pray on behalf of all men. It it therefore right that we should pay them all not less, if not indeed more, than the honours that we pay to the magistrates of the state. And if any one thinks that we ought to assign equal honours to them and to the magistrates of the state, since the latter
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§ 89.317 also are in some sort dedicated to the service of the gods, as being guardians of the laws, nevertheless we ought at any rate to give the priests a far greater share of our good will. The Achaeans, for instance, enjoined on their king to reverence the priest, though he was one of the enemy, whereas we do not even reverence the priests who are our friends, and who pray and sacrifice on our behalf. But since my discourse has come back again to the beginning as I have so long wished, I think it is worth while for me to describe next in order what sort of man a priest ought to be, in order that he may justly be honoured himself and may cause the gods to be honoured. For as for us, we ought not to investigate or enquire as to his conduct, but so long as a man is called a priest we ought to honour and cherish him, but if he prove to be wicked we ought to allow his priestly office to be taken away from him, since he has shown himself unworthy of it. But so long as he sacrifices for us and makes offerings and stands in the presence of the gods, we must regard him with respect and reverence as the most highly honoured chattel of the gods. For it would be absurd for us to pay respect to the very stones of which the altars are made, on account of their being dedicated to the gods, because they have a certain shape and form suited to the ritual for which they have been fashioned, and then not to think that we ought to honour a man who has been dedicated to the gods. Perhaps someone will object—"But suppose he does wrong and often fails to offer to the gods their sacred
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§ 89.319 rites?" Then indeed I answer that we ought to convict a man of that sort, so that he may not by his wickedness offend the gods; but that we ought not to dishonour him until he has been convicted. Nor indeed is it reasonable that when we have set our hands to this business, we should take away their honour not only from these offenders but also from those who are worthy to be honoured. Then let every priest, like every magistrate, be treated with respect, since there is also an oracle to that effect from the Didymaean god: “As for men who with reckless minds work wickedness against the priests of the deathless gods and plot against their privileges with plans that fear not the gods, never shall such men travel life's path to the end, men who have sinned against the blessed gods whose honour and holy service those priests have in charge.” And again in another oracle the god says: “All my servants from harmful mischief.....;” and he says that on their behalf he will inflict punishment on the aggressors. Now though there are many utterances of the god to the same effect, by means of which we may learn to honour and cherish priests as we ought, I shall speak on this subject elsewhere at greater length. But for the present it is enough to point out that am not inventing anything offhand, since I think that the declaration made by the god and the injunction expressed in his own words are sufficient. Therefore let any man who considers that as a teacher of such matters I am worthy to be believed
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§ 89.321 show due respect to the god and obey him, and honour the priests of the gods above all other men. And now I will try to describe what sort of man a priest himself ought to be, though not for your especial benefit. For if I did not already know from the evidence both of the high priest and of the most mighty gods that you administer this priestly office aright—at least all matters that come under your management—I should not have ventured to confide to you a matter so important. But I do so in order that you may be able from what I say to instruct the other priests, not only in the cities but in the country districts also, more convincingly and with complete freedom; since not of your own self do you alone devise these precepts and practise them, but you have me also to give you support, who by the grace of the gods am known as sovereign pontiff, though I am indeed by no means worthy of so high an office; though I desire, and moreover constantly pray to the gods that I may be worthy. For the gods, you must know, hold out great hopes for us after death; and we must believe them absolutely. For they are always truthful, not only about the future life, but about the affairs of this life also. And since in the superabundance of their power they are able both to overcome the confusion that exists in this life and to regulate its disorders and irregularities, will they not all the more in that other life where conflicting things are reconciled, after the immortal soul has been separated from the body and the lifeless body has turned to earth, be able to bestow all those things for which they have held out hopes to mankind? Therefore since we know that the gods
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§ 89.323 have granted to their priests a great' recompense, let us make them responsible in all things for men's esteem of the gods, displaying their own lives as an example of what they ought to preach to the people. The first thing we ought to preach is reverence towards the gods. For it is fitting that we should perform our service to the gods as though they were themselves present with us and beheld us, and though not seen by us could direct their gaze, which is more powerful than any light, even as far as our hidden thoughts. And this saying is not my own but the god's, and has been declared in many utterances, but for me surely it is sufficient, by bringing forth one such utterance, to illustrate two things in one, namely how the gods see all things and how they rejoice in god-fearing men: “On all sides extend the far-seeing rays of Phoebus. His swift gaze pierces even through sturdy rocks, and travels through the dark blue sea, nor is he unaware of the starry multitude that passes in returning circuit through the unwearied heavens for ever by the statutes of necessity; nor of all the tribes of the dead in the underworld whom Tartarus has admitted within the misty dwelling of Hades, beneath the western darkness. And I delight in god-fearing men as much even as in Olympus.” Now in so far as all soul, but in a much higher degree the soul of man, is akin to and related to the gods, so much the more is it likely that the gaze of the gods should penetrate through his soul easily and
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§ 89.325 effectively. And observe the love of the god for mankind when he says that he delights in the disposition of god-fearing men as much as in Olympus most pure and bright. How then shall he not lead up our souls from the darkness and from Tartarus, if we approach him with pious awe? And indeed he has knowledge even of those who have been imprisoned in Tartarus —for not even that region falls outside the power of the gods,—and to the godfearing he promises Olympus instead of Tartarus. Wherefore we ought by all means to hold fast to deeds of piety, approaching the gods with reverence, and neither saying nor listening to anything base. And the priests ought to keep themselves pure not only from impure or shameful acts, but also from uttering words and hearing speeches of that character. Accordingly we must banish all offensive jests and all licentious intercourse. And that you may understand what I mean by this, let no one who has been consecrated a priest read either Archilochus or Hipponax or anyone else who writes such poems as theirs. And in Old Comedy let him avoid everything of that type—for it is better so—and indeed on all accounts philosophy alone will be appropriate for us priests; and of philosophers only those who chose the gods as guides of their mental discipline, like Pythagoras and Plato and Aristotle, and the school of Chrysippus and Zeno. For we ought not to give heed to them all nor to the doctrines of all, but only to those philosophers and those of their doctrines that make
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§ 89.327 men god-fearing, and teach concerning the gods, first that they exist, secondly that they concern themselves with the things of this world, and further that they do no injury at all either to mankind or to one another, out of jealousy or envy or enmity. I mean the sort of thing our poets in the first place have brought themselves into disrepute by writing, and in the second place such tales as the prophets of the Jews take pains to invent, and are admired for so doing by those miserable men who have attached themselves to the Galilaeans. But for us it will be appropriate to read such narratives as have been composed about deeds that have actually been done; but we must avoid all fictions in the form of narrative such as were circulated among men in the past, for instance tales whose theme is love, and generally speaking everything of that sort. For just as not every road is suitable for consecrated priests, but the roads they travel ought to be duly assigned, so not every sort of reading is suitable for a priest. For words breed a certain sort of disposition in the soul, and little by little it arouses desires, and then on a sudden kindles a terrible blaze, against which one ought, in my opinion, to arm oneself well in advance. Let us not admit discourses by Epicurus or Pyrrho; but indeed the gods have already in their wisdom destroyed their works, so that most of their books have ceased to be. Nevertheless there is no reason why I should not, by way of example, mention these works too, to show what sort of discourses priests must especially avoid; and if such discourses, then much more must they avoid such thoughts. For an error of speech is, in my
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§ 89.329 opinion, by no means the same as an error of the mind, but we ought to give heed to the mind first of all, since the tongue sins in company with it. We ought to learn by heart the hymns in honour of the gods—and many and beautiful they are, composed by men of old and of our own time—though indeed we ought to try to know also those which are being sung in the temples. For the greater number were bestowed on us by the gods themselves, in answer to prayer, though some few also were written by men, and were composed in honour of the gods by the aid of divine inspiration and a soul inaccessible to things evil. All this, at least, we ought to study to do, and we ought also to pray often to the gods, both in private and in public, if possible three times a day, but if not so often, certainly at dawn and in the evening. For it is not meet that a consecrated priest should pass a day or a night without sacrifice; and dawn is the beginning of the day as twilight is of the night. And it is proper to begin both periods with sacrifice to the gods, even when we happen not to be assigned to perform the service. For it is our duty to maintain all the ritual of the temples that the law of our fathers prescribes, and we ought to perform neither more nor less than that ritual; for eternal are the gods, so that we too ought to imitate their essential nature in order that thereby we may make them propitious. Now if we were pure soul alone, and our bodies did not hinder us in any respect, it would be well to prescribe one sort of life for priests. But since what he should practise when on duty concerns the individual priest alone, not priests absolutely, what
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§ 89.331 should we concede to a man who has received the office of priest, on occasions when he is not actually engaged in service in the temples? I think that a priest ought to keep himself pure from all contamination, for a night and a day, and then after purifying himself for another night following on the first, with such rites of purification as the sacred laws prescribe, he should under these conditions enter the temple and remain there for as many days as the law commands. (Thirty is the number with us at Rome, but in other places the number varies.) It is proper then, I think, that he should remain throughout all these days in the sacred precincts, devoting himself to philosophy, and that he should not enter a house or a marketplace, or see even a magistrate, except in the precincts, but should concern himself with his service to the god, overseeing and arranging everything in person; and then, when he has completed the term of days, he should retire from his office in favour of another. And when he turns again to the ordinary life of mankind, he may be allowed to visit a friend's house, and, when invited, to attend a feast, but not on the invitation of all but only of persons of the highest character. And at this time there would be nothing out of the way in his going occasionally to the market-place and conversing with the governor or the chief magistrate of his tribe, and giving aid, as far as lies in his power, to those who have a good reason for needing it. And it is in my opinion fitting for priests to wear the most magnificent dress when they are within the temple performing the services, but when they are outside the sacred precincts to wear ordinary dress,
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§ 89.333 without any extravagance. For it is not rational that we should misuse, in empty conceit and vain ostentation, what has been given to us for the honour of the gods. And for this reason we ought in the market place to abstain from too costly dress and from outward show, and in a word from every sort of pretentiousness. For consider how the gods, because they admired the perfect moderation of Amphiaraus, after they had decreed the destruction of that famous army—and he, though he knew that it would be so, went with the expedition and therefore did not escape his fated end,—the gods I say transformed him completely from what he had been, and removed him to the sphere of the gods. For all the others who were in the expedition against Thebes engraved a device on their shields before they had conquered the enemy, and erected trophies to celebrate the downfall of the Cadmeans; but he, the associate of the gods, when he went to war had arms with no device; but gentleness he had, and moderation, as even the enemy bore witness. Hence I think that we priests ought to show moderation in our dress, in order that we may win the goodwill of the gods, since it is no slight offence that we commit against them when we wear in public the sacred dress and make it public property, and in a word give all men an opportunity to stare at it as though it were something marvellous. For whenever this happens, many who are not purified come near us, and by this means the symbols of the gods are polluted. Moreover
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§ 89.335 what lawlessness it is, what arrogance towards the gods for us ourselves when we are not living the priestly life to wear the priestly dress! However, of this too I shall speak more particularly in another place; and what I am writing to you at the moment is only a mere outline of the subject. No priest must anywhere be present at the licentious theatrical shows of the present day, nor introduce one into his own house; for that is altogether unfitting. Indeed if it were possible to banish such shows absolutely from the theatres so as to restore to Dionysus those theatres pure as of old, I should certainly have endeavoured with all my heart to bring this about; but as it is, since I thought that this is impossible, and that even if it should prove to be possible it would not on other accounts be expedient, I forebore entirely from this ambition. But I do demand that priests should withdraw themselves from the licentiousness of the theatres and leave them to the crowd. Therefore let no priest enter a theatre or have an actor or a chariot-driver for his friend; and let no dancer or mime even approach his door. And as for the sacred games, I permit anyone who will to attend those only in which women are forbidden not only to compete but even to be spectators. With regard to the hunting shows with dogs which are performed in the cities inside the theatres, need I say that not only priests but even the sons of priests must keep away from them? Now it would perhaps have been well to say earlier from what class of men and by what method priests must be appointed; but it is quite appropriate that my remarks should end with this. I say
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§ 89.337 that the most upright men in every city, by preference those who show most love for the gods, and next those who show most love for their fellow men, must be appointed, whether they be poor or rich. And in this matter let there be no distinction whatever whether they are unknown or well known. For the man who by reason of his gentleness has not won notice ought not to be barred by reason of his want of fame. Even though he be poor and a man of the people, if he possess within himself these two things, love for God and love for his fellow men, let him be appointed priest. And a proof of his love for God is his inducing his own people to show reverence to the gods; a proof of his love for his fellows is his sharing cheerfully, even from a small store, with those in need, and his giving willingly thereof, and trying to do good to as many men as he is able. We must pay especial attention to this point, and by this means effect a cure. For when it came about that the poor were neglected and overlooked by the priests, then I think the impious Galilaeans observed this fact and devoted themselves to philanthropy. And they have gained ascendancy in the worst of their deeds through the credit they win for such practices. For just as those who entice children with a cake, and by throwing it to them two or three times induce them to follow them, and then, when they are far away from their friends cast them on board a ship and sell them as slaves, and that which for the moment seemed sweet, proves to be bitter for all the rest of their lives—by the same method, I say, the Galilaeans
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§ 89.339 also begin with their so-called love-feast, or hospitality, or service of tables,—for they have many ways of carrying it out and hence call it by many names,—and the result is that they have led very many into atheism.....

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Wilmer Cave Wright (1865-1951). Composed ca. 363 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.