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THE LIBRARY 
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APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


AND OTHER ESSAYS 





APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


AND OTHER ESSAYS 


By 
THOMAS WHITTAKER 


AUTHOR OF “¢ THE NEO-PLATONISTS,” ETC 





LONDON 
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., Lim. 
25 HicH STREET, BLoomsBury, W.C. 


1906 


Popes 
i. oe ey 
A vet 





NOTE. 


Of the six essays contained in this volume, 
the first three—much the larger—are his- 
torical; the last three, positive. The first 
of the series appeared in The Monist for 
January, 1903; the fifth in Mind of the 
same date. The rest have not hitherto been 


published. 


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CONTENTS. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA, a a es 
CELsus AND ORIGEN, - 4 2 ie 
Joun Scotus ErRiGcENa, = 2 2 


ANIMISM, RELIGION AND PHILOosoPHY, 


A CompeEnpiIous CLASSIFICATION OF THE 


SCIENCES, - - ~ - - 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL, - - 


PAGE 


178 


192 





APOLLONIUS OF TYANA. 


ee eens 


REFORMER of Greek religion from within, whose 

activity may have coincided with the first emergence 
of the Christian propaganda from Judza, is undoubtedly an 
interesting historical figure. And both in ancient and in 
modern times Apollonius of Tyana has been made the subject 
of parallels which were probably never thought of by the author 
of his extant Life. The first of these parallels was by Hierocles, 
Proconsul of Bithynia under Diocletian ; in which the attempt 
seems to have been made to show that the marvels attributed 
to Apollonius were better authenticated than those attributed 
to Christ. We do not possess this work itself; but we have 
the reply of Eusebius, Bishop of Czsarea and ecclesiastical 
historian, written after the triumph of the new faith. The 
most elaborate modern parallel is that of F. C. Baur, first 
published in 1832.’ Baur here attempts to show, not only 
that there are resemblances between the Life of Apollonius by 
Philostratus and the Gospels, but that Philostratus deliberately 
modelled his hero on the type set forth by the Evangelists. 
Though he was followed in this view by Zeller, it is now 
generally rejected; so that there is no need to enter into con- 
troversy on the subject. It remains, however, none the less 
interesting to try to determine the character of the reforming 
activity of Apollonius himself. Was his predominant aim to 
conduct the world along the path of intensified supernaturalism, 


1 Republished by Zeller with two essays on related subjects under the 
general title, Drez Abhand/ungen zur Geschichte der alten Philosophie una 
thres Verhdltnisses cum Christenthum, Leipzig, 1876. 

I 


2 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


or was it to promote the growth of a more rational and ethical 
religion so far as this was possible without breaking with the 
past P 

The materials for judging are contained in the Life of Apollo- 
nius written by Philostratus early in the third century, and in 
the extant letters ascribed to him, some of which Philostratus 
evidently knew. Whether any of these are genuine, it is im- 
possible to be certain; and in any case the biography of 
Philostratus is clearly a romance. For the composition of it, 
the writer professes to have used the memoirs of Damis, a 
disciple of Apollonius; but he tells us that, as these were 
wanting in literary form, he has freely worked them up. Baur 
argues that the introduction of ‘‘ Damis the Assyrian” is simply 
a literary device. The obvious anachronism by which Philo- 
stratus represents the Babylon visited by Apollonius as identical 
with the Babylon of Herodotus, he also holds to be intentional. 
It is not, he thinks, put before the reader for serious belief, but 
only to bring out the ideal attitude of a Greek philosopher 
confronted with Oriental ostentation. There is much to be 
said for this view. Philostratus, who was an accomplished man 
of letters, has nowhere the air of disclaiming credit for the skill 
of presentation shown in his narrative, while occasionally he 
disclaims belief in the stories narrated. He was, besides, an 
original art-critic, as is evident from the descriptions of real or 
imaginary pictures in another of his works; and he puts into 
the mouth of Apollonius zsthetic theories which he can 
scarcely have meant us to believe were not hisown. He did 
not, of course, for a moment suppose that he was drawing up 
the documents of a new religion, and hence had no motive for 
concealing his methods. It was only necessary that they 
should not be obtruded. We have before us a highly mature 
work of literary art by an individual author who comes forward 
in his own name. If we cannot be sure in detail about the 
facts at the ground of the romance, we are saved from the 
labour of trying to extricate them from stratum on stratum of 
superimposed redactions. We know at least what type of 
reformer Philostratus conceived Apollonius to have been. 

That Apollonius was a real person born at Tyana, there is 
no reason to doubt; nor is there any uncertainty about the 
general character of his life and teaching. He was in manner 
of life a Neo-Pythagorean ascetic, and taught what would now 
be described as a spiritualistic philosophy. The one mode of 
reforming activity ascribed to him with absolute consistency is 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 3 


a vigorous campaign against animal sacrifices. Superhuman 
powers, especially those of prophetic insight and of clairvoyance, 
were attributed to him by common report. Dio Cassius,! as 
well as Philostratus, relates that he saw in a vision the slaying 
of Domitian. The fact that he had a quarrel with a Stoic 
philosopher named Euphrates, who is known as a historical 
personage,” is clear, though its causes can only be conjectured 
from the account of Philostratus. For the rest, there is no 
ground for supposing that Philostratus deviated in the general 
spirit of his representation from the authentic type of his hero ; 
and he must have had sources of information open to him for 
the details, with whatever freedom he may have treated them. 
Other Lives of Apollonius, now lost, are known to have 
existed. 

In the ‘‘ Epistles of Apollonius,” some of which, as has been 
mentioned, Philostratus had before him, the type is already 
individualised. A few points from these may be given as a 
preliminary to the more detailed biographical account which 
will follow.’ The style of the most of them, it may be 
observed, is of the laconic brevity attributed by Philostratus to 
all the genuine letters of Apollonius. Two on the subject of 
sacrifices, addressed to the sacerdotal bodies at Olympia and at 
Delphi, may be quoted in full. ‘‘ The gods need not sacrifices. 
What then might one gratify them by doing? By obtaining 
wisdom, as I think, and by benefiting worthy men to the 
extent of one’s power. These things are dear to the gods; 
those are of the godless.”4 ‘‘ Priests defile altars with blood ; 
then some wonder whence cities are unfortunate, while they do 
ill in great things. Oh folly ! Heraclitus was wise, but not 
even he persuaded the Ephesians not to wash out mud with 
mud.”*> The contrariety dwelt on between virtue and 


1Lxvii. 18. See Baur, Apollonius von Tyana und Christus (Dret 
Abhandlungen, etc., ed. Zeller, pp. 110-111). 


2A laudatory reference to him in the Epistles of the younger Pliny 
(i. 10) is quoted by Baur, /oc. cit., p. 153n. , 


The Epistles of Apollonius and the repiy of Eusebius to Hierocles 
are appended to Kayser’s edition of Philostratus, Vol. I. For Philostratus 
himself I have used Westermann’s edition. 


4 Ep 26: rots év Odvurig Genxédpets. 


5 Ep. 27: tots év Aeddois iepetow, 


4 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


riches! may be passed over as a well-known philosophic com- 
monplace ; but the way in which love of family and country is 
brought into union with the widest cosmopolitanism seems to 
offer something distinctive of the philosopher who, having 
travelled over the known world, is said to have been always 
pleased when addressed by the name of his birthplace. While 
it is well, he declares, to think all the earth a fatherland and 
all men brothers and friends, as being children of God, of one 
nature ; there being the same community of reason and of 
passions to each and all, barbarian or Greek: yet neither men 
nor even irrational animals can lose the memory of their home 
and native seat or find anything to replace it.2 Men need 
cities next after the gods; and after the gods cities are to be 
honoured and their interests to be placed foremost by every 
rational being. While he accepts (or is made to accept) as 
an honour the charge that his Pythagorean philosophy seeks 
to attain insight into the future by revelations from the gods— 
only given, as he contends, to those who are pure in life—he 
also claims for the Pythagoreans, as Iamblichus did afterwards, 
the idea of a demonstrable religion. Against the credulity 
of the time, we find the reproof addressed to the Milesians that, 
while Thales is called their father, they in their folly accuse a 
philosopher who predicts an earthquake of causing it. A 
distinctive point again is the protest against the exaggerated 
cynical strain in Stoicism. Inan imaginary dialogue, Euphrates 
is made to reproach Apollonius with relieving pains and suffer- 
ings of the body (which are no evil, according to the rigorists). 
His answer is that the same charge might be brought against 
the god of healing.° Of actual miracles nothing is said ; and 


1See especially Ep. 35: “Aperh kal xphuara map’ jyiv addjdous 
évayTiwTaTa, mecovpevov yap TO Erepov av&er TO Erepov, avfavduevoy dé perol. 
mas otv Swardv aydédrepa tepl Tov adrov yevréoOar; mAHY El uN TH Tov 
dvonrwv Noyw, map’ ois Kai 6 TAODTOS apeEr?. 

Ep. 44. 

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4Ep. 52. Among the things received from a Pythagorean teacher, 
Apollonius mentions, besides mathematical and medical science, yr@ouw 
Gedy, od Sdéar, eldnow Saudvar, ovxi TiaTiY. 


5Ep. 68. 


6 Ep. 8: rodré mov kal mpos Tov ’AckAnTLoy Kooy Td &yKAnHG, 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 5 


one who could utter the fine gnomic saying, “ To lie is unfree 
(characteristic of the unfree), truth is noble (characteristic of a 
noble nature),” cannot well’ have been a counterfeiter of 
miraculous powers. A piece of practical advice that may be 
regarded as a refinement upon this occurs in a letter to a 
sophist on literary composition: ‘Since the absolutely best 
mode of speech: is hard to determine, speak in your own 
character rather than try to imitate what is best—or what you 
suppose to be best—if you have it not by nature.” 

One letter obviously different in style from the others* is 
nevertheless interesting as bearing the mark of the period 
though not of the individual ideas of Apollonius. At the end 
there is an expression of Stoic pantheism, which, in the 
transitional phase of the time, was often presented in fusion or 
confusion with Platonism. Everything done or suffered in 
appearance by the individual is to be referred to the one first 
ESSENCE (mpdry otcia)’ as its cause, both active and passive. 
The teaching of Apollonius himself, so far as we can judge, 
though not without Stoic elements, laid stress rather on the 
transcendence of the supreme divinity. In the earlier part of 
the letter, what is supposed to be the Platonic or Pythagorean 
doctrine of immortality is asserted. Death and birth alike are 
only appearance. There is alternation between the visible and 
tangible of nature (¢vicews) and the invisible and intangible of 
essence (otclas), but in reality nothing is created or destroyed. 
The process is conceived as taking place by condensation and 
rarefaction of matter; the former being the phenomenon of 
birth and growth, the latter of death. As may be seen, there 
is here no strictly defined immateriality of the soul, which is 
either identified with or very imperfectly discriminated from a 
fiery or ethereal influx such as the Stoics took to be the basis 
of life and thought. There seems to be nothing here specially 
characteristic of Apollonius; but it is clear that in the 
speculation of the time the Platonic metaphysic was in danger 


1Ep. 83: pevderOa dvededOepov, ddjOera yevvatov. This may have been 
a repudiation of the yevvatov Yeddos permitted by Plato on occasion.to his 
philosophic guardians of the State. 


2 Ep. 19. 
3Ep. 58. 


4% 8h udvn Toe Te Kal wdcxer Wao. ywouevy TdvTa Gia TavTwY Ged 
Gtévos, dvduaci kal rpoowmros apacpoumevn 76 troy adcxoupéervn TE, 


6 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


of being swamped in a kind of eclectic animism. The meta- 
physical advance to a definitely formulated immaterialism as 
regards the soul itself had to wait for the Neo-Platonic develop- 
ment. Neo-Platonism was in some respects a return from a 
religious to a more scientific interest in Plato ; whose critique 
of materialism had not hitherto been carried through so rigor- 
ously in point of expression that the idea of incorporeal mind 
and soul could not again be lost. 

With this later development we are not at present con- 
cerned ; and in the teaching of Apollonius himself, as presented 
by Philostratus, there is abundant interest on the side both of 
thought and of practice. For the phase to which he belongs, 
if unoriginal metaphysically, was in other ways marked by 
advances that proved the still enduring vitality of the ancient 
culture. It was not indeed by intrinsic decay that that culture 
disappeared, but by the invasion of alien forces. In the third 
century it still seemed possible to preserve with modifications 
the inherited type. The method which commended itself to 
the minds that were still in the ascendant was that of conserv- 
ative reform. The imperial monarchy, which no one now 
dreamed of abolishing, was to be made the centre of institutions 
as republican as possible in spirit. The ancient religions were 
to be preserved in some form of union under the ethical 
direction of philosophy. Oriental cults, severely opposed in 
the second century, were in the third regarded with more 
favour if only their underlying community with those of 
Greece and Rome could be brought into view. The move- 
ment found its precursors, both political and religious, in 
philosphers of the first century ; among whom, as we shall see, 
Philostratus makes it his special aim to assign the place of 
honour to Apollonius. In more than one respect the philos- 
opher of Tyana was a hero better adapted to the needs of the 
time than men whose activity had been/more characteristic 
of their own age. Speculative minds were now decisively 
turning away from Stoicism and seeking a more transcendental 
doctrine; and Apollonius had been a Pythagorean. The 
impracticable character of much of the Stoic resistance to 
monarchy during the first age of the empire was also recog- 
nised ; and while no philosophy would have been listened to 
that did not repudiate the language of political absolutism, the 
need was felt of one which laid little stress on the external form 
of government. This need too was supplied by a Platonising 
Pythagoreanism which, while it had no more sympathy than 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 7 


the other doctrines with Oriental kingship, assigned a high 
place among constitutions to a monarchy according to law. 
To us it is visible that the facts of the situation were making 
for a formal despotism, a monarchy by divine right, sanctioned 
by the theocratic Church, now rapidly growing under the 
surface of ancient life; but this at the time was seen or sus- 
pected by few. A still noble civilisation, lowered, as was 
confessed, in type though extended in range, but accompanied 
by many advances and possibilities of advance, both adminis- 
trative and spiritual, seemed to thinking men worth preserving 
against disruptive forces whether from without or from within. 


How far Philostratus was from insisting on the Oriental 
affinities of his hero may be seen at the opening of his first 
book, where he begins with an apology for them. Some, it 
appears, refused Apollonius a place among philosophers 
precisely on the ground that he was said to have put forward 
his doctrine and discipline as revelations from the gods. 
Philostratus therefore sets himself to show that, in spite of all 
that can be urged on that ground, he was a sane and philo- 
sophical cultivator of true wisdom as understood among the 
Greeks. Earlier philosophers also were believed to have been 
enlightened by divine revelations; and not only Pythagoras 
himself, but Democritus and Plato and others, had frequented 
Eastern and E; ;ptian sages and priests: yet they were not 
suspected of ‘‘magic.” His ‘“ dzmonic sign” is not brought 
as an accusation against Socrates. Anaxagoras made meteoro- 
logical predictions ; and these are looked upon as instances 
of his wisdom. Why then should similar predictions of the 
future by Apollonius be ascribed to magical arts? Since, 
however, he is decried as a magician, and is not generally 
known in his true character, I have tried, says Philostratus, to 
bring together the facts from all accessible sources. 

The memoirs of Damis, the disciple and companion of 
Apollonius, he proceeds to explain, were made known to the 
Empress Julia Domna (the wife of Septimius Severus) by a 
relation of Damis, and were committed by her to Philostratus, 
who was a member of her literary circle." Damis, being an 
Assyrian by birth, was not a skilled writer;? but Philostratus 
has put into shape the materials supplied by him. These, we 
are to suppose, furnish the groundwork of the narrative. 


li, 3. 71, 19. 


8 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


The story begins with some legends about the birth of 
Apollonius, agreeably and romantically told. Before his birth 
he was announced to his mother by “ Proteus, the Egyptian 
god,” as an incarnation of himself. ‘The country people say 
that he was a son of Zeus, but he calls himself the son of 
Apollonius.”! At the age of fourteen he was taken by his 
father to be instructed by a distinguished rhetorician at Tarsus. 
Disliking the luxury of the city, he was permitted to migrate 
to the neighbouring Ege, where there was a temple of Ascle- 
pius. He gave attention to all the philosophies, but attached 
himself to that of Pythagoras. His Pythagorean teacher did 
not live according to the principles he taught; but Apollo- 
nius, while not ceasing to love his preceptor, aimed at practis- 
ing the Pythagorean life in all its austerity. Beginning, as he 
said, like physicians, with discipline of the body, he gave up 
animal food, both as impure and as coarsening to the intellect. 
Wine also he gave up, not indeed as impure, but because it 
makes turbid the zther in the soul. He wore linen garments, 
rejecting those made from the skins or clothing of animals; 
went barefoot ; let his hair grow long; and took up his abode 
in the temple. There, Philostratus relates, the god used to 
appear in person. Apollonius, with his approval, blames the 
offering beforehand of costly sacrifices, which seem to him to 
be in intention bribes; and bids the priest dismiss a wealthy 
suppliant, who is a wrongdoer, with his gifts. The gods, he 
observes, are most just, and will not consent to be bought off 
in this way. To another evil-minded suitor, he declines the 
office of mediator, telling him that the gods welcome the good 
without intermediaries.2 When he had come of age, he 
returned to Tyana, having made the temple at AZgze, says his 
biographer, a Lyceum and an Academy ; for it resounded with 
all philosophy. 

At home, he reformed a debauched elder brother; and when 
he received his patrimony, distributed most of it among his 
poor relations, reserving only a small portion for himself. 
Going beyond the famous precept of Pythagoras, that a man 
should be faithful to his wife, he resolved on a life of chaste 
celibacy, and kept his resolution even in youth. According to 


1]. 6. 
i, 12 (1): “ Edornody pe” Edn ‘7G ew.” 68 brodaBdy “Kal ri cor det 


Tov évorHnoovros,” elev ‘‘ el xpnards ef; Tovds yap crovdatous of Beo! Kal dvev 
Tov TpokevotvTwv aomdfovTa, 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 9 


the Pythagorean rule, he submitted to the probation of five 
_ years’ silence. During this time, which he passed partly in 
Pamphylia and partly in Cilicia, he was able to calm factions 
about games by mere signs. This, says Philostratus, was not 
so difficult ; for people who quarrel about dancers and horses 
are easily made ashamed of themselves. It was less easy to 
quell a tumult caused by a famine. This Apollonius did at 
-Aspendus in Pamphylia, where the people were going to burn 
the prefect, though he had taken refuge by a statue of the 
Emperor. And at that time, which was in the reign of Tibe- 
rius, the Emperor’s statues were more terrible and more 
inviolable than those of the Olympian Zeus. The prefect, on 
being questioned by signs, protested his innocence, and ac- 
cused certain powerful citizens, who were refusing to sell corn 
and keeping it back to export at a profit. To them Apollo- 
nius addressed a note threatening expulsion from Earth, who 
is the mother of all, for she is just, but whom they, being 
unjust, have made the mother of themselves alone. In fear of 
this threat they yielded and filled the market-place with corn. 

Having completed his probation, Apollonius visited the 
great Antioch. He found the people there not only wanting 
in mental culture, but luxurious and effeminate ; and, to judge 
from the report of Philostratus, seems to have liked that 
‘cradle of the Church” no better than Julian did afterwards. 
Philostratus here excuses himself for relating myths connected 
with the temple of Apollo Daphnzus. His purpose, he 
remarks, is not to mythologise,’ but to explain how Apollonius 
canie to utter the wish that the god would turn the “ semi- 
barbarous and uncultivated” inhabitants, with their want of all 
seriousness, into trees, so that thus they might give forth some 
sound worth listening to. Visiting the temples, he sought to 
bring back the Hellenic rites to their primitive form: when 
the rites were alien, he tried to discover their original meaning 
and to get them corrected in accordance with it. His mode 
of exposition was not disputatious but magisterial, and this at 
least gave him some influence with the men of Antioch.? 

From Antioch he set out with two attendants to visit the 
Brahmans of India, and, in the course of his journey, the Magi 
of Babylon and Susa. At Nineveh, Damis, a native of the 


1}, 16 (2): ov7~x trép uvGoroyias Tatra. 


2i, 17 (2): Kal éméorpedev és éavrdv dvOpurous duovcordrous. 


10 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


place, asks and obtains leave to become his companion. 
Among the Arabians, Apollonius acquires the knowledge they 
have of the speech of animals. Proceeding on his journey, he 
encounters a satrap of King Vardanes, the ‘‘ Mede,” who has 
lately recovered the empire, and whose officials are known as 
the King’s “Eyes” and “Ears.” Still, as in the days of 
Aristophanes, these Oriental titles seem adapted to produce 
an effect of the grotesque and to form part of the traditional 
picture of Western Asiatic despotism. We need not try to 
refer the whole account to the age of Apollonius, though 
chronologically the Parthian king Bardanes corresponds to the 
approximate date. The general representation is sufficiently 
conformable to the revival of the Persian monarchy under the 
Sassanide in the time of Philostratus himself, decked out with 
circumstances from the historical records of the ancient empire. 
The narrative is obviously written with a view to contrasting 
the simplicity and independence of the philosopher with the 
combination of despotism, luxury, and elaborate mechanical 
art that had distinguished the old civilisations of those regions. 
Nor is the conception, taken broadly, untrue. The difference 
of attitude here and in the description of the Indian journey 
which follows is notable. The Greeks by the time of Philo- 
stratus had accumulated some knowledge of India ; and, vague 
as this must have been, it is evident that they had already 
detected the profoundly philosophical character of the Indian 
intellect. Thus we are told nothing of what Apollonius was 
able to learn from the Magi;* whereas in the account of his 
stay in India there is abundance of philosophical interchange 
of thought. A relatively high but unspeculative religion such © 
as Zoroastrianism or Judaism seems never to have appealed to 
the Greek mind as did even merely general reports on the 
tenets of the Brahmans and afterwards of the Buddhists. 
Among the decorations of the royal palace at Babylon, we 
are told, figures of Greek legend were to be seen, Orpheus 
appearing frequently. Perhaps it is his tiara and his Oriental 
dress that they are pleased with there: it is not the charm of 
his music and song. The capture of Athens was represented, 
and the Persian victory at Thermopyle, ‘‘ and things still more 
Medic, rivers diverted from their course, and the bridging of 


* Questioned by Damis (i. 26), he says that they are copol wéy, ddd’ od 
ward. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA II 


the sea, and how Athos was cut through.” Apollonius refuses 
to do obeisance to the golden image of the King. The King, 
who knows him already by repute, is pleased to hear of his 
coming and sends for him. Being about to sacrifice a white 
horse to the Sun, he asks Apollonius to accompany him, but 
the Pythagorean philosopher replies: ‘‘ You, O King, sacrifice 
in your own manner, and give me leave to sacrifice in mine.” 
Then, having thrown frankincense on the flame, and uttered a 
prayer to the god, he departs, so as to have no share in an 
offering of blood.2, When the King invites him to join in 
hunting the animals which the barbarians preserve in their 
parks or ‘‘ paradises,” he reminds him that he could not even 
be present at his sacrifices, and expresses disapproval of the 
pleasure taken in the hunting of wild animals kept for sport.* 
In accordance with the general spirit of the picture, he is 
represented as neither dazzled by the regal magnificence nor 
impressed by material marvels such as the tunnel under the 
Euphrates and the walls of Ecbatana. The King, when he 
takes leave, provides him with the means of continuing his 
journey to India; and Apollonius describes him to his com- 
panions as an excellent man and worthy of a better fate than 
to rule over barbarians. 

Damis says that in crossing the Indian Caucasus he saw the 
fetters of Prometheus hanging from the rocks, though it was 
not easy to tell of what material they were composed. Apollo- 
nius frightened off a hobgoblin appearing by moonlight. Then, 
after these and other strange stories, there follows a remarkable 
disquisition on the inwardness of the Divine.* Apollonius 
questions Damis about the effect on his mind of ascending so 
high a mountain-range. Damis thinks that he ought to be 
wiser, passing over such a lofty and trackless spot: ‘ For,” 
said he, looking up at the summit, ‘‘ you hear from our guide 
that the barbarians make it to be the house of the gods.” 
Moreover, sages like Anaxagoras and Thales are said to have 
contemplated the heavens from just such elevations. ‘ Yet,” 
he confesses, ‘I, having ascended the loftiest height of all, 
shall go down no wiser than I was before.” ‘‘ Nor did they,” 
replies Apollonius, ‘‘ merely by such prospects, which display 


+L 25. se 3 


3i, 38: Kal ddAXAws odx 750 Onpins BeBacavicuévors Kai mapa Thy pow Thy 
€avTav dedovrwuévacs eririderdat. 
4 * 
i &, 


12 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


only bluer skies and larger stars and the sun rising from the 
night—sights visible also to shepherds and goatherds: but how 
the divinity cares for the human race, and how it delights in 
being served by it, and what is virtue and what justice and 
temperance, neither will Athos show those that climb it nor 
Olympus admired of the poets, unless the soul see through 
them, which, if it take hold of them pure and undefiled, darts 
farther than this Caucasus.” 

Indian nomads having furnished the wayfarers with palm- 
wine and honey, Damis thinks Apollonius can have no objec- 
tion to tasting this wine, as it is not made from the grape. 
Apollonius proves to him that it is really wine, just as coins of 
bronze are no less money than coins of silver or gold. More- 
over Bacchus, whose mountain of Nysa is close at hand, will 
not be angry with him for not drinking wine at all; but, if he 
refuses that which comes from the vine and yet drinks that 
which is made from dates, the god will be angry and think his 
gift disdained. And other wine, as well as that from grapes, 
intoxicates, as may be seen in the case of the Indians who 
drink it. This, however, has been said only to excuse himself, 
since he is bound by a vow. To his companions he does not 
wish to forbid wine, nor even flesh.’ 

They meet a boy riding on an elephant, and Damis wonders 
at his skill in managing such a huge beast. Apollonius by 
questioning brings out that the credit is due not so much to 
the boy’s skill as to the self-restraint of the animal. Philo- 
stratus goes on himself to discuss the various accounts of the 
elephant, one of them by the Libyan King Juba. The general 
conclusion is that elephants are second only to man in practical 
sagacity. 

King Vardanes has sent a letter to the satrap placed over 
the Indus, requesting him to conduct Apollonius on his way. 
He supplies him with the means of navigating the river, and 
gives him a letter to his own king. -Here Philostratus takes 
occasion to compare the Indus with the Nile, expressing 
scepticism in both cases as to the snow which is said to lie 
upon the mountains and to augment the stream by melting.? 
At Taxila was the king’s palace. The dress of the Indians is 
of linen and of ‘‘ byssus,” which comes from a plant. 

Visiting the temple before the city-walls, the travellers find 
representations with metallic materials on brazen tablets. 


at ee et eee ae 5 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 13 


These were comparable for expression to the works of the best 
Greek painters... The defeat of Porus and the clemency of 
Alexander were among the subjects represented. In a 
dialogue on painting and imitative art generally,” Apollonius 
draws the attention of Damis to the shapes seen in the clouds, 
which appear to us like centaurs and other forms of living 
things, known and unknown. He educes the conclusion that 
while such shapes are casual so far as external nature is con- 
cerned, there is yet an imitative faculty manifested in our 
seeing them. This faculty is in us. For man is-naturally 
imitative, even when he has not acquired the power of drawing 
with the hand; and it is this natural imitative faculty, 
spontaneously exercising itself, that makes us see such shapes. 
Nor can the faculty be absent in those who merely view 
pictures, at least if they are to take pleasure in them. To 
make possible the pleasure in artistic representations, there 
must be an active power of supplying something from our- 
selves. This is shown in the case of paintings in black and 
white. Draw correctly the features of an Indian in white, and 
he will appear to the fancy as dark ; the colour being filled in 
from past experience. So likewise in viewing the picture by 
Timomachus of the madness of Ajax: he who is to regard it 
with admiration must bring to it some image of Ajax and some 
notion of the whole sequence of events of which his madness 
formed part. The figures on brass seen in the temple are to 
be classed, Apollonius proceeds, not under the head of mere 
metal-working (xa\«evrtx4), but as products of some art inter- 
mediate between that and painting in the special sense. It is 
an art, he concludes, most like that of Hephzestus in Homer’s 
description of the shield of Achilles. 

The king, whose name is Phraotes, invites Apollonius to stay 
for three days. Describing the construction of the city as 
viewed by the company, and in particular the temple of the 
Sun, Philostratus takes occasion to note the “ symbolical 
manner” in which the statue of the god was fashioned,—a 
manner, he remarks, common to the sacred art of all the 
barbarians.» The Greek sage admired the modesty in the 
ordering of the palace as compared with the luxury of Babylon. 
In conversing with the king, Apollonius finds him to be a true 
philosopher.  Phraotes, having dismissed the interpreter, 


lij, 20 (2). 2i, 22. 3 ii, 24. 


14 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


requests Apollonius in Greek to let him join him at a banquet. 
On being asked why he puts his invitation in this form, he 
replies that it is because he regards wisdom as more kingly 
than his own rank.’ At the banquet Apollonius asks him how 
he acquired Greek and came to be possessed of philosophy. 
The king smiling returns: “As the people of old times 
inquired of those who came to their coasts whether they were 
robbers, because that mode of life, though grievous, was common, 
so you Greeks seem to inquire of all who come in contact with 
you whether they are philosophers; so much do you think 
philosophy, though the divinest thing that can fall to the lot of 
men, to be the affair of every one. And indeed I hear that 
most of those who profess philosophy among you are in fact 
robbers ; the reason being that, while you have laws to punish 
coiners of false money and such people, you have no law for 
trying those who claim to be philosophers and for excluding 
pretenders.” 

He then proceeds to explain that in India there are few pro- 
fessional philosophers, and that these are carefully tested be- 
fore they are allowed to enter upon the philosophic life. First 
their ancestors for three generations back must have done 
nothing disgraceful ; this being ascertained from public records. 
In the next place the candidates, on offering themselves at the 
age of eighteen, are examined in respect both of their moral 
and intellectual fitness. The examiners* make use especially 
of the indications of physiognomy. For where philosophy is 
held in high honour, as in India, it is most necessary that those 
who profess it should be subjected to every kind of test. 
Next Phraotes relates how he himself came to receive a 
philosophical education. His grandfather was king before 
him; but his father, having been dispossessed during his 
minority, was sent for refuge to a foreign king. This king, 
who had a better realm than his own hereditary one, would 
have adopted him; but he preferred, as he said, not to con- 
tend with fortune, and obtained leave to devote himself to 
philosophy, so that he might bear his ills more easily. He 
afterwards married the king’s daughter, and brought up his son 
Phraotes to follow the philosophic life. To this end, he taught 


lil. 27 (1): 7d yap BaoiuKwrepor copia éxet. 
741, 20; 


3 Described (ii. 30) as cool re kal duotkol dvdpes. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA Is 


him Greek. The sages in consequence readily received him 
as a pupil at twelve, though this was earlier than the usual 
age; for they regard a knowledge of Greek as a preparation 
for training in philosophy.’ Lastly, Phraotes relates how he 
came to be restored to his kingdom. Apollonius then asks 
him if the sages he has spoken of did not become subject to 
Alexander and appear before him to expound their physical 
philosophy. The King replies that Alexander indeed came in 
contact with some who profess wisdom of a kind, but who are 
really a race of warriors. The genuine philosophers of India 
are those who dwell between the Hyphasis and the Ganges, 
and to their country his expedition did not extend. Had he 
gone on, he could never have taken their tower, which, with- 
out preparation, they are able to defend by superhuman 
means.? 

The next day at dawn the King comes to the chamber of 
Apollonius and rallies him on his water-drinking. Those who 
do not drink wine, he says, do not sleep well. Apollonius 
replying that they sleep more quietly than those who go to bed 
drunk, the King protests against the sophistry, and explains 
that his meaning was that those who drink wine in moderation 
sleep better than those who drink none at all. This leads to 
an argumentin form. Apollonius contends that even moderate 
wine-drinkers, while not excited to hallucination, are yet liable 
to be affected by pleasing illusions, and that these too are 
troubling to the soul and sometimes prevent sleep. They that 
drink no wine at all remain always equable, neither elated by 
good fortune nor dejected by bad. Moreover, it is only to the 
soul untroubled with wine that true divinations come in dreams. 
Phraotes, having heard the argument, asks Apollonius if he will 
make him one of his company; but he puts the question by 
with the remark that it is good for kings to be conversant mod- 
erately with philosophy, but that a too exact and overstrained 
devotion to it would seem unbecoming and pedantic in their 
station.$ 

At the end of the visit, Phraotes sends Apollonius and his 
companions on their journey with new provisions and a letter 
to Iarchas, ‘ the eldest of the sages.” They arrive at the plain 
in which Porus is said to have fought with Alexander. Beyond 
the Hyphasis they come upon thirty altars inscribed by the 


1ii 31. Here and later the question occurs, Is it possible that anything 
was known or conjectured as to the affinity between Greek and Sanskrit ? 


7 tie 3%, oi. 47. 


16 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


Macedonian conqueror to his father Ammon, his brother 
Hercules, and the other gods. ‘There is also a stele, they 
record, marking the place where the expedition stopped. 
This, Philostratus conjectures, was erected not by Alexander 
himself but by those beyond the Hyphasis, pluming them- 
selves on his not having been able to go further. 

The journey to the remoter regions is accompanied by more 
and more marvels, zoological and other, which however are 
related not without occasional touches of scepticism. At last 
we reach the Tower of the Sages; whom the Indians fear more 
than the King, because the King himself has to consult them 
about everything that is to be said or done. A young man 
sent to meet Apollonius addresses him in Greek ; at which the 
travellers are not surprised, since all in the neighbouring village 
speak Greek. He brings a message from the sages inviting— 
or rather commanding’—him to come. In the form of 
expression Apollonius recognises something Pythagorean. 

Traces were still apparent of the rout of Bacchus, who with 
Hercules had once made an unsuccessful assault on the tower. 
The images of the gods were like the most ancient of those 
among the Greeks, and the rites observed were Hellenic. 
Apollonius himself, says Philostratus, has described the 
Brahmans. ‘They dwell upon the earth and not on it, and 
are fortified without walls, and possess nothing save the pos- 
sessions of all men.” Out of this the biographer, on the 
authority of Damis, constructs an accouut of the Brahmans 
according to which they raise themselves in the air when they 
choose—not for the sake of vainglory, but to be nearer the 
Sun-god, to whom they pray—and are furnished with every- 
thing as a spontaneous gift of the earth. Perhaps the con- 
jecture is permissible that we have here some real saying of 
Apollonius misapprehended by a disciple. 

Iarchas addresses Apollonius in Greek, and gives proof that 
he has the minutest knowledge of his whole history. Going in 
choral procession to the temple, the Brahmans chanted an 
ode like the pean of Sophocles which is sung at Athens to 
Asclepius. After the service of the gods, in which Apollonius 


1iii, 10 (2). 
2iii 12: KeNevovor yap avrol. 


Siii 15 (1): eldov *Ivdovs Bpaxuavas oixodyras emi rijs yijs Kovx éx’ aris, 
kal arexloTws TeTeLXiouevous, Kal ovdEY KEKTHUEVOUS 7) TA TAYTMY. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 17 


had taken part, he asks Iarchas if the Brahmans, knowing all 
things else, “‘ know themselves.” Iarchas instantly replies that 
it is in consequence of knowing first themselves that they know 
allthings. ‘What then,” asks Apollonius, ‘do you think your- 
selves to be?” ‘*Gods” he answered; and, being asked why, 
‘*‘ Because,” he said, ‘we are good men.” In answer to the 
question, what they think about the soul, he replied, ‘‘ We hold 
the doctrine that Pythagoras handed down to you, and we to 
the Egyptians.” Apollonius then asks whether, as Pythagoras 
declared himself to have been Euphorbus, Iarchas too can 
say that before he came into this body he was one of the 
Trojans or Achzeans or some one else. _Iarchas thereupon 
makes the observation that the Greeks are too much pre- 
occupied with the Trojan war and its heroes, and neglect the 
greater number of more divine men whom their own land 
and the land of the Egyptians and that of the Indians bore. 
Then he says that he too will declare who he was. He 
proceeds to relate the history of an ancient Indian king 
named Ganges, who was the son of the River-god. In 
that he founded cities instead of destroying them, and 
drove back an invasion of the Scythians from beyond Caucasus 
instead of bringing the yoke of slavery upon another city, } this 
king was superior to Achilles. More of his deeds would 
Iarchas record if he did not shrink from praising himself. For 
he, at the age of four, revealed his identity by discovering 
seven swords embedded in the earth by King Ganges, and 
now sought for to fulfil a command of the gods. He then 
asks Apollonius if he also knows who he was formerly. 
Apollonius replies that he does, but that his position was an 
inglorious one. He was the steersman of an Egyptian ship. 
In that capacity, however, he once performed a just deed in 
refusing to betray his ship to Pheenician pirates. This leads 
to a question about the use of the word “justice,” afterwards 
more fully discussed when Apollonius visits Egypt. Iarchas 
raises the problem by his criticism that the Greeks seem to 
think the absence of injustice equivalent to justice, whereas 
a positive conception is needed.” 

During the visit of Apollonius to the dwelling of the sages, 
the King entered. He was not a philosopher like Phraotes, but 


lili, 20(3): Kal rad0” bwep yuvacxéds, jy eixds und Gxovoay avnprdcba. 


iii, 25. 
2 


18 APOLLONIUS_ OF TYANA 


came arrayed more in the fashion of the Medes, and full 
of pomp. While the sages themselves ate sparingly, abundance 
was provided for the King; though it is not lawful for him to 
partake of the flesh of animals in their presence. He 
approaches with profound respect the sages who keep their seats. 
For the repast, self-moving tripods come in, and there are 
automata to serve as cup-bearers. Apollonius asks Iarchas 
why he sees precisely eighteen Brahmans present, since eighteen 
is neither a ‘square number” nor any other of those that are 
inrepute. IJarchasreplies: ‘“‘ Neither are we slaves tonumbernor 
numbertous.”! Sometimes they are more, and sometimes fewer, 
according as there are more or fewer of sufficient wisdom and 
virtue to be chosen. Then he goes on to blame the Greek 
democratic mode of appointing to offices by lot, and the 
fixing of ruling bodies in the Greek cities at a particular 
number. The king interrupts the conversation by asking 
questions about the Greeks, of whom, however, he has a mean 
opinion ; imagining, for example, that the Athenians had been 
enslaved by Xerxes. Apollonius corrects this impression. 
Xerxes, he maintains, was unfortunate in not having died as 
well as been defeated at the hands of the Greeks, who in that 
case would have instituted games in his honour, thinking as 
they do that it is a praise to themselves to praise those whom 
they have vanquished. ‘The king explains that he had got his 
false opinion from the Egyptians, who abuse the Greeks as 
borrowers of everything from themselves, and as a race of law- 
less cheats. He invites Apollonius to be his guest, but the 
invitation is declined. 

Iarchas and his associates, questioned by Apollonius as to 
their views on the constitution of the world, reply that they 
hold it to consist of elements (€« sroxelwv), These are the four 
elements of water and air and earth and fire, together with 
ether as the fifth No element came into being before the 
others, but all exist together as parts of the living whole. This 
is at once male and female, and is held in unison by love of 
itself. The parts of the world are governed by the mind that 
is in it. As bearing an analogy to this government of the 
fabric by mind, Iarchas describes a merchant-ship such as 
the Egyptians send to India. In the vessel of the world, the 
first place is to be assigned to God the begetter of this animated 
universe (99 yevéropt rode Tob Sgov) ; the next to the gods who 


Vii, 30 (2): 086" que’s dpeOup Sovrev omer otr’ dprOuds juiv. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 19 


preside over the parts. Of such deities, following the poets, 
we may admit many, of sky and sea and springs and earth 
and under the earth. The place beneath the earth, however, 
since they sing of it as an abode of horror and destruction, does 
not, if it exists, belong properly to the world.’ 

As an illustration of the powers of the sages, some extra- 
ordinary cures are related. A woman comes and explains how 
her son is possessed by a dissembling and lying demon. One 
of the Brahmans gives her a formula of exorcism addressed to 
the demon.” A cripple, and a blind man, and a man with 
his hand paralysed are healed, and recipes are given to effect 
other cures. 

According to his report, Damis was himself present at the 

dialectical discussions. ‘The study of astrology and divination 
and sacrifices was pursued only by Apollonius with Iarchas. 
Philostratus mentions ‘vorks of Apollonius on these subjects ; 
but remarks that in his own opinion astrological prediction, 
with all such divination, is beyond the scope of human nature: 
whether anyone has attained to it he does not profess to know. 
The work of Apollonius on Sacrifices is in so many hands, 
and is so well and characteristically composed, that exposition 
of it is unnecessary. 
G@ Since Damis has given an account of a conversation on the 
strange animals and so forth of India, Philostratus, while declin- 
ing to commit himself to the truth of the stories, will not 
wholly pass the subject by.* For the rest, the account of the 
Indian journey ends, as it begins, with enough of the marvellous. 
Philostratus was on the whole content to put into literary form 
the travellers’ tales he knew; hinting sometimes to the less 
credulous his uncertainty as to what grains of truth might be 
found in the more extraordinary of them. 

After a stay of four months, Apollonius leaves the Brahmans. 
A letter is given as from him in which he is made to say that 
he has received from them the power of going through the sky 
(ta 700 ovpavod wopev'erGar) and of conversing with them at a distance 
as if they were present.s He and his companions return to 
the region of the Indus, then put to sea, and sail up the 
Euphrates to Babylon. Returning to the Roman Empire, they 


tu. 34, 35. iii. 38. 3 iii, 41 (2). 
4iii. 45 (1): Kal yap xépdos etn unre micrevew pyr amore maow. 


Pai RE 


20 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


go to Antioch; but, finding it as insolently indifferent as ever 
to Hellenic culture,! they put to sea again at Seleucia, and 
thence to Cyprus. From Cyprus they proceed to Ionia, 
where Apollonius is held in much honour. 

When he came to Ephesus, we are told,? even the artisans 
left their work to follow him. He delivered a discourse to the ~ 
Ephesians in favour of a voluntary community of goods; 
teaching by the example of a sparrow that came to call the 
others to join him in feasting on the corn spilt by a boy carry- 
ing a basket. He foresaw a threatening pestilence, but, as they 
did not heed his warnings, he went to the other parts of Ionia ; 
continuing everywhere his reforming activity and his salutary 
discourses.® 

A discourse at Smyrna is given* in which he exhorts the 
Smyrneeans to make themselves an object of pride even more 
than the beauty of their city. For although it is the fairest of 
all cities that are under the sun, and possesses the sea, and has 
the springs of the west wind, yet it is better for it to be 
crowned with men than with porticoes and paintings and 
greater abundance of gold. Buildings are seen only in that 
part of the earth where they are; but good men are seen 
everywhere and spoken of everywhere, and render the city they 
have sprung from as wide as the extent of land they penetrate. 
Cities that are fair externally are indeed like the Phidian image 
of Zeus at Olympia: but those that have men that reach 
every part of the world are like the Homeric Zeus, who is 
suggested to thought in various forms, and as moving through 
the heaven, and so is a more wonderful piece of work than the 
seated statue of ivory visible to the eye. Discussing politics 
with the Smyrnzans, he told them that a rightly ordered city 
has need of concord in variance.> ‘That is to say, each must 
make it his ambition to be better than the rest in something. 
The ancient Spartans were wrong in their exclusive devotion 
to military affairs. Each ought to do what he knows best and 
can do best. If one gains distinction by becoming a popular 


lili, 58: rhs’ Avrioxelas Evvjbws LBprfovons Kat undév Trav ‘EAnvixdv 
éomrovdaxuias. 


2iv. I. 


2iv, 4: StopOovjmevos Ta Tap Exdoros Kal deareyduevos del TL TwWTHpLoY Tots 
x apovow. 


43¥.-9, 5 iy. 8 (1): duovolas craciafovens. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 21 


leader, another by wisdom, another by amassing wealth for the 
common good, and so forth, then the whole city will stand 
firm. This he illustrates by the example of a ship with its 
division of employment. 

The plague having actually fallen upon Ephesus, the Ephe- 
sians sent an embassy to Apollonius. He was there on the 
instant—as Pythagoras was at Thurium and Metapontum at 
the same time—and stayed the plague by destroying a demon 
in the guise of an old beggar-man, revealed afterwards as a 
monstrous beast.1 He decided on a voyage to Greece, but 
first visited the tomb of Achilles in the Troad. When they 
were afterwards sailing the Euboic Sea, Damis questioned him 
about his visit, and Apollonius recounted his conversation 
with the shade of the hero, which disappeared with a glimmer 
at cockcrow.? Arriving at the Pireus at the time of the 
Eleusinian mysteries, he was joined on his way to Athens by 
ten young men who were about to set sail to Ionia to see him. 
He offers himself for initiation in the mysteries; but the 
hierophant raises objection to him as an enchanter and as 
“not pure in respect of divine things.” Made aware of the 
popular disapproval, he changes his tone; but Apollonius now 
declines initiation till another time; mentioning the name of 
the successor to the office, who, as he foresees, will initiate 
him. At Athens, in deference to the devotional spirit of the 
place, he first discoursed about sacrifices, thus refuting the 
calumnious and ignorant assertion of the hierophant.* A 
youth who interrupts a discourse of his with inane laughter he 
finds to be under demoniacal possession. The demon, being 
commanded to go out of him and to give a sign of his 
departure, says that he will throw down a statue on his way. 
This he does to the astonishment of the audience. The youth 
afterwards followed the philosophic mode of life* Hearing 
of the frivolities with which the Athenians were now accus- 
tomed to celebrate the Dionysia, Apollonius rebuked them 
by reminding them of the exploits of their ancestors and of 


liy. 10. 


2iv. 16 (6): dwqdOe tiv dorpary perpia’ kal yap 5) Kal ddexTpvoves 
Hdn Qois Hwrovrto. 


3iv. 19: tls yapér’ dyOn Ta Sacudmia wh Kabapdr eivau Tov dirocodotrTa, 
érws ot Geol GOeparevréx ; 


4iv. 20. 


a2 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


their legendary connexion with Boreas, the most masculine of 
the winds. Another abuse which he arrested at Athens was 
the introduction of gladiatorial exhibitions,—which were going 
on, Philostratus tells us, at Corinth in his own day. 

In a journey to Thessaly, Apollonius visited the tomb of 
Leonidas, which he all but embraced.1. When his companions 
were disputing which was the highest mountain in Greece, he 
ascended the height where the Spartans had been overwhelmed 
by the Persian arrows, and said that those who died there for 
liberty had equalled it to Géta and raised it above many an 
Olympus. In the account of his residence at Corinth we come 
upon the original of the story of Keats’s Lamia2 ‘This 
occurrence, says Philostratus, was already well known, but only 
in general outline, and as having taken place in central Greece. : 
He has given the details for the first time from the record of 
Damis. At Olympia, receiving an invitation to Sparta from a 
Lacedzmonian embassy which he observed to be full of luxury, 
Apollonius wrote to the ephors on the subject and brought 
about a restoration of the ancient manners. A conceited 
youth submitted to him a long panegyric on Zeus. The 
philosopher asked him if he had ever written in praise of his 
own father. He replied that he should have liked to do so, 
but found that he could not do it adequately. ‘ Then,” 
replied Apollonius, irritated as he was apt to be by vulgar 
pretence,® “‘If you do not think you can fitly praise your 
father whom you know, do you not see that, in undertaking to 
praise the father of gods and men and the fashioner of all that 
is around us and above us, you have entered upon a task 
beyond human powers ?” 

One incident of his visit to Sparta may be quoted for the 
light it throws on his general attitude as a reformer. A young 
man who was a descendant of Callicratidas, the Spartan 
admiral at Arginusz, had an action brought against him 
because he had adopted a sea-faring life for gain, and because 
he took no part in public affairs. Apollonius succeeded in 
convincing him that in this he was derogating both from his 
ancestral traditions and from those of Sparta. He accordingly 
gave up his mercantile pursuits, and at the intercession of 


liv. 23: “wovovod mepieBaner. a iv. 2n. 


2 iv, 30 (3): duoxepdvas of 6 ’AmroAdNwvios (Tour! dé mpds rods oprikods 
TaY avOpwrwy Eracxer). 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 23 


Apollonius was acquitted by the ephors. Superficially this 
may seem inconsistent with the discourse at Smyrna, but in 
reality it is part of the same general ideal. In that ideal, 
local diversity is included. Thus at Athens, as we shall 
afterwards find, Apollonius will allow no disrespect towards the 
sea-faring tradition; whereas here he reminds the descendant 
of Callicratidas that the Spartans lost their military power when 
they took to the sea.1 

The humanitarian tendency which the reforming movement 
combined with its regard for antique ideals becomes evident 
when we are told expressly that Apollonius treated the slaves 
of his companions as a part of his philosophic community.” 
Passing over some intermediate incidents, we may follow him 
westward to Rome, where at this time Nero was persecuting 
philosophy. 

The philosophic cloak, says Philostratus, was proceeded 
against in the law-courts as a disguise of diviners. Not to 
mention other cases, Musonius, a man second only to Apol- 
lonius, was imprisoned on account of his philosophy and 
came near losing his life. Before Apollonius and his company 
reach the gates, a certain Philolaus of Citium tries to deter 
them from proceeding. To Apollonius this seems a divinely- 
ordained test to separate the stronger disciples from the weaker 
(whom, however, he does not blame); and, in fact, out of 
thirty-four, only eight remain with him, the rest making 
various excuses for their flight at once from Nero and from 
philosophy. Of those who remained was the young man 
whom he had rescued from the transformed serpent. 

He stigmatises the reigning tyranny as one so grievous that 
under it men are not permitted to be wise.* His discourses 
being all public, no accusations were made against him for a 
time. He did not seek out men of position, but welcomed 
them if they came, and discoursed to them exactly as to the 
common people.* At Corinth a Cynic philosopher named 
Demetrius had attached himself to him as Antisthenes did to 


"ay. 32-. CL. 9. 20, 


2 iv. 34 (2): Kowdv & éxdder Tods & éraipous kal rovs Tap Eralpwy Sovdous 
ovdé yap éxelvous wapewpa, 


*iv. 38. (2): rupavvidos.... kaBerrnkvulas otrw xarerjjs, ws un éfetvar 
codots eivai. 


4 iv. 4I. 


24 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


Socrates. This man now came to Rome and brought sus- 
picion on him of responsibility for the violent attacks he him- 
self proceeded to make on Nero. A public protest against 
luxury delivered on a feast-day in a gymnasium which the 
Emperor was opening in person led to his expulsion from 
Rome by Nero’s minister Tigellinus, who henceforth kept a 
close watch on Apollonius. His opportunity came at last 
when there was an epidemic of colds and the temples were full 
of people making supplication for the Emperor because he had 
a sore throat and the ‘divine voice” was hoarse. Apollonius, 
bursting with indignation though he was at the folly of the 
multitude, did not chide anyone, but tried to calm a disciple 
by telling him to ‘ pardon the gods, if they delight in buffoons.” 
This saying being reported to Tigellinus, he had him arrested 
under the Lex majestatis. On bringing him to trial, how- 
ever, he found himself baffled, and in fear of his superhuman 
powers, let him go.1 

An incident at Rome is recorded that was thought to be an 
illustration of those powers. A maiden who was about to be 
married had died or appeared to have died, and was being 
carried to the grave amid the lamentations of all Rome; for 
she was of a consular family. Apollonius, meeting the funeral 
procession, commanded them to set down the bier, and, saying 
something inaudible, restored the maiden to life ; who then, like 
Alcestis brought back by Hercules, returned to her father’s 
house. Whether he detected a spark of vitality that had 
escaped the notice of the physicians, or renewed the life that 
was extinct, Philostratus acknowledges to be beyond his own 
judgment, as it was beyond the judgment of those who were 


present.’ 
The next voyage of Apollonius was to the region of the 
Betis in Spain. _Philostratus here tells some anecdotes to 


illustrate the greater or less civilisation of the surrounding 
country. When a courier came to Gades to announce the 
triple victory of Nero at Olympia, the people there understood 
what was meant; but those of the neighbouring cities, who 
knew nothing about the Greek games, got the notion that the 
Emperor had been victorious in war and had taken captive 
certain “Olympians.”* A tragic actor came to Hispalis. 


Tiv. 44 (4) : “pet,” Ep ** of BovdAer* od yap Kpelrtwv } im’ éuod EpxerOau.” 


21. 45. By B 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 25 


Where the people retained less of the antique barbarism in 
their manners, they were pleased with tragedy as a new thing; 
but here the mask, and the lofty elevation of the actor, and the 
portentous robes, and the resonant voice, terrified them till 
they fled as from a demon. Apollonius was sought out by 
the prefect of the province. The subject of their conversations 
is unknown ; but Damis conjectures that they plotted against 
Nero ; for, when the prefect took his leave, the last words of 
Apollonius were, ‘Farewell, and remember Vindex.” 
Philostratus reminds the reader that it was Vindex who first 
stirred up the peoples of the West against the Emperor when 
he was making his progress through Achaia; and mentions 
that he addressed to his soldiers an oration such as one 
inspired by the noblest philosophy might breathe forth against 
a tyrant.? 

Apollonius and his companions proceed by way of Africa to 
Sicily. Hearing of the flight of Nero and the death of Vindex, 
Apollonius in an oracular utterance predicts the brevity of the 
reigns of the next three emperors (Galba, Otho, and Vitellius). 
Such predictions Apollonius made, his biographer insists, not 
as an enchanter, but so moved by a divine impulsion as to 
know what the fates had in store. Enchanters or magicians 
(oi yénres), “whom,” says Philostratus, ‘I regard as the most 
wretched of men,” proclaim that by juggling artifice and by 
barbarian sacrifices they can change the purpose of the fates ; 
and many of them, when judicially accused, have confessed 
that this is the nature of their wisdom. Apollonius, on the other 
hand, followed the decrees of the fates, and foretold what would 
come to pass of necessity. So far was he from all juggling 
that when he saw the automata in India he praised the 
ingenuity of the contrivances but did not care to learn the 
details of their mechanism.® 

At Catana, the story is told that Typho is bound there, and 
that from him arises the fire of AZtna. Apollonius takes this 
occasion to lead his disciples to a more “ physical” view of 
volcanic eruptions. He begins with a paradox on the fables of 
fEsop ; that they are to be preferred to those of the poets, in 


ah Pa 


2¥. 10 (2): Adyorv.... Sv éx ravu yevvalas didccodias eri Tiparvoy adv Tis 
: oy ¥ 
TVEvoELEY, 


aS Bot. 


fs 


26 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


respect of wisdom, precisely because they are not told with 
such colouring as to give the impression that they are literally 
true. The didactic purpose in them is thus made obvious; 
whereas the poets leave it to the intelligence of their readers to 
discover the truth. He himself relates a story about AZsop 
and Hermes, told to him as a child by his mother ; the point 
of the story being that the god had suggested to sop a line 
of invention that was at least his own, if it was humble. As 
for the myth about the contention of giants with gods for the 
possession of heaven, this is madness to say or to think.’ 
The cause of these outbursts of flame from volcanoes is in 
reality a mixture of bitumen and sulphur blown upon by 
subterranean winds in the crevices of the earth. 

Revisiting Athens, Apollonius is initiated into the mysteries, 
as he had foreseen. The winter he spends in visiting the 
Greek temples. He projects a voyage to Egypt in the spring, 
and, going down to the Pireus, finds a ship. The owner 
refuses to let him go on board, because, as he is conveying a 
cargo of images of the gods, he is afraid to admit sea-faring 
company, which is usually bad. Apollonius reminds him— 
since he appears to be an Athenian—that the gods themselves 
when they went on board the ships and took part with Athens 
against the barbarians, had no fear of contamination from 
disorderly sailors. He also censures the traffic in images. 2 

At Rhodes he tells a newly-rich and uneducated youth who 
is building a fine house and collecting paintings and statues 
for it that he does not seem to possess the house, but the 
house to possess him.? Coming to Alexandria, he is treated 
with great reverence. Here an example was seen of his 
marvellous powers. ‘Twelve men condemned for robbery were 
being led to execution. He perceived that one of them was 
innocent, and told the executioners to place this man last; 
meanwhile prolonging his speech so as to gain time, contrary 
to his custom of brief utterance. When eight had been 
decapitated, a horseman rode up with a reprieve for the 
prisoner on whose behalf Apollonius had interceded; his 
innocence having since been established.4 

We are told of a dispute in the temple with an Egyptian 
priest regarding animal sacrifices, and of a discourse reproving 
the Alexandrians for the sanguinary quarrels that arose from 
their devotion to the contests of the hippodrome. At this 


ae. EG 2¥. 20.  W, BRAZ). ave On. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 27 


point of the narrative, Vespasian arrives in Alexandria from 
Judzea, aiming now at the Empire. The philosophers Dion 
and Euphrates bid the people rejoice. For, says Philostratus, 
the last fifty years had been a pericd of tyrannies so harsh that 
even the reign of Claudius, though he was better than the 
emperors before and after, had seemed to give no respite. ? 
Apollonius was equally glad, but did not care to obtrude 
himself. Vespasian, however, sought him out, and first set forth 
to him alone his reasons for seeking the empire; though he 
had commended to him his fellow-philosophers also as advisers. 
Apollonius heartily approves of his purpose; and, to his 
astonishment, tells him that he is destined to rebuild the 
temple of Jupiter Capitolinus at Rome. He did not yet know 
that the temple had been burned down; but it was afterwards 
found that this was the case, and that the conflagration had 
been manifested to Apollonius sooner than if it had taken place 
in Egypt. 2 

The day after the private interview with Apollonius, the 
other philosophers are called in. Vespasian formally explains 
the motives of his action; describing the tyranny to which the 
Roman world has been subject from the reign of Tiberius, and 
pointing out that if Vitellius is allowed to rule, Nero will have 
come to life again. ‘‘ You have learned how not to govern,” 
said Apollonius, ‘‘ from those who governed badly: let us now 
consider how a good ruler ought to act.”* Euphrates, 
however, who has become jealous of the special attention paid 
to Apollonius, makes a long speech in Stoic phraseology: 
first remarking that it is premature to consider how one is to 
proceed in a certain course of action before it has been 
decided whether that is the right course. In the end he 
approves of the resolution of Vespasian to march against 
Vitellius, but advises that, if he is victorious, he should 
restore to the Romans the democratic form of government 
under which they were most prosperous, and gain for himself 
the glory of having begun an era of freedom. Dion partly 


ly, 27. Tacitus also dated the beginning of improvement from the reign 
of Vespasian, to whose personal example he ascribes some influence in the 
return from excessive luxury to a simpler mode of living: ‘‘ Nisi forte 
rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis, ut quem ad modum temporum vices, 
ita morum vertantur ; nec omnia apud priores meliora, sed nostra quoque 
aetas multa laudis et artium imitanda posteris tulit.” (Asm. iii. 55.) 


#92 ‘90. Sy, 32 (3). 


28 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


agrees and partly disagrees with the advice of Euphrates. He 
agrees in particular that Vespasian would have done better to 
let the Jews separate if they chose; political separation being 
appropriate to the singularity of their manners. Instead of 
spending his force in bringing them to subjection, and thus 
doing all that was in his power to preserve the empire for 
Nero, he ought to have straightway attacked him. At the 
same time he approves of the enterprise against Vitellius. <A 
-democracy, if inferior to an aristocracy (of Platonic type), is to 
be preferred to tyrannies and oligarchies: but he fears lest the 
Roman people, tamed as they now are by aseries of tyrannies, 
should find the transition to liberty as unbearable as that from 
darkness to sudden light. Let Vespasian, however, put the 
question to the vote, and if the people choose democracy, 
grant it. In that case he will win fame universal and 
unparalleled. If, on the other hand, they choose monarchy, 
who should be Emperor but himself? Apollonius demon- 
strates at length the impracticability of all this. To him 
personally the form of political government is indifferent, since 
he lives under the gods; but he does not think that the 
human flock ought to be left to perish for want of a just and 
prudent pastor. As one man pre-eminent in virtue, when he 
becomes ruler in a democracy, makes that polity seem 
identical with the form of government in which the one best 
man rules ; so the government of one, when it keeps steadily 
in view the good of the commonwealth, is in effect a 
democracy. At Vespasian’s request Apollonius, premising 
that the art of government is not a thing that can be taught, 
goes on to lay down some general maxims for the exercise of 
kingly power. The king is himself to be ruled by the law. 
Vespasian personally is advised not to let his sons take for 
granted that the empire will fall to them as his heirs, but to 
teach them to regard it as the prize of virtue. He is not to 
go too fast in repressing the pleasures to which the people 
have become accustomed; they must be brought to temper- 
ance by degrees. Governors of provinces should know the 
language of the provinces they are sent to govern. The 
disadvantage of not observing this rule he illustrates from the 
failure in the administration of justice when he was in the 
Peloponnese ; the Roman governor, who did not know Greek, 
being at the mercy of those who had an interest in deceiving 


Ty. 35 (4). 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 29 


him. Euphrates allows that further discussion would be idle, 
since the course to be taken has already been resolved on; 
but, with an allusion glancing at Apollonius, gives the future 
emperor the parting advice to embrace the philosophy that is 
according to nature, and to have nothing to do with that 
which professes itself inspired by the gods, liable as such 
claims are to be the source of deception.’ Vespasian 
perceives his animus: and, when Euphrates afterwards hands 
him an epistle full of requests of presents for himself and his 
friends, he reads it aloud; thus giving Apollonius the oppor- 
tunity of retorting on Euphrates by contrasting his readiness 
to ask for gifts from the emperor with his counsel to establish 
a democracy. 

This, Philostratus tells us, is what he has been able to 
learn about the origin of the difference between the two 
philosophers. With Dion, Apollonius was always on good 
terms, though he thought Dion’s philosophy too rhetorical. 
Euphrates, according to the story, was afterwards in favour 
under Domitian. When Vespasian as emperor revoked the 
liberty granted by Nero to Greece, Apollonius did not care to 
see him again; though he approved of his good administration 
generally. In connexion with the story of the philosopher at 
Alexandria, a strange tale is recounted of his detecting the 
soul of King Amasis in a tame lion.? He left Alexandria on 
a journey to ‘Ethiopia, accompanied by ten disciples out of 
the number that had again gathered round him since the 
dispersal under the persecution of Nero.* 

On the borderland between Egypt and thiopia a primitive 
system of barter was practised. This Apollonius praised for 
its moral superiority over the habits of commercial bargaining 
among the Greeks.* An Egyptian youth named Timasio, who 
had overcome a temptation similar to that of Hippolytus, 
guided the company to the celebrated statue of Memnon. 
Apollonius praises him for his continence, and regards him as 
of more merit than Hippolytus because, while living chastely, 
he nevertheless does not speak or think of the divinity of 
Aphrodite otherwise than with respect.» He and his com- 


Ty. 37 (1); pidocodiar dé, & Bacide’, TouTi yap Nourdv Tpoceipyoetar, Thy 
pev Kata piow 'eralvou kai domdfou, Thy 6é Beox\uTEey PdoKovcay mapairod* 
katapevdduevor yap Tov Beiov ToANG Kal avdnra Huds éralpovew. 


2¥. 4. od, So ae ns eS i.e 


30 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


panions, still guided by Timasio, arrive among the Gymno- 
sophists, whom they have set out to visit. In consequence of 
a trick of Euphrates, who has sent his disciple, Thrasybulus of 
Naucratis, to prepossess them against Apollonius, they put off 
receiving him for some time. At length, after negotiations 
through Damis, who detects the trick, they consent to receive 
him, though still resenting his reported preference of the 
Indian wisdom to their own. 

The eldest and chief of them, who is called Thespesio, 
delivers a long address, in which he seeks to place the aims of 
himself and his associates above those of the Indians ; advising 
Apollonius to have no care about automata or wonder-working, 
but to choose rather the wisdom that goes with toil and 
simplicity of life. In his peroration, he reminds him of the 
pictures he must have seen of the Hercules of Prodicus. As 
in the Choice of Hercules Vice stands on one side luxuriously 
adorned, and Virtue poorly clad on the other, so let Ap- 
ollonius think of himself as placed between the alluring wisdom 
of the Indians and the rugged discipline of the Egyptian 
Gymnosophists. Apollonius explains that he has not come 
thus late to make his choice between two philosophies. 
Surrounded as he was in his youth by the teaching of all the 
schools, he of his own accord adopted the Pythagorean 
discipline, in spite of the austerity which from the first it did 
not conceal'?. Among the rewards it promises to its votaries 
is to appear more pleasing to the gods though sacrificing little 
than do those who pour forth to them the blood of bulls. 
The doctrine of Plato regarding the soul, divinely taught by 
him at Athens, Apollonius perceived not to have won general 
acceptance among the Athenians. He therefore sought out a 
city or nation in which one person should not say one thing 
and another the opposite, but the same doctrine should be 
confessed by all. First, accordingly, he looked to the 
Egyptians ; but his teacher told him that the original fathers of 
this wisdom were the Indians. For the rest, he addresses to 
the Gymnosophists an apology on behalf of the arts and graces 
of life and the adornment of temples; pointing out that Apollo 
does not disdain to clothe his oracles in verse, and that self- 


1Special stress is laid on the virtue of chastity. The Pythagorean 
philosophy is represented as addressing the neophyte: kav adpodiciew 
arrnGévras aicOwuat, Bapabpa éori por, Ka’ Gv codpias drradds Sikn pépea 7 
avrovs kai wet, See vi. II (5). 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 31 


moving tripods are introduced by Homer at the banquets of 
the gods. Nor has any accusation yet been laid in heaven 
against Hephestus for corrupting matter by his art. Every 
art will have a care for ornament; because the very being of 
arts was invented for the sake of ornament.’ 

The speech of Apollonius made a powerful impression on 
all, and especially on Nilus, the youngest of the Egyytians. 
Thespesio, though black, might be seen to blush. This, of 
course, is a reminiscence of Thrasymachus in the Republic, 
as it is likewise when we are told that he becomes reconciled 
with Apollonius. Requested by Nilus and Thespesio, Apol- 
lonius recounts his adventures. He and his companions are 
courteously entertained by Nilus at a repast. Nilus desires to 
become his companion; and, to show that this is no rash 
impulse on his part, relates his history. His father had sailed 
to the Indian coast, and had told him what he had heard 
about the sages in India. Informed by him also that the 
Gymnosophists were a colony from thence, he gave up his 
patrimony and joined them. He found them wise indeed, but 
not like the Indians; and had he not met with Apollonius, he 
would himself have sailed to India like his father. The eager 
and ingenuous Nilus also proposes that he shall try to 
persuade his elders of the inferiority of their wisdom: but this 
Apollonius discountenances ; receiving him on condition that 
he will not make an attempt which would be of no avail. 

Apollonius pays a visit to Thespesio, and asks him to 
instruct him in the Egyptian wisdom, so that he may 
communicate it to others, as he has communicated that which 
he received from the Indians. Thespesio signifies his readi- 
ness to answer questions. Apollonius begins by asking why 
the Egyptians represent the gods for the most part so absurdly ; 
their sacred images being apparently made in honour of 
irrational animals rather than of divine beings. Thespesio 
parries this attack on zoomorphism by a similar question about 
the anthropomorphism of the Greeks. Did your Phidias and 
your Praxiteles ascend into heaven and copy the forms of the 
gods? And if it was not imitation that produced their art, 
what then could it be? An artist of more wisdom, answers 
Apollonius, namely, Imagination.” He who conceives the 


yi, 11 (17) 3 Kdopou yip émimedjoeras TéXYN Waca, dT Kal abTd TO eivae 
réxvas vrép Kéomou eipnrat, 


2 vi. 19 (3): Pavracla Tair’ elpydoaro, copwrépa mimnoews Onpsoupyos. 


32 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


form of Zeus must see him in his mind’s eye accompanied by 
the heaven and the seasons and the stars: the fashioner of a 
statue of Athena must think of armies, and of wisdom in 
counsel, and of the arts, and of how she sprang from the head 
of Zeus. Thespesio, on his part, contends that the Egyptians 
display more reverence to the gods in not audaciously trying 
to realise some conception of their forms, but using only 
symbol and suggestion. Apollonius replies that there is 
nothing to call forth reverence in the image of a dog or an ibis 
ora goat. If, as Thespesio says, that is regarded with more 
reyerence which is only suggested to the mind, then the 
Egyptians should have had temples and rites indeed, but no 
images at all; leaving the mental representation entirely to the 
worshipper. ‘But you,” he says in concluding, “have taken 
away from the gods both visible beauty and the beauty of 
suggestion.”! ‘There was a certain Athenian named 
Socrates,” is the retort of Thespesio, “‘an old man of no 
intelligence like ourselves, who used to swear by the dog and 
by the goose and by the plane-tree.” ‘“‘ Not that he thought 
them gods,” returns Apollonius, “but so that he might not 
swear by the gods.” 

Thespesio, as if changing the subject, inquires about the 
scourging of boys at Sparta. Do the Greeks endure such a 
custom? And did Apollonius not reform it when he was 
occupying himself with the affairs of the Lacedzmonians ? 
Apollonius replies that it would have been madness to contend 
against a religious custom such as this. The scourging is per- 
formed in accordance with an oracle directing that the altars 
shall be sprinkled with an offering of human blood to the 
Scythian Artemis. This no doubt was originally a require- 
ment of human sacrifice; but the Spartans, by subtly 
interpreting it, have at once evaded the obligation of putting a 
human victim to death and turned a rite which they could not 
get rid of into an exercise in fortitude. Thespesio, however, 
skillfully presses the point; ending with the remark that he 
has been speaking not against the Lacedemonians but against 
Apollonius. If we thus rigorously investigate customary rites 
the origin of which reaches back to a grey antiquity beyond 
knowledge, and cross-examine divinities as to their reasons for 
delighting in them, not the Eleusinian nor the Samothracian 


Lyi, 19 (5): duets & agypyode Tovs Beods Kal Td opdcbat Kad@s Kai 7d 
brovoeicGat. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 33 


nor any other mysteries will be safe. We can always ask 
“Why this and not that?” and take offence at one thing or 
another. In these matters at any rate, if not in all, the 
Pythagorean silence is good. Apollonius accordingly, re- 
linquishing further argument on behalf of the Spartans, 
consents to go on to another topic, and proposes that they 
shall discuss the nature of justice.! 

Such a subject of discourse, Thespesio agrees, is suitable 
both for professional philosophers and for others. Apollonius 
then recalls the comment of the Indian sages on his notion 
that when, being in a former body, he had refused to betray 
his ship to pirates, he had performed an act of justice. They 
laughed at this use of the word, holding that justice involves 
something more than the absence of injustice. Rightly, 
answers Thespesio, for no virtue consists in a mere negation. 
And we must not expect to find men publicly rewarded for 
practising justice. In the cases of Socrates and of Aristides 
we rather find the opposite. No doubt it will seem absurd: 
but as a matter of fact Justice, being appointed by Zeus and 
the Destinies to prevent men from injuring one another, takes 
no measures to prevent herself from being injured. Imagine, 
however, that when Aristides returned from his apportionment 
of tribute among the allies of Athens, the proposal had been 
made by two orators to confer the crown upon him for his 
justice ; and that one had assigned as the reason his returning 
no richer than he went, and the other his observance of due 
proportion to the capacity of each allied State, and his 
refraining from all excessive demands: would not Aristides 
himself have protested against the first orator for the inadequacy 
of his reason, and recognised that the second was aiming at 
the true mark? And indeed, in maintaining due proportion, 
he had regard to the advantage both of Athens and of the 
islands ; as was seen afterwards when the Athenians, by im- 
posing heavier burdens, brought about the revolt of their 
tributaries and the loss of their empire. He, then, is just who 
both acts justly himself and so orders things that others shall 
not act unjustly. And from this diffusive virtue—which is 
better than oaths taken on sacrifices ?—will spring both other 


lyi. 20. 


2vi, 21 (7): Sixdoe ev yap Todcde mrodrd@ Oixardrepov 7 of Kata Tov 
Toulwy duvivTes. 


3 


34 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


virtues and in particular those of the judge and of the 
legislator, which come peculiarly within the province of 
justice.’ 

To this account of the just man Apollonius assents. After 
some further discourse, he informs Thespesio of his intention 
to go in quest of the sources of the Nile. In the account of 
so remote a journey the geography and zoology as usual 
become mixed with the marvellous, though they are not wholly 
fictitious. We are told of the Androphagi and the Pygmies, 
who are of Ethiopian race, and extend as far as to the 
Ethiopic Sea, into which no one voluntarily sails. We also 
hear of cataracts haunted by dzemons; and there is a curious 
story about the taming ofa satyr in one of the villages by 
Apollonius. 

On his return, he signified his approval of the conduct of 
Titus after he had taken Jeruselem, in refusing to accept a 
crown from neighbouring nations.? ‘Titus, now associated 
with his father in the government, invited him to Argos, and 
consulted him as to his future behaviour as aruler. Apollonius 
says that he will send him his companion Demetrius the Cynic 
as a free-spoken counsellor; and Titus, though the name of 
the Cynic is at first disagreeable to him, assents with a good 
grace. He is also said to have consulted Apollonius in 
private on his destiny. 

Apollonius, says Philostratus at this point, made many more 
journeys, but only to countries he already knew. He remained 
always like himself; and this is for the sage even more difficult 
than to know himself. Before proceeding to the account of 
his acts and sufferings under Domitian, the biographer brings 
together a few miscellaneous anecdotes. One of these throws 
interesting light on popular beliefs in the eastern provinces of 
the Roman Empire. ‘The cities on the left of the Hellespont, 
it is recorded,* being once troubled with earthquakes, certain 
Egyptians and Chaldzeans were collecting money for a sacrifice, 
estimated at the price of ten talents, to Earth and Poseidon, 


1It is noteworthy that the place here assigned to justice as a positive 
virtue coincides with that which it occupies in Dante’s description of the 
spir.ts in the heaven of Jupiter, who are those of men that bore rule on 
earth. 


2vi. 29: BH yap abrds Tair’ eipyicba, Oem F dpyiy djvavre éwvdcdwrévac 
Tas €auTOU xElpas, 
3 vi. 31. ‘vi, 41, 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 35 


and declared that they would not perform the sacrifice till the 
money was paid down. Apollonius drove them away for their 
greed, and by due rites quieted the earth. 

Since those who adopt the philosophic life are best proved 
by their attitude to tyrannies, the behaviour of Apollonius in 
face of Domitian has now to be compared with that of elder 
philosophers when confronted with tyrannies in their time. 
Philostratus proceeds to make the comparison in set form ; 
maintaining the thesis that Apollonius showed his superiority 
to all others, high-minded as they had undoubtedly proved 
themselves. It is not his purpose to depreciate the rest, but 
it is his duty to show the greatness of his hero.’ 

Some of the sayings of Apollonius against the Emperor 
having been recorded, we are told that he fell under suspicion 
through his correspondence with Nerva and his associates 
Orfitus and Rufus. When proceedings against them were 
begun, he addressed to the statue of Domitian the words: 
** Fool, how little you know of the Fates and Necessity! He 
who is destined to reign after you, should you kill him, will 
come to life again.”* This was brought to Domitian’s ears by 
means of Euphrates. Foreknowing that the Emperor had 
decided on his arrest, Apollonius anticipated the summons by 
setting out with Damis for Italy. They arrive at Puteoli, and 
there fall in with Demetrius, who leads them to the seat of ‘‘ the 
ancient Cicero,” where they can converse privately. Demetrius 
tells Apollonius that he is to be accused of sacrificing a boy to 
get divinations for the conspirators; and that further charges 
against him are his dress and his manner of life and the 
worship that is said to be paid to him by certain people. He 
then tries to dissuade him from staying to brave the anger of a 
tyrant who will be unmoved by the most just defence, and who 
is undistracted by that devotion to the Muses which, when 
Nero was singing and playing on the lyre, gave the world some 
relief. Damis, who till now has been unaware of the purpose 
of his master in coming, seconds the argument of Demetrius. 
Apollonius holds this timorous counsel excusable on the part 
of Damis, who is an Assyrian and has lived in the neighbour- 
hood of the Medes, where tyrannies are adored; but as for 
Demetrius, he does not know how he will make his apology to 
philosophy. He himself intends to remain ; and in justification 


1 vii. I, 2. * vii. 9 (I), 


36 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


he sets forth the arguments that this is the only course worthy 
of his character. Of despotisms he allows that that is the 
most dangerous kind which, like the tyranny of Domitian, pro- 
ceeds under forms of law. All the more, however, is he bound 
to appear and answer the charge against him: to flee from a 
legal trial would have the appearance of self-condemnation. 
And whither shall he flee? It must be beyond the limits of 
the Roman Empire. Shall he then seek refuge with men who 
know him already; to whom he will have to acknowledge that 
he has left his friends to be destroyed by an accusation which 
he has not dared to face himself? Perhaps Demetrius will tell 
him to go among those who do not know him. But here too, 
as he makes impressively clear, starting from the use of the 
word by Euripides in the Orestes, the power called conscience 
(civecis) Will follow him, and will allow him no peace whether 
awake or asleep.’ At the end of this address, Damis recovers 
courage, and Demetrius, far from continuing his opposition, 
cannot sufficiently express his admiration of Apollonius. 

The prefectus pretorio at that time, the narrative continues, 
was 4Zlianus, who had been acquainted with Apollonius in 
Egypt. As a diversion in his favour before he arrives, he 
argues to the Emperor that the ‘‘ chattering sophists,” having 
nothing to enjoy in life, deliberately try to draw death upon 
themselves at the hands of those who bear the sword. Per- 
ceiving this, Nero could not be brought by Demetrius to give 
him the death he desired, but let him go, not as pardoning 
him but out of contempt.?. On the arrival of Apollonius as a 
prisoner, Elian uses his authority to submit him to examina- 
tion in secret. When they are alone, he gives expression to 
his friendly feeling, but explains the necessity of proceeding 
with caution. Apollonius asks him what he is accused of. 
Elian repeats the heads of accusation already mentioned ; in- 
forming him that the most serious charge is precisely that which 
he himself knows must be false, but which the Emperor is 
most disposed to believe true: namely, that Apollonius slew 


lvii. 14 (8-10). This passage is of high interest philosophically, as 
showing how fully the ethical conception of conscience had already been 
brought into view. The psychological conception of consciousness (some- 
times expressed by the same word) was not so completely formulated till 
the Neo-Platonic period, with its more definite direction to abstract 
thought. 


2vii, 16. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 37 


an Arcadian boy for sacrifice to encourage Nerva in aspiring 
to the empire ; the offering being made at night by the waning 
moon.’ In answering the charge, however, let Apollonius 
avoid a contemptuous attitude. The interview being ata end, 
félian calls in the guards, and, with simulated anger, con- 
signs him to custody among those who are awaiting their 
trial. 

In prison, he is derided by a military tribune, who tells him 
that he knows what he is accused of if Apollonius does not. 
He is accused of being worshipped by men and thinking him- 
self worthy of equal honours with the gods.?_ As a test, let 
them go outside the walls, and he will try to cut off the head 
of Apollonius with his sword. If he succeeds, Apollonius is 
innocent of the claim to divinity. If he is terror-stricken and 
the sword falls from his hand, that is a proof at once of the 
divinity of Apollonius and of his guilt. 

Here the histories are given of some of the other prisoners, 
who are deploring their fate. The philosopher, in accordance 
with his professional character, calls them together and 
addresses to them a consolatory discourse which gives them 
fortitude and hope. ‘Telling them first not to despair before 
their cases are decided, he proceeds in a more elevated strain. 
During the whole of our life, the body is the prison of the soul ; 
and those who dwell in palaces are more under this bondage 
than those whom they putin bonds. Nor isa savage mode 
of life a protection. The Scythian tribes are no freer than we 
are ; but are surrounded with hardships by rivers impassable 
save when frozen over by the cold of winter, and shrink even 
within the shelter of their wagon-huts. And, if it is not 
puerile to recur to the fables of the poets,? one might tell of 
gods who are said to have been bound in chains, both in 
heaven and on earth. Think finally of the many wise and 
blessed men who have suffered at the hands both of licentious 
peoples and tyrannies, and resolve not to be surpassed by them 
in courage. 

The next day, an emissary of Domitian comes in the guise 
of a much-dejected prisoner, but Apollonius sees his purpose 


l vii. 20. 


2 vii. 21 (1): 7d yap mpockuvetc bai ce id TSv avOpwrwy FiaBEBryKev ws 
trwyv akvovpmevov Tots Geots, 


3 vii, 25(5): ef 62 wh mecpaxiddns 6 Adyos. 


38 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


of entrapping him, and discourses to his fellow-prisoners only 
of his travels. On the evening of the fifth day, one from 
fElian brings him the message that he is to be led before the 
Emperor on the morrow; renewing the advice not to be con- 
temptuous, and describing Domitian’s appearance and manner 
of speaking. The fact that Apollonius had come forward to 
undergo danger on behalf of others, Philostratus here remarks, 
made a favourable impression even on those who before were 
prejudiced against him. While he is being led under guard to 
the Emperor’s presence, he rallies his Assyrian disciple on the 
mortal terror he isin. Damis—who ingenuously confesses how 
terrified he is—is not admitted ; and Domitian insists that the 
philosopher shall defend himself alone from the charges, and 
not Nerva, Rufus, and Orfitus, who are already condemned. 
Apollonius, nevertheless, declares them innocent, and protests 
against the injustice of assuming their guilt before their trial. 
Domitian, now telling him that as regards his defence he may 
take what course he likes, has his beard and his hair shorn, 
and puts him in fetters such as are reserved for the worst 
criminals. A letter attributed to Apollonius in which he 
supplicatingly entreats the Emperor to release him from his 
bonds, Philostratus pronounces to be spurious.’ 

When Apollonius has been lodged in his new dungeon for 
two days, a Syracusan who is “the eye and tongue of 
Domitian,” visits him under the pretence that he is a well- 
wisher and has gained access to him by payment. After much 
feigned commiseration he reveals his drift; hinting that 
Apollonius can easily obtain his release by giving information 
about the supposed conspiracy against the Emperor. The 
Syracusan having gone away withoutresult, Apollonius tells Damis 
that he was once that Pytho of Byzantium who came from 
Philip on a mission to the Greeks, and whom Demosthenes 
withstood at Athens. He also predicts that they will suffer 
nothing more than they have suffered already; and, to show 
that his submitting to bondage is voluntary, frees his leg from 
the fetter and then replaces it.? 

These things, says Philostratus, the more foolish sort ascribe 
to magic; against the efficacy of which he again takes up the 
argument. Successful events attributed to charms or sacrifices 


1 vii, 35. This letter is not among the extant epistles. 


2 vii, 38. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 39 


may be more rationally explained by chance coincidence. 
Nothing, however, will persuade those who have recourse to 
such arts that success does not result from performance of the 
prescribed rites, while failure is to be attributed to the omis- 
sion of some detail the importance of which was overlooked. 
Others, he adds, have ridiculed the art at large; but if the 
young will follow his advice, they will have nothing to do with 
things of the kind, even in sport.’ As is evident, he would 
willingly have ascribed the superhuman powers he conceived 
Apollonius to have possessed to some deeper knowledge of 
natural causation. Imperfect as the science of the time was, 
and credulous as opinion was becoming, philosophic culture 
repudiated in theory the anti-natural conception of miracle. 

Apollonius is at last set free from his bonds, and conducted 
back to his former prison. His fellow-prisoners welcome him 
on his return, and he devotes himself unceasingly to giving 
them counsel. Damis he now sends to Diczarchia (Puteoli) 
to expect with Demetrius his appearance after he has made 
his defence. 

When the philosopher is brought to the imperial judgment- 
seat to be tried, Domitian is to be figured as vexed with the 
laws because they invented courts of justice. The court was 
decked out as for a festival oration, and all the illustrious were 
present. Apollonius, on entering, so disregarded the monarch 
as not even to glance at him. The accuser therefore crying 
out to him to “look towards the god of all men,” he raised 
his eyes to the ceiling: thus indicating, says the bio- 
grapher, that he was looking to Zeus; and thinking him who 
was impiously flattered worse than the flatterer.® 

He had prepared an oration in case this should be 
necessary ; but Domitian merely put to him four brief inter- 
rogatories. Those he triumphantly answers, and the Emperor 
acquits him amid applause ; telling him, however, to remain so 
that he may converse with him in private. Apollonius thanks 
him ; but adds a stern reproof. ‘ Through the wretches who 


L vii. 39 (3): éuol 5’ drowepdvOw und’ éxelvors opireiv Tovs véous, Wa pone 
malvew Ta ToLadr’ €BlfovTo. 


2 viii, 1: dvaruvmodcOa 5¢ xph olov dxOdpuevoy Tots vduous, érerdn ebpov 
dixacrhpia. 


3 viii. 4: évdeckydmevos wéev 7d és Tov Ala dpav, Tov 5 doeBds Kohaxevbévra 
KaKiW TOD KONaKEvTaYTOS TYOUMEVOS. 


40 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


surround you,” he exclaims, “cities are destroyed, the islands 
are filled with exiles, the continent with groans, the armies 
with cowardice, and the senate with suspicion.” Then he 
suddenly disappears from among them.’ 

Since Apollonius composed a speech which he was not 
allowed to deliver, Philostratus thinks that this too ought to be 
set before the reader. What he gives is an elaborate defence 
in which the philosopher repudiates all magical arts and all 
claims to divinity, except so far as good men may be said to 
participate in the divine. His life, pure from blood-sacrifice 
and other pollutions, brings him nearer to the gods, and the 
lightness of his diet enables him to form presages and hence 
to be of service to men. In turning men’s souls from their 
vices he is of use to their rulers also, who find them more 
governable. This being so, if the people did think him a god, 
the deception would be a gain to the master of the flock. 
They did not think him a god, however, but only held the 
ancient opinion that by virtue men can participate in the 
divinity. A man who has something of divine order in his 
own soul can by wisdom draw away the souls of others from 
over-vehement desires of pleasure or wealth. For such an one, 
it is perhaps not impossible to withhold them from contact 
with murders: “ but to wash them clean,” adds the Pythagorean, 
‘is possible neither for me nor for God the Maker of all.” ® 
He is made to refer to some of the wonders recorded in the 
biography ; but he disclaims the possession of power to keep 
a dying friend in life or to recover him from the dead. Had 
it been in his power to do either, he would have done it.* 
In the part of his apology referring to the accusation of having 
said that if the Fates have determined that a certain man 
shall reign, then, though the Emperor kill him, he will come to 
life again, Apollonius points out that such assertions are of 
the hyperbolical kind adapted to produce conviction in those 
who find things that are put consistently with the appearance 


1 viii. 5 (6). 

2 vill. 7 (21): dor ef kal Oedv HyodvTd pe, cci Képbos 7 awary elye’ Eby 
xpoduula yap Tov AKpo@vTd jou, dedidTes mpdrrev, & uh doKel Gew. 

3 vill. 7. (26): ddévev yap dvacxety wev adTas un mpocdmred Gat ovK advvaTor 
tows avipl Toor, amoviva: & ovr’ éuol Suvardv obre THY TdvTwY Onusovpyw 
beg. 


Sviii. 7 (46). 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 4I 


of reason incredible.’ The implied view is obviously that of 
the Stoic determinism. Ifthe predetermined event is infallible, 
its conditions are in reality equally necessitated. Uncon- 
ditional fate is an abstraction ; though it is an impressive and 
a moralising abstraction. In conclusion, he quotes the lines 
of Sophocles in the Gedipus Coloneus on the revolutions of 
human life— 
pdvats ov ylyverat 

Geotar yjpas ovde KaTGaveiy rote, 

Ta & GAXNa ovyxet wav’ 6 wayKparis xpévos. 
Let the Emperor remember how ephemeral is good fortune, 
and put an end to the oppressions through which he has been 
made hateful to all, as all things have been made hateful to 
him. 

When Apollonius, as has been related, strangely disappeared,” 
the tyrant did not break out into a rage, as most expected, 
but rather gave signs of trouble. This having taken place at 
Rome before noon, Apollonius appeared in the afternoon of 
the same day at Puteoli to Damis and Demetrius, as he had 
promised. He came to them when they were beginning to 
despair of ever seeing him again; and convinced them by 
having a tangible body that he had not returned from the 
shades. After he has slept, he tells them that he is about to 
sail for Greece. Demetrius is afraid that he will not be 
sufficiently hidden there: to which he replies that, if all the 
earth belongs to the tyrant, they that die in the open day have 
a better part than they that live in concealment. To those 
in Greece who asked him how he had escaped, he merely said 
that his defence had been successful. Hence when many 
coming from Italy related what had really happened, he was 
almost worshipped ; being regarded as divine especially because 
he had in no way boasted of the marvellous mode of his escape. 

Of this residence in Greece one singular adventure is re- 
lated. Apollonius desired to visit the cave of Trophonius at 
Lebadea in Beeotia. The priests refused to admit him; 
making excuses to him personally but alleging to the people as 
their ground his being a sorcerer. He went, however, in the 


: viii. 7 (53) : Tas yap brepBodds Ta Neyer Ecayducba dia TOs Tots FiBavois 
areGotvras. 


2 viii. 8: daudvidy Te Kot pddiov elretv TpéTov. 


3 viii, 14. 


42 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


evening with his companions and forced his way in. In this 
he did what was so pleasing to the god that Trophonius 
appeared to the priests and rebuked them. To the inquiry 
of Apollonius, what philosophy he regarded as the best and 
purest, he replied by allowing him to carry off a book contain- 
ing the Pythagorean precepts. This book, says Philostratus, 
is now at Antium ; and his own opinion is that it was brought 
with some of the epistles of Apollonius to the Emperor 
Hadrian, and left in the palace there.’ 

A concourse of disciples from Ionia joined with those of 
Hellas to surround the philosopher ; and rhetoric lay neglected 
as an art that can teach only language. He kept his disciples 
away from the forensic orators (Tvs dyopatous) ; having always 
been hostile to them, and now, since he had seen the Roman 
prisons, regarding them and their money-making art as more 
responsible for the state of things there than the tyrant him- 
seir,* 

About this time a crown (77é¢avos) was seen around the sun 
obscuring its rays. The portent was fulfilled when Stephanus 
plotted the death of Domitian, then fresh from the murder of 
Flavius Clemens. Stephanus, says Philostratus, being the 
freedman of his wife—who was, like Clemens himself, a re- 
lation of Domitian, though not his sister, as Philostratus has it 
—avenged his death by attacking the tyrant with a spirit 
equal to that of the most freeborn Athenians. He proceeds 
to give an account of the tyrannicide, which, as we see, he 
approves in entire consistency with classical ethics. While 
this was taking place at Rome, Apollonius—having returned 
to Ionia after a stay of two years in Greece—was speaking at 
Ephesus. Interrupting his discourse, which had gradually 
become troubled, he stepped forward three or four paces and 
cried out, ‘Strike the tyrant, strike!” Then he told his 
audience that Domitian had been slain at that hour; and this 
vision of his from the gods was afterwards confirmed circum- 
stantially.’ 


1 viii. 19, 20. 

2 viii, 22. Cf. Tac., Dial. de Oratoribus, 12: ‘*nam lucrosae huius et 
sanguinantis eloquentiae usus recens et malis moribus natus, atque, ut tu 
dicebas, Aper, in locum teli repertus.” 


3 vill, 26. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 43 


Near the end of Nerva’s brief reign (96-98) he disappeared 
from among men, in some way that is not precisely known; 
for he sent Damis away when the expected time approached, 
on the pretext of entrusting him with a confidential letter to 
the Emperor. Damis does not even tell his age, which some 
make to have been eighty, some over ninety, and others more 
than a hundred. According to Philostratus, his statues in the 
temple at Tyana showed him to have possessed ina pre-eminent 
degree the charm which is sometimes found to accompany old 
age. Several legends are related of the manner in which he 
was called from earth." He always taught the immortality of 
the soul, but did not encourage the indulgence of curiosity 
about its future. To a disputatious youth who, even after 
his departure, continued to argue against immortality, he 
appeared in a vision and delivered an oracle. If the verses? 
are by Apollonius, he would seem to have anticipated the 
attitude of Kant at the conclusion of his Traume eines Geister- 
seheys. Philostratus lastly tells us that he has found no tomb 
or cenotaph of Apollonius anywhere, but that everywhere he 
has met with marvellous stories. 


The effect of the work of Philostratus on cultivated opinion 
was decisive. Apollonius was henceforth recognised as at 
least a philosopher and perhaps something more. Not that 
the marvels related produced this effect. | No school was led 
by them to call itself after the name of Apollonius, and no one 
appealed to his wonder-working as evidence of the truth of the 
doctrines attributed to him. The feeling seems to have 
been—and, as we shall see, an adherent of the new religion 
was not entirely exempt from it—that here was undoubtedly a 
genuine moral and religious teacher. When, however, the 
struggle between Christianity and the established polytheism 
reached its critical point, it occurred to one advocate of the 
old religion to select the Life of Apollonius as containing 
wonders better authenticated than those appealed to by the 
Christians. The argument of Hierocles, so far as it can be 
gathered from Eusebius, was this: ‘“ You proclaim Jesus a god 
on account of a few prodigies recorded by your evangelists. 
We have writers of more education than yours and with more 
care for truth, who relate similar wonders of Apollonius ; and 
yet we, showing more solid judgment, do not make him a god 


1 viii. 30. ? viii. 31 (3). 


44 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


on account of them, but only regard him as a man found 
pleasing to the gods.” ‘This is practically all that Eusebius 
tells us about the contents of the work written by Hierocles 
under the title Philalethes. | Everything else in the book, he 
asserts, has been urged by others and has been already replied 
to. The parallel between Apollonius and Christ is all that is 
new, and this only will be taken up. What seems especially 
to have stung the father of ecclesiastical history is the taunt of 
Hierocles about the ‘‘ heedlessness and lightness” (etyépeva Kat 
xovpérys) Of Christian belief, to which he recurs again and again. 
A brief analysis of his argument will not be uninstructive. 

He will waive, he tells us, such points as this,—that the 
coming of Christ alone was foretold by the wise men of the 
Hebrews under divine inspiration, and that to this day devils 
are cast out by the power of his name, as the writer can testify 
from experience.’ Of the biographers referred to by Hierocles 
——namely, Maximus of digs, Damis the Assyrian, and 
es ota the Athenian—it will be sufficient to consider the 
last. From his trustworthiness, that of the rest may be judged. 
in acneanly the method of Eusebius i is to examine in succession 
the eight books of Philostratus, pointing out in each the incon- 
sistencies and incredibilities of the narrative. I have no 
ebjection, he says, to placing Apollonius as high as any one 
likes among philosophers. But when his biographer, be he 
Damis the Assyrian, or Philostratus, or any one-else, represents 
him, under cover of Pythagoreanism, as going beyond the 
bounds of Matias ore then he is really made out to be an ass 
in a lion’s skin, a juggling quack instead of a philosopher. 
There are limits set to human powers which no man may 
transgress; though a higher being may condescend to the 
conditions of human nature. 

Was Apollonius then a divine being? If so, let the bio- 
grapher preserve consistency through the whole narrative. He 
is said to have been announced to his mother before his birth 
as an incarnation of the god Proteus, and swans are said to 
have sung him into the world. Whence did the writer get this ? 
It cannot have been from a disciple who joined him long after 
in Nineveh.? In one place he is made to describe himself as 





1 Adversus Hieroclem, 4: eicére kat vov ris évOgou Suvduews Thy dperhy 
émideikvuTce moxOnpods Twas Kal Pavdous Saimovas Puxats av pwrwr kal 
copnacw EpedpevovTas arehavvawr Oia pwdvyns THs appyrov mpooryyoplas avTod,. 
Os avty meipa KaTerAnmaper. 


2 Thid.,/B.-" Ck ¥2: 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 45 


knowing all languages without learning them. Yet he is said 
to have acquired the Attic mode of speech by discipline and 
attention, and not by nature, and to have been taken by his 
father to a rhetorician at Tarsus. Many things related of him, 
Eusebius allows, are credible as belonging to the history of a 
wise and good man. It is the attempt to ascribe to him a 
nature more than human that gives ground for blaming both 
the author and the subject of the biography. 

Passing from the first to the second book, Eusebius points 
out inconsistencies in the account of the journey to India and 
the meeting with King Phraotes. He then dwells on the 
marvellous tales about India related inthe third book.  Be- 
hold, he exclaims, the incredibilities in which “ Philalethes ” 
glories ; preferring Philostratus to our divine evangelists not 
only as a man of highest education but as careful about truth ! 
Iarchas, the chief teacher among the Brahmans, is represented 
as sitting, in the manner of a satrap rather than of a philo- 
sopher, on a more elevated and more adorned seat than his 
fellows. This outward distinction by the marks of tyrannic 
privilege was a fitting mode of doing honour to the teacher of 
divine philosophy.2, The account by Philostratus of the 
vegetative growth like wool that enables the philosophers to 
dispense with clothing made from materials furnished by 
animals seems to require that we should think of them as 
labouring at the loom,—unless we are to suppose that 
this substance of its own accord changes into their sacred 
raiment. That Apollonius praised the automatic mechanisms 
of the sages is inconsistent with his not caring to know of them 
in detail or to emulate them.* 

Not till the return of Apollonius from India does the biogra- 
pher, in the fourth book, make him begin his wonderful works. 
Yet, had he been of a diviner nature than that of man, one 
would say that he ought to have begun them long before, 
without need of communicating with the Arabians and the 
Magi and the Indians. Eusebius then scornfully comments 
on the account of his destroying the plague of Ephesus. The 
story about the ghost of Achilles, he proceeds, is also full of 
absurdities and inconsistencies. The ghost appears at dead of 
night and disappears at cockcrow ; circumstances which would 
be appropriate enough in the case of evil demons, but are out 


1 Adversus Hieroclem, 17. 2 Toid., 18. 
3 Thid., 23. 4 Lbid., 25. 


46 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


of place when related of the soul of a hero. The ‘“heedless- 
ness” of the writer in his accounts of the casting out of a 
demon from a young man, and of the chasing away of the 
lamia, does not need much elaboration of proof; for this, as 
they say, is a casting out of demons by demons.’ The raising 
of a maiden from death to a second life is most incredible, 
and to Philostratus himself seems a marvel to be explained 
away.? Had such a wonder really been performed by Apol- 
lonius at Rome, it would hardly have escaped the attention of 
the Emperor and of all his subordinates, and especially of the 
philosopher Euphrates who at that time was there, and who 
would not have failed afterwards to include this among his 
accusations of magic. 

In his interviews with Vespasian, this steersman of an 
Egyptian ship—for such Apollonius told the Indian sage that 
he had been in a former life—gives himself the airs of a god 
and of a kingmaker. He commends Euphrates to Vespasian ; 
and afterwards, when he is at variance with him, speaks of 
him to Domitian as the worst of men. How does Philostratus 
reconcile this with the prescience he attributes to his hero? 
Evidently, if the wonders related by the writer actually took 
place, Apollonius performed them by the aid of a demon. 
Had the superhuman insight he displays on some occasions been 
of a divine character, he would have displayed it always, and 
would never have needed to inquire about anything. The fact 
that he foreknows some things and not others is best explained by 
the theory of demoniac assistance. As was said above, he 
could drive away a demon like the lamia by a more powerful 
demon. 

From the accusation of magic that was brought against 
Apollonius his biographer is anxious to defend him. The 
incident in the dungeon, however, by which Damis is said to 
have been first convinced of his superhuman powers, if true, 
plainly confirms the charge. The explanation here suggested 
by Eusebius is that an impression made on the imagination of 
Damis by his master’s associate demon (id rod rapédpou Saiuovos) 


1 Adversus Hieroclem, 30; Saipovas yap dmedatver AAW AAXOY, y hasi, 
Gaipove. 


2 Tbid. : axucrétarory cal atz@ dav Ta Piocrpdtw rapaityréov, 


3 [bid., 353; Spa dn ody, ws pny, Thy macay aitw rapadotorala, ws dia 
Oainovixys amreredetro Uroupyias. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 47 


caused him to see the fetter apparently removed and then re- 
placed." Apollonius, it is here evident, did not know the 
future ; for he prepared a long defence which, in the event, 
was not needed. Moreover, if we examine that defence, we 
shall find a sufficient justification of the charge of magic by 
merely comparing his own definition of a sorcerer as a professor 
of false wisdom (yevdécogos) with the things recorded of him by 
Philostratus. In what he says to Domitian about the words 
he had uttered on Necessity, he evades the true charge that he 
had predicted his end; and is thus placed before us as a 
flatterer and a liar and anything rather than a philosopher. 
Perhaps, however, the falsehood comes from his biographers. 
In that case, where are the “‘men of highest education” of 
“‘ Philalethes”? The splendour of the truth has convicted 
them as plainly liars and uneducated men and jugglers.” 

Lastly, says Eusebius, arriving at the culmination, Philostra- 
tus, having thrown doubt on the place and manner of his de- 
parture from life, will have it that Apollonius went to heaven 
bodily, accompanied by an unexpected song of maiden voices.? 

Selecting now, as an example of his false doctrine,‘ the 
utterances attributed to him on the certainty of fate, Eusebius 
ends with some commonplace libertarian declamation :® re- 
marking finally that, should any still think fit to place 
Apollonius among philosophers, he does not object, if only 
they will clear him of the false ornaments affixed to him by 
the writing under examination ; the real effect of such additions 
being to calumniate the man himself under the guise of 
raising him to divinity. 


The moral of the Bishop of Czsarea’s tract is, it may be 
hoped, too obvious for comment. We may go on now to 
consider briefly an interesting problem raised by the reforming 
activity of the philosopher or prophet of Tyana. 

Eusebius does not suggest that Philostratus himself had 
either a hostile or a friendly intention with regard to Christi- 
anity. Yet it seems likely that, living when he did, he had 


1 Adversus Hieroclem, 39. 


2 Tbid., 43: petoras évapyas cal dwadedrovs kai Ladi THs adnOeias 
TO péyyos dinreyter. 


3 Tbsd., 44. 47 év Sdyuacr Wevdodotla ravdpds, 5 Jhid., 45-48. 


48 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


some slight bias one way or the other. One passage might be 
adduced in support of the former view. The declaration of 
Apollonius, that not even the supreme Deity can wash away 
the stain of murder, if it were found in Julian, could safely be 
set down as pointed against the Christian ecclesiastical doctrine. 
To Philostratus, however, it probably appeared as simply a 
re-affirmation of the higher ethical view, at once poetic and 
philosophic, against the imaginations of the multitude that by 
prayers or ceremonies the necessary expiation to be undergone 
by the soul itself—perhaps in a series of lives—can be 
dispensed with. This idea ofan inflexible moral order, not to 
be derived from arbitrary volitions, severe or indulgent, was 
an important part of the Hellenic conception of an ethically 
reformed religion ; but, to bring it into relief, no contrast was 
needed except that which Plato had drawn between the 
philosophic thinker on religion and the popular “ medicine- 
man.” The aim of Philostratus, in spite of his introduction 
of marvels, was to make it quite clear that Apollonius was not 
this kind of person ; and indeed the position about sacrifices 
which by universal consent was his, ought to be of itself 
sufficient to prove that he was not. 

While there is thus nothing to show hostility to Christianity 
on the part of Philostratus, there is some slight evidence of a 
not unfriendly intention. The Syrian emperors of the third 
century, for whom he wrote, were themselves favourably dis- 
posed to the new religion. And in representing Apollonius as 
accused of perpetrating a ritual murder, may he not have 
meant to hint at the absurdity of the vulgar accusations 
against the Christians? This seems at least possible. That 
Christianity should become the exclusive religion of the 
State he would certainly not have desired. What he hoped 
for was, we may judge, a system of toleration accompanied by 
ethical reform of the local cults wherever such reform might be 
needed. Of Christianity itself he probably knew little. He 
was not one of those who had caught a glimpse of the theo- 
cratic aims of the Church.’ Indeed Themistius the Peripatetic, 


1In spite of its defective information on the detail of Jewish antiquities, 
there is evidence in the fifth book of his Azstorzes that Tacitus had gained 
some real insight into the spirit of intolerant theocracy which, at once 
dislodged and liberated by the destruction of Jerusalem, was shaping for 
itself a new embodiment in the incipient Catholic hierarchy. See especially 
ce. 5. On the support furnished by theocracy to monarchy, compare what 
he says about the Hasmonzean kings, ‘‘qui mobilitate vulgi expulsi, 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 49 


and Ammianus Marcellinus the military historian, had scarcely 
appreciated those aims in the latter part of the fourth century. 
Even after the victory of Christianity they seem to have still 
cherished dreams of a mutual toleration; taking the ground 
natural to sensible men of the world imbued with secular 
culture who saw the general agreement of all the organised 
doctrines, philosophic or religious, on practical morals. They 
could hardly have imagined that what must have seemed to 
men of their type so moderate and obvious a solution would 
have to wait, not for its triumph but for a mere beginning of 
its effective recognition, to the time of Locke. 

The régime of ‘religious liberty,” desirable as it must 
always have seemed to statesmen who were not bigots, has not 
always been practicable for governments sincerely anxious to 
uphold freedom of opinion. The repression of the rising 
Christian Church in the second century was probably, in its 
inception, a policy similar to the legislation of modern States 
against the reactionary conspiracies fomented by Catholic 
organisation in its death-struggle; though the exact degree 
of knowledge of those who attempted it, and the degree of 
harshness in the method used, may be for ever impossible to 
discern through the cloud of ecclesiastical legend. An attempt to 
show how a more clearly conceived policy of the kind, aided 
instead of thwarted by accident, might have been successful in 
throwing Christianity back on the East, has been made by 
M. Renouvier in his Uchvronie. According to M. Renouvier’s 
hypothetical reconstruction of history, the official Stoicism 
retains the direction of opinion ; the extra-legal power of the 
Emperor is gradually reduced with a view to the restoration 
of the Republic; slavery is brought to an end by legislation 
under the continued Stoical influence, instead of being left, as 
it actually was, to be slowly extinguished in the Middle Ages 
through economical causes unassisted by directing ideas. The 
process of return from the type of society initiated by the 
Cesarean revolution being thus accelerated, Europe about the 
ninth century is a little in advance of what actually became its 
condition in the nineteenth. The empire of the West has in 
the meantime been resolved into a system of national republics 


resumpta per arma dominatione fugas civium, urbium eversiones, fratrum 
coniugum parentum neces aliaque solita regibus ausi superstitionem fove- 
bant, quia honor sacerdotii firmamentum potentiae adsumebatur”’ (47s¢. v. 
8). 

4 


50 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


in friendly alliance. The Christian propaganda is re-admitted 
when the force of the Catholic idea has spent itself in the East 
in mutual massacre and abortive crusading. Thus, in the 
hypothetical reconstruction, formal toleration of all sects, reli- 
gious or philosophic, becomes at length the official system, as it 
is in the actual modern world after a far more wasteful struggle. 

It is tempting to take this sketch as a basis and to make modifi- 
cations in it by giving a more definite part than M. Renouvier does 
to the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic movements. To bring 
about, for example, the abolition of the customs of animal 
sacrifice and of divination by inspection of victims, the ideas 
of a reformer like Apollonius were necessary ; Stoicism having 
somewhat derogated from its philosophical character by 
defending the official religion as a whole. Again, to an 
idealist the Neo-Platonic metaphysics ought to seem an advance 
on the Stoic materialism. And indeed it seems clear that, 
in the absence of Christianity, Neo-Platonism and not Stoicism 
would finally have assumed the direction of opinion in the 
Empire. Had this been the course of events, Graeco-Roman 
civilisation would have preserved its organic continuity, and 
the barbarian attack would doubtless have been thrown off. 
Inthe latter part of the second century the conservative patriotism 
of Celsus foresaw that, as things were, the latent civil war kept up 
by the imperium in imperto of the Church would be fatal ; 
that, unless the Christians could be persuaded to yield the 
required allegiance to the State, the whole fabric would sooner 
or later go down under the shock of invasion. He did not 
indeed foresee the recovery; but expressed the apprehension 
that the religion of the Christians itself, as well as true philosophy, 
would be submerged in universal chaos. This, as we know, 
did not in the end come about; though the prospect might 
seem near being realised in the dark centuries of the West 
between the end of antiquity and the beginning of new life in 
the Middle Age. What then would have been the result if the 
break-up had been averted? Would Western civilisation have 
assumed a fixed form analogous to those of the East though 
superior,—combining, let us say, the political order of China 
with the higher speculative thought of India and with a legal 
system that recognises rights as well as duties, but never 
developing new forms of freedom or new lines of art and 
thought ? Or would there have been such accelerated progress 
as M. Renouvier has imagined ? 

A progressive movement might be conceived as starting 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA st 


from interaction between the Roman Empire and the free but 
undisciplined tribes of the North, when these, kept at length 
within their own boundaries, settled down toa life of compara- 
tive peace and began to draw their higher culture, as they 
would have done, from the old civilisation of Europe. We 
might then suppose an ethnic republic arising in the North— 
say, in Scandinavia—and, by offering to the South a new type 
for imitation instead of the city-republic of the past, leading to 
a system of independent national States. As the imperial 
absolutism, according to the hypothesis, remains unconsecrated 
by a new hierocracy, we should naturally suppose a transition 
from the monarchical to the republican form less violent than 
the French Revolution. Thus we should come round to M. 
Renouvier’s result in a different manner. It would be easy to 
fill in details and, by selecting factors with a view to the re- 
quired product, to show how every distinctive element in 
modern civilisation might have been evolved. 

M. Renouvier himself, however, at the conclusion of his 
‘apocryphal sketch,” has sufficiently indicated at once the 
possibilities and the limitations of this kind of reconstruction ; 
and the scientific interest of any such attempt cannot, of course, 
be in its positive result—since the result is necessarily un- 
verifiable—though it may suggest new ways of looking at .the 
actual process of history. We are led to see that in the com- 
plexity of real circumstances factors intervene which from time 
to time make continuous progress impossible. Perhaps it is 
irrational even to desire that there should have been continuous 
progress ; as Heraclitus thought Homer irrational for giving 
utterance to the aspiration ‘that strife might be destroyed 
from among gods and men”; since this would mean the 
destruction of the cosmic harmony itself. It is still possible 
to apply the teleological idea in Kant’s sense to the historical 
process. That is to say, we may use it as a “‘ regulative idea ” 
to interpret history as it was ; though we may not use it to 
inform us as to what history in general must have been. 
Taking it in the first sense, and using the terms of post- 
Kantian metaphysics, we might regard the pseudo-synthesis of 
Athanasius and Augustine and the rest, itself entirely without 


? A recent example of this kind is the overgrowth of industrialism through- 
out the civilised world. It is remarkable that two poets so unlike in many 
respects as Wordsworth and Shelley foresaw the imminent evil of ch a 
cracy in the early years of the nineteenth century. 


52 APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 


human value, as the obstacle posited by the world-soul in order 
to rise more explicitly to the idea of spiritual freedom. This 
is not of course to deny that there are gleams of borrowed 
light in their Kingdom of Darkness ; but it is to deny the too 
anthropomorphic teleology of Comte, with its insistence that 
the Catholic ideal, as one expression of the ‘human 
providence,” must have been a progressive phase in the 
history of humanity." The immanent reason in things, being 
cosmic and not simply human, works in the affairs of man also 
through pauses like night and winter. 

Such seasons, we know, bear the germs of the future; and 
the future is more than simply a return to a vanished past. 
To historical Christianity may be assigned on one side the 
merit of partially appropriating the idealistic metaphysic which 
was the legacy of Hellenic thought; and, on the other side, of 
preserving, in the documents to which it appealed for its 
authoritative dogma, elements of ethical culture which, when 
cleared of their dogmatic superstructure, could be seen to con- 
tain something emotionally unique. In the Hebrew prophets 
there is a more ardent, though not a purer and certainly not 
a nobler, morality than that of classical antiquity even in its 
final stage ; and the teaching of the Gospel has become, when 
dissociated from a creed which was always extraneous to it, 
the inspiration of a more impassioned, though not of a wider, 
philanthropy. The first modern to bring out clearly the per- 
manent ethical value of the Christian as well as of the Hebrew 
documents was Spinoza, who was enabled to do it by having 
discarded more systematically than any one before him the 
whole framework of rabbinical and ecclesiastical dogma. Since, 
however, the problem of making a new synthesis of the ele- 
ments of ethical and intellectual culture still remains, there 
seems to be some advantage in returning for inspiration to 
more than one source. The movement of moral and religious 
reform from within the Hellenic world failed, owing to the 
circumstances of the time, as much through its merits as 
through any shortcomings that may be ascribed to it. Its 
philosophical idea of divine justice, as we have seen, was 
opposed to the doctrine of vicarious punishment distilled by 
Christian theology from the lower paganism. And for a time 


1Comte predicted results almost purely beneficent from modern in- 
dustrialism ; though it must be allowed that his disciples have no more love 
for the present hypertrophy of commerce than other philosophers. 


APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 53 


the original Christian teaching, such as Bibical critics now 
suppose it to have been, failed more tragically than the 
Hellenic movement. Greco-Roman civilisation indeed was 
broken up ; and the Christian Church conquered : but, on the 
other hand, the genuine Hellenism has been easier to re- 
discover than the teaching of Jesus,’ which, in its association 
with the ecclesiastical system, became distorted almost if not 
quite beyond recognition. In the endeavour after restoration, 
may not the “ Hebraist” and the “ Hellenist,” in the true 
sense of both terms, regard themselves as co-operating to a 
common result ? 


1 Since writing this, I have made a more special study of Christian 
origins, and have come to the conclusion that no personal Jesus is to be 
discovered as the beginner of the teaching. Still, we may continue to 
speak of an ethical ‘‘ Preaching of Jesus,” as we speak of the ‘‘ Mosaic Law” 
or of the ‘‘ Orphic Theology.” This teaching, whether having its be- 
ginning in a personal founder or not, was at any rate in its characteristic. 
part an outgrowth from the Hebraism of the prophets and not of the 
priests, and thus essentially separable from the ecclesiastical system which 
appropriated it. And for a long time, as is known, the claim to be the 
depositaries of the genuine traditional teaching was maintained by the 
** Ebionites,” who were repudiated as heretical by Catholic Christianity. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN | 


RECENT historians of antiquity have shown how narrowly 
Greece, at the opening of its great period, escaped falling under 
the dominance of a theocracy on the Oriental model, started by 
the dissemination of a religion at once new and archaic, and 
proclaiming itself revealed.’ The inference was perhaps too 
obvious to draw, that what Orphism failed to do was done by the 
Christian hierarchy seven or eight centuries later. In the 
meantime a distinctively European ideal had been determined in 
outline by the temporary efflorescence of republican States, and 
by the growth of philosophy as a power not subordinated to 
popular religion, but claiming to satisfy the highest aspirations 
of the individual after speculative insight and a moral rule of 
life. Thus it remained possible long afterwards to break again 
the spiritual dominion of the East over the West. The 
ambition of those who represent the system that dominated 
European life in the middle period is nevertheless still active. 
Some even think that, skilfully directed and taking advantage 
of the ever-renewed reaction starting up from a past embodied 
in institutions, it may yet prevail. Though this view seems to 
take too little account of the critical work of the last century, 
by which the whole historical basis of the old spiritual edifice 
has been irremediably sapped, a comparison with the situation 
near the close of the ancient world may show it not to be 
altogether chimerical. In the treatise of Origen against Celsus, 
we have the ablest defence that could be made in the third 


1 See Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, vols. ii. and iii, ; and com- 
pare the view of Prof. J. B. Bury in his History of Greece. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 55 


century against the attack of a well-informed opponent of 
Christianity in the second. Of the weight of that attack we can 
only judge from the fragments preserved by the apologist ; but 
these suffice to prove that, where learning was approximately 
equal on the two sides, the advocates of the new creed were at 
a distinctly lower level of rationality than its antagonists. Yet 
the religion of the “barbarians,” for all that reason could say 
against it, triumphed. The event was made possible funda- 
mentally by the social conditions of theage. It may, therefore, 
be worth while for educated moderns to consider how far the 
economic order, for example, which they allow to go on, favours 
a revival of outworn orthodoxies that would bring with it again 
something like the old Eastern structure of life. The Byzantine 
age furnishes a warning as to the mode in which this could 
return and overgrow a new world that appeared to have tran- 
scended it once for all. 

In Celsus and Origen we must not expect to meet with the 
two ideals in what seems to us their purity. Celsus represents 
the particularcompromise between socialauthority and individual 
freedom arrived at by the governing classes in the Roman Empire 
during the second century of the Christian era ; that is, at a 
time when the transition on the secular side was more than 
half accomplished. This attitude is philosophically liberal and 
politically conservative, as against revolutionaries whose aim is 
by no means to go back to a freer past, but to establish a new 
authority extending beyond action over all human thought. 
We must bear in mind that we are confronted with the 
anomaly, as it began to appear to liberal thinkers in the nine- 
teenth century, of a civilisation running down. The chief 
problem for the men that cared most for the slowly accumulated 
results of the thought before them was to preserve what 
remained. Thus we do not find in Celsus hopes for a higher 
order of things in the future of the world. For him as for 
Marcus Aurelius and Ecclesiastes, “the thing that hath been, 
itis that which shall be.” Or, if there is a difference, it 
belongs only to the different phases in a cycle. Origen, on the 
other hand, holds that a true religious faith, formerly limited to 
a small people, has now been enlarged, and is to prevail over 
the whole earth. This presents a kind of likeness to the modern 
ideal of progress. But, as we can see plainly enough even in 
his more conciliatory version of it, his creed, while continuing 
the breaking down of local custom which had been begun by 
the cosmopolitan empires, Asiatic and European, was bound 


56 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


to be fatal to that unrestricted liberty of philosophising which 
for later antiquity was an accepted part of the inherited order. 
Like Eusebius afterwards, he is fully conscious that he repre- 
sents the “barbarians” as against the ‘ Greeks.” If his 
philosophical learning enables him to take much from the 
great Hellenic thinkers, it is to serve a cause which could never 
have been theirs. 

A lately published research of Prof. Gunkel’ seems to show 
that the root-idea of the spiritual transition must be traced back 
finally to Babylonia. The imagination of a priest-king who is 
to establish his dominion everywheie, and to make one religion 
prevail universally, cannot at first have sprung up in a small 
tribal group: it must have originated in a great empire. The 
Jews were only the bearers of the Messianic idea, though it 
became strongly Judaised in the process. Now, in whatever 
way Christianity arose, it was, as Gunkel has shown, from the 
first a highly syncretistic religion. Some of the Eastern ideas 
it contains may not have come to it by way of Judaism : though 
actual Judaism was much more composite than it appears in 
its canonical Scriptures. In the case of this idea, however, 
there is no difficulty in understanding the historical process. 
For, as we know, the Judaised conception of world-wide theo- 
cracy was especially that of the powerful “Catholic” groups 
among the early believers. Thus (drawing again an obvious 
inference) we may say that the theocratic ideal migrated from 
Babylon to Rome, through the Messianic Jews first and then 
the Catholic Christians. The old civilisation which had become 
for the apocalyptists the symbol of the secular world-state was 
the original source of their own dream of all-embracing religious 
dominion. And the new empire of the West, having already 
succumbed to the Eastern institution of absolute monarchy, 
was the necessary recipient of the ideal which for their 
successors took the form, no longer of a ‘‘ New Jerusalem,” 
but of the universal ‘“ City of God.” 

Here we have one far-reaching illustration of Dr. Tylor’s the- 
orem regarding the immense potency of “survivals in culture.” 
Fortunately, ideals new as well as old can be revived, and the 
human race has some control over the circumstances that give 
a field for their growth. The conceptions of the republican 


1 Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verstindnis des Neuen Testaments (GOot- 
tingen, 1903). Also published in translation in the A/onist for April, 


1903. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 57 


state and of the liberty of philosophising were restored after they 
had gone into latency; and they have gained a larger scope. 
What kind of conditions the modern world is providing for 
their further development is a practically important question 
the discussion of which would lead far. If civilisation should 
continue to be based on the existence of a huge mass with no 
instruction except what is of utility for material needs, then it 
seems clear that culture of a rational type will not permanently 
retain even such directing power as it has.’ This remark, 
however, is made only in passing. My object at present is, 
not to bring into view all the complex issues, but to give a 
straightforward account, mainly from the intellectual side, of a 
particular controversy which throws light on the perennial 
strife of ideals. 

This account I have not subordinated to a thesis, though it 
might serve to illustrate more than one. What I propose is 
to set forth the debate itself in some detail, but with no 
pretention of exhausting its interest. Thus I have not 
attempted a complete reconstruction of Celsus, or a special 
study of his whole view, on the lines of Keim? or of 
Pélagaud.2 If C. J. Neumann’s promised reconstruction in 
Greek had already appeared, I might not have set myself to go 
through the treatise of Origen in full; but, having made a 
study of it, I find that there is room for a supplement to other 
work. The terse and classical style of Celsus does not 
admit of condensation; though Origen calls his occasional 
restatement of a position tautology, and makes this the excuse 
for lengthy new dissertations of his own. Abbreviation of his 
argument can thus only be by selection. Origen, on the other 
hand, though sufficiently readable, has the patristic verbosity. 
It is quite practicable to put the whole substance of many 
arguments in less space than they occupy. If they do not 
usually gain in the process, that, I am afraid, is the fault cf the 
arguments. I do not think the statement of them will be 


1 Meyer’s remarks on the rise of capitalism in the Greek world are in this 
relation of extreme interest. He points out that its evil effects were for a 
time masked by the rapid political and economic advancement of the State. 
See Geschichte des Alterthums, iii. §305, and compare v. §884: ‘‘ Wie zu 
allen Zeiten gehen auch in Griechenland der Sieg des Capitalismus und die 
Proletarisirung der Massen Hand in Hand.” 


2 Celsus Wahres Wort (1873). 3 Etude sur Celse (1878). 
* Patrick’s Apolozy of Origen (1892) is on different lines. 


58 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


found to be unfair. In summarising a Father of the Church, 
** difficile est satiram non scribere.” 

The edition I have used is the new one by Koetschau.' 
From Koetschau’s introduction I give the facts it is necessary 
to bear in mind as to the time and place of composition. The 
treatise was composed probably at Czsarea in Palestine. Its 
date (as established by Neumann) is 248. Celsus wrote his 
work against the Christians sometime between 177 and 180. 
Origen’s reply, we learn from the dedication, was written ia 
response to a request of his friend Ambrosius, who sent him 
a copy of the work of Celsus, entitled the True Word 
('Adn%s Adyos). Who Celsus was, Origen himself does not know. 
He would like to identify him with an Epicurean of the same 
name who wrote against magic, and to whom Lucian dedicated 
his exposure of Alexander the “false prophet;” but he 
discovers by degrees that this conjecture has too little 
plausibility, and at length ceases to make his points dependent 
On it. Celsus was in fact a Platonist. As Origen was of the 
group of Fathers who, in their borrowings from philosophy, 
found most that seemed to their purpose in Plato, the 
opponents have to this extent something in common. Both 
for this and for other reasons, the apologist does not find it 
possible to keep up consistently the tone of contempt which he 
assumes in his “ Proem” towards the assailant of the faith. 

Of Origen’s reputed heterodoxy little appears in the treatise 
before us. ‘Those who wish to know exactly how he mitigated 
his creed by a philosophic doctrine of ‘ world-periods,” or by 
the theory of a “restitution of all things,” must consult his 
Principles. We find now and then hints of a less damnatory 
eschatology ;* but this does not seem to affect the position 
that, to whomsoever salvation comes, it must in the end be 
through acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Saviour. From the 
first it is obvious that the contest is not between rival 
philosophies, each to be rationally maintained. Origen assumes 
that Christianity is a revelation to be received by faith. Greek 


Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 
herausgegeben von der Kirchenvater-Commission der Konigl, Preusstschen 
Akademie der Wissenschaften. Origenes, I., II., Leipzig, 1899. 


2See in particular Contra Celsum, vi. 26. It is not without danger, 
says Origen, to commit what is meant clearly to writing (4AN 00d’ dxivduvor 
Thy Tay ToLiTwY caphveray mictedoar ypagdy). The mitigation cannot 
safely be brought to the knowledge of the multitude, hardly held in check 
as it is even by the fear of eternal punishment. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 59 


philosophy, so far as it claims independence, is treated as a 
hostile power, not indeed without persuasiveness to those who 
are grounded in its principles, though precisely for that reason 
an apostolic warning (Col. ii. 8) was necessary against it. The 
Old and New Testaments are held unquestioningly to be the 
inspired word of God. If the limit between canonical and 
uncanonical matter was still indeterminate, that in no way 
affects the general principle. When Celsus speaks of 
“inspired” poets or philosophers, his language has not much 
more in common with Origen’s in reference to the Scriptures 
than the modern literary sense of “inspiration” has in 
common with the sense it conveyed to a_ text-quoting 
theological disputant of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. 
The difference is that in the early centuries of our era the man 
of ecclesiastical authority was the man of the future, while the 
man of liberal and rational culture was the man of the past. 


The opening of the treatise gives us an insight into the 
fanaticism with which the ancient world was being assailed. 
Celsus brings against the Christians the ordinary charge of 
holding unlawful assemblies. A civilised man finding himself 
among Scythians and unable to escape, replies Origen, would 
rightly live in secret in his own manner with any whom he 
could persuade to do likewise. Now what is lawful among 
“the nations” regarding statues and “godless polytheism ” 
is as bad as the customs of the Scythians or anything more 
impious than these. Similarly those would do well who should 
secretly conspire against a tyrant that aimed at destroying their 
city. Thus the Christians are right in making compacts 
forbidden by the law against that tyrant whom they call the 
Devil. 

Celsus remarks that although the doctrine is of bartanites 
that is, Oriental—origin,’ he does not blame it on this ground, 
for the barbarians have shown themselves competent to make 
discoveries ; but the Greeks are better at judging and con- 
firming and putting in practice the things discovered. So they 
can do in the case of Christianity, was the reply: but it is to 
be added that the Christians have a diviner mode of proving 
their doctrine than the Greek dialectic ;? namely, by “spirit 


13, 2: BipBapov dvwev elvar Td Sdypa. 


2Jbid: oixela amdderkts Tod Ndyov, Oe:orépa mapa Thy amd SiadekTiKTS 
“EX nmiKhy. 


60 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


and power,” as the Apostle said, or, in other words, from 
the fulfilment of prophecy and from miracles. 

Eariy in the treatise the difficult question is raised as to the 
precise grounds assigned for the repression of Christianity. 

Celsus expresses approval of the conduct of the Christians 
in so far as they cannot be brought to renounce doctrines they 
have sincerely embraced ;* but observes that, if they have had 
to undergo persecution, this is only what has happened to 
philosophers like Socrates. In other passages also he speaks 
in the same tone; but on the other hand he treats some that 
have been punished as merely executed criminals. These no 
doubt were they who (as he mentions) publicly insulted statues 
and abused the gods. We must remember that the Christians 
in the end conquered, and that they had no scruple in exercis- 
ing control over the sources of information. Not a single book 
directed against them has been allowed to reach us, except, 
like this of Celsus, in the fragments preserved by an opponent. 

Origen in a later passage puts it on record that up to this 
time (that is, near the middle of the third century) extremely 
few Christians have suffered death for their opinions.? He 
ascribes this of course to supernatural protection. ‘The genuine 
dislike of a government not yet theocratic for anything that 
savoured of religious persecution, even when it seemed politi- 
cally necessary, was quite unintelligible to him. ‘The respect 
of Celsus for the martyrs he supposes to be artfully assumed. 
Here, he says, Celsus conceals his Epicureanism, and speaks 
as if he believed in a divine element in man.* 

The ethical teaching of Christianity and its condemnation of 
images, Celsus points out, is not new. Origen partly agrees : 
for if these teachings had not been written under the form of 
“common notions,” in the hearts of men generally, how could 
God justly have punished them for their sins ?® 

The accusation of relying on the utterance of names and 
magical formule, he finds to contain an allusion to the Christian 
exorcists. But, he replies, these cast out devils not by the 
power of enchantments but by the name of Jesus and by 


218. he 


Siji, 8: dAbyou Kata Katpods Kal opddpa cdapiOunro iwép Tis Xpicriavav 
GeoreBelas TeOv7jKact. 


oo ty: ot Poe. Fe 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 61 


declaring the histories concerning him.’ So powerful is that 
name that even bad men can sometimes cast out devils by it. 
Celsus indeed knows this, for he asks why the Saviour con- 
demns those that have done works like his own. 

To the charge of keeping the doctrine secret? he replies 
that the chief Christian doctrines,—the Virgin-birth, the 
Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Judgment,—are better 
known than those of the philosophers. For the rest, the 
philosophers too have the distinction between exoteric and 
esoteric discourses.2 And the mysteries in general, whether 
of Greeks or barbarians, have not been attacked for their 
secresy. Then why whose of Christianity ? 

Celsus commends rational method, apart from which those 
who receive dogmas by faith are subject to every kind of decep- 
tion. ‘And he compares with us those that believe without 
reason in the begging priests of the Mother of the gods and in 
observers of signs, in divinities like Mithras and Sabazius, and 
anything anyone has met with, apparitions of Hecate or of 
some other demon or demons.” 

“He says that some, willing neither to offer a rational 
account nor to answer questions about the object of their 
faith, make use of the phrases, ‘ Do not examine, but believe,’4 
and ‘ Thy faith will save thee,’ and ‘ Evil is the wisdom in the 
world, but folly is a good.’” To this Origen replies that doubt- 
less acceptance of doctrines as the result of examination is the 
ideal; but it is impracticable except for the few. Among the 
Christians not less than among others there are those that 
examine; that is, as he explains, who are skilled in the inter- 
pretation of what is “symbolical” in the prophets and the 
gospels. The Christian inculcation of doctrines to be received 
by faith has raised the multitude to a higher moral life. And, 
as a matter of fact, the ordinary adherents of philosophic 
schools accept the doctrines of their own teachers without 
systematic comparison with those of others. All human things 


1}, 6: od yap karaxndhoeow loxvew Soxodoww adda T@ dvouate Inood mera 
ris arayyeNlas Tay wept abrov icropiay. 


23.7: Kptqguov TO ddyua. 


$ Misunderstanding of this phrase had begun. The éowrepixol Adyou 
were not a secret doctrine reserved for adepts. (See Grant’s Ethics of 
Aristotle.) 


4i, 9: wh éférafe adda ricTevoo. 


62 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


depend on faith. Toact, men must have faith in the recurrence 
of harvest after seed-time, and generally in the prosperous 
result of an event where the issue is doubtful. Is it not 
then more reasonable to have faith in God ?* 

Why, he asks, does Celsus, in asserting a community of 
reason among the nations, omit the Jews and treat their 
historians alone as unworthy of credence?? His refusal to 
allow of an allegorical interpretation of Moses is comparable to 
the procedure of the Platonic Thrasymachus in refusing 
permission to Socrates to define justice as he likes.? In the 
assertion that there have been many conflagrations and deluges 
he tacitly associates himself with those who say that the world 
is ungenerated (dyévyrov evar tiv xécpov). Let him demonstrate 
this. If he puts forward the dialogues of Plato, we shall 
tell him that it is permitted to us for our part to believe that 
the divine spirit dwelt in the pure and pious soul of Moses, 
who rose above everything generated and attached himself 
to the artificer of the whole, whose works he made manifest 
more clearly than Plato and the others. If he asks us the 
reasons of such faith, let him first give the reasons of that 
which he has asserted without demonstration.s 

Celsus argues, Why cannot we Christians confess the one 
God under any customary name? Why this stress on the 
name of Adonai or Sabaoth as distinguished from Zeus or any 
other by which the supreme Deity has been called in various 
nations?® Origen replies by an appeal to those philosophers 
(viz., the Stoics and Epicureans) who contend for a natural 
element in the giving of names, in opposition to those who 
hold, with Aristotle, that words are merely conventional signs. 
Moreover, the adepts in a secret philosophy are aware of the 
peculiar efficacy of certain angelic names (Michael, Gabriel, 
Raphael). So also the name of “our Jesus” has visibly 
displayed its efficacy in the casting out of myriads of devils. And 


1], 11: w@s S’ovK evAoywrepoy, TavTwy TOV avOpwrivwy TidgTEWs HOTHUEVwY, 
éxelvwv mwaddov miotevey TW Gew ; 


23. 14. Celsus had somehow arrived at the view that the books of 
Moses were a late compilation from widely-diffused pagan myths, such as 
that of a Flood. Cf. i. 21, and, among later passages, iv. 42: e ut dpa 
obdé Mwiicéws olerar elvar Thy ypagdynv ad\Ad TWwr TELdvwY * TOLODTOY yap 
Sydot 7d ‘rupaxaparrovtes Kal padioupyodvres Tov Aevxariwva,’ kK, T. X. 


A NS ye 5 Pte (2% 5, 24s 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 63 


those who are skilled in charms report that they lose their 
power when translated into another language.’ 

The coming of Jesus, objects Celsus, is recent. How 
wonderful, then, replies Origen, have been the results of his 
teaching in so short a time ; so many rescued from degradation 
by it. Such has been the moralising effect of what Celsus and 
those who agree with him call a “word injurious to human 
life” (Aéyor Avpawduevoy Tov Tay av@pwrwyv Biov) that some have 
even gone so far as to abstain from lawful sexual intercourse.? 
The word could not have spread everywhere against the 
opposition of rulers and peoples alike, unless it had been the 
word of God. And Celsus himself admits on occasion that it 
has not been received, as he would make out elsewhere, by the 
ignorant only. 

From this point onward Origen changes his mode of reply .4 
Hitherto he has tried to bring the objections of Celsus under 
heads and to indicate briefly the answers to them, with a view 
to making in the end an organic unity of the discourse. 
Henceforth, ‘‘to spare time,” he will put them down as they 
occur in the book and grapple with them as he goes on. This 
procedure, while no doubt lengthening the treatise of Origen 
(according to the well-known literary rule), has been of ad- 
vantage to modern readers, who are thus in a position to know 
approximately how Celsus ordered his argument. But for the 
change of plan, as Koetschau remarks, reconstructions such as 
have been or are to be attempted, would have been out of the 
question. 

It appears from Origen’s next chapter? that Celsus early in 
his work brought forward an imaginary Jew as opposing the 
supernatural claims of Jesus. The reason of this is evident 
if the Grzeco-Roman would had no trace of an independent 


1j, 2s. With this may be compared the very ingenious argument in the 
De Mysterits vii. 4, 5, on the mystic virtue of ‘*‘ barbarian ” as distinguished 
from Greek names in religious invocations. (Koetschau draws attention to 
the parallel in a note to Contra Celsum v. 41, where the idea recurs. ) 


?j, 26. If Origen here and in other passages did not dwell so strongly 
on this point, it might seem unfair to recall his practical interpretation of 
Matt. xix. 12, recorded in Church-history. The distinctive Catholic 
doctrine is stated in the sequel (viii. 55): GAG Kai dyer Oa yuvaixa érérpewev 
huw 6 beds, ws ob rdvTwy XwpoiyTwy TO diagépov TouTégTL Tb WavTY KaBapédr. 
Ecclesiasticism and its effects will seem to many a verification rather than a 
disproof of the phrase thrown out by Celsus. 


as, 2: 4See Proem, 6. 1: a6. 


64 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


tradition about the events to which Christianity appealed. In 
that case, what was more obvious than to consult the Jews as 
to the ground there might be for the Christian assertions? For 
the new religion did not conceal its dependence on Judaism. 
That Celsus really obtained the substance of this portion of his 
attack from Jews with whom he had conversed is established 
by the traces of similar hostile stories which have been 
brought to light by students of the Talmud.’ Jesus ben 
Pandira can hardly be other than a variant of Jesus the son of 
the Roman soldier Panthera. The interesting question for us 
is, whether any Jewish tradition about Jesus, even hostile, is 
really independent of Christian sources. Now, in what Celsus 
ascribes to the Jew, there is to be found, on the positive side 
and apart from acute negative criticism of the evidence, only an 
obvious conjectural attempt at naturalistic explanation of alleged 
supernatural events. The apologetic view that Panthera is 
merely an anagram on the word “ Parthenos” is sufficiently plaus- 
ible.2 Thus, Origen is securely entrenched when he says that, the 
gospels being the only evidence, opponents, Jewish or heathen, 
have no right to pick out what lends itself to a bad construc- 
tion and refuse to believe the rest. Yet he must have had 
an obscure feeling that the argument might recoil. At any 
rate, he thinks it important that Josephus, not being a 
Christian, should have testified to the reality of personages in 
the Christian legend like John the Baptist and James the Just 
(Ant. xviii. 5, 2 and xx. 9, 1).° The passage on Jesus (Ant. 
xviii. 3, 3) was clearly not in the text when he wrote; for he 
does not mention it, though it would have been more to the 
purpose. Both of the other passages, of course, may be 
Christian interpolations dating from before his time. The 
second has been manipulated since he wrote; the present text 
of Josephus not agreeing with his account.‘ 


1For an exhaustive recent inquiry into this subject, see Herford, 
Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (1903). 

21 have not followed this view to its sources, but take the statement of it 
from Patrick, Zhe Apoloxy of Origen, p. 23 0. I. 

3i, 47. Origen, however, mentions (i. 48) that the Jews do not connect 
John the Baptist with Jesus. | 

4 About the passage referring specially to Jesus there ought never to have 
been any doubt in the minds of European scholars since the treatise of 
Origen against Celsus was in their hands. Yet, although the silence of 
Origen corroborates the plain marks of forgery in the passage itself, it has 
been the subject of volumes of controversy, and has hardly been officially 


abandoned till our own days. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 65 


Celsus himself was firmly convinced that all claims to the 
possession of an authoritative supernatural revelation were 
founded in illusion or imposture. This was fundamentally his 
attitude, not merely to Christianity, but to the other new 
gospels that were then wandering over the world. He believed 
in philosophy as the true “wisdom,” and defended the estab- 
lished system of mutually tolerant civic and national cults, 
partly on the ground that they did no harm. This philosophic 
attitude went along with a certain positive attachment to them 
on patriotic and esthetic grounds. The gods of the civic 
religions were also the gods of literature. Why should 
their worship—a defender of the old order might say—give place 
to barbarian rites and myths, whose claim to possess greater 
truth was only the expression of a more sophisticated stage of 
popular religion, in which it begins to pass over from spon- 
taneous natural fancy into deliberate organisation by jugglers 
and fanatics? But the remark applies perfectly to Celsus that 
the educated world of antiquity, through the development of 
its own culture, had ceased to understand the religions by 
which it was surrounded.’ Still less were the more archaistic 
forms of religious belief intelligible. Celsus, it is true, has a 
keen eye for analogies, both Greek and Oriental, to the 
Christian story, such as miraculous births and descents into 
Hades and resurrections ; but he cannot penetrate to its origin 
because he cannot penetrate to the origin of these. He 
apparently supposes them to have been tales devised 
by the men themselves who came to be revered as 
gods, or fabrications by their followers, or at best half-sincere 
fictions having their beginning in visual hallucinations. 
Modern criticism long attempted explanations on similar 
lines. If, however, in comparative mythology as in the other 
sciences, truth is the daughter of time, then the outlook has 
been changed. For, according to what now seems an estab- 
lished position, no human hero ever becomes one of the great 
gods,—a God such as Jesus was for undoubtedly early 
Christians.” Many of the heroes, on the contrary, were them- 


1Cf. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums ii. §11. 


2See Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums ii. § 277. The case of deified 
kings, as Meyer says, is essentially different. So also, it might be added, 
is the representation in India of particular persons as avatars of divine 
powers. The application to Christianity is not pointed out; but a very 
significant passage in relation to Christian origins may be quoted from vol, 
iii. §85. The historian is speaking of Gaza in the Persian time. ‘‘ Ein 


5 


66 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


selves gods brought down to earth. The ancient god (solar or 
other) who had descended into the underworld, and risen again, 
became, as for example in the typical case of Orpheus, a human 
hero of whose life this adventure formed part. The process of 
myth-formation not being understood, a new story of this type 
would necessarily be found elusive so far as the question of 
origin was concerned, however absurd it might appear 
philosophically. Thus, as we might expect, Celsus is at his 
strongest in showing the intrinsic irrationality of the new 
supernatural story. The attempt by the Jewish spokesman at 
a reduction of the life of Jesus to natural events, is on the 
whole of less interest. Still, there are some points on both 
sides of the controversy worth bringing out. 

On the sacrifice of Christ, Origen takes the view which was 
also that of the Eastern Gnosis. A similar view of the mean- 
ing of sacrifice was no doubt latent in the Chthonian religion 
of Greece. And the position is not limited by Origen to the 
one sacrifice which is for his Christian belief central, but is 
applied to the case of every just man who has voluntarily 
offered himself for the sake of humankind. There is some- 
thing, he holds, in the nature of things, which exacts this kind 
of offering in order to avert the evil worked by certain dark 
powers :’ the sacrifice is not conceived as a piacular offering 
to the supreme God. Mythological though the passage 
is in expression, it is worth dwelling on for a moment in 
contrast with the petrified creeds. 

Unfortunately there is not much that has this kind of specul- 
ative interest. In proximity to the passage cited, we meet with 
the argument so familiar to eighteenth century apologists: 
Whence came to the disciples of Jesus, if they had not wit- 
nessed their master’s resurrection, the strong motive they must 
have had for setting themselves against the laws at once of the 
Jews and of other nations? Again: Where, if the disciples 
had not the power of working miracles, could they have 


grosses Volkergemisch fand sich hier zusammen; aber das Uebergewicht 
haben die Aramaeer: der Hauptgott von Gaza heisst jetzt Marna, d. i. 
aramaeisch ‘ unser Herr.’” Marna, the Syrian ‘‘ Lord” of the cosmopolitan 
Phoenician town, at once suggests wapav aOd (0 Kvptos Ker), the early 
Christian password. [See MARANATHA in Zucy. B20. ] 


1j, 31: eikds yap elva év TH poet TGV TpayudTwY KaTad TIVAS aroppHToUS 
Kat SucAnmTous TOS ToNAOts Adyous Piow ToatTnv, ws Eva Slkarov Urép Tod 
Kowod amodavévta Eéxovolws amorpomiacuovs éuroey gdatdwv datmoviwr, 
évepyotvTwv oimovs 7 Svomdotas H Te Tay TapaTAnolwy, 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 67 


gained the courage to preach an innovating doctrine, when 
they had no skill in dialectic, like the Greek sages?’ Origen 
has anticipated more recent theologians in appealing to the 
zoological fact of parthenogenesis in support of the Virgin- 
birth.” He adds that if, as is the opinion of many of the 
Greeks also, the world had a beginning, the production of the 
first men must have been more paradoxical than the birth of 
Jesus, “half in the manner of other men.” He then brings in 
the story that Plato was in reality the son of Apollo by a 
virgin birth, as a proof that the Greeks too thought it appropriate 
to regard a great man as not begotten by a human father. 
The introduction of “the Greek fables about Danae and 
Melanippe and Auge and Antiope,” he dismisses as_buf- 
foonery. Incredulity in relation to these, however, could not 
be declared out of character in a Jew. 

The Jew of Celsus asks: What trustworthy witness saw the 
dove descending on Jesus, or who heard the voice?*® After a 
prologue on the difficulty of demonstrating the truth of 
histories, especially when mixed with marvels, as in the case, for 
example, of the siege of Troy, Origen here finds fault with the 
‘“‘personification.” If the person asking the question had been 
an Epicurean, or a Democritean, or a Peripatetic, it would have 
been in character. Attributed to a Jew, who himself believes 
greater marvels than that of the Holy Spirit descending in the 
form of a dove, it is out of place.* The reply of some might 
be, that the account was not written down from report, but 
through inspiration of that Spirit which taught Moses the 
history older than his own time. One who understands the 
spiritual meaning can show why the appearance was in the 
form of a dove and in no other.’ If the Jew asks for a proof 
of the mission of Jesus, let him first supply a proof of the 
mission of Moses. Traces of that Holy Spirit once 
seen in the form of a dove are still preserved among the 
Christians, who charm away demons and accomplish many 
cures, and sometimes have visions of future things according 
to the will of the Word.’ 

Of the argument that the prophecies said to refer to “ the 
things concerning Jesus” may fit other matters, he admits 
the plausibility ;* but he thinks he can furnish a satisfactory 


1i, 38. Cf. 46. 41, 43. Ti. 46. 
aie BF >i, 44. Si, 50. 
i. 41. T4653 


68 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


answer. He mentions, for example, the existence of the cave 
in Bethlehem, shown by the inhabitants as the place where 
Jesus was born, and held to be such even by those alien to the 
faith." The rejection of Jesus by the Jews, though he mani- 
festly fulfilled the prophecies, is explained by the innate con- 
servatism of human nature, especially as regards dogmas.” 
The suffering Christ, Origen argues, was predicted in Isaiah 
liii. He mentions, indeed, that the Jews interpret this as 
referring to the people of Israel, but contends that it is not 
fully explicable unless referred to a person, as by the Christians. 
Celsus and his Jew and all those that have not believed in 
Jesus fail to recognise that the prophecies speak of two 
comings of the Christ among men, one in which he is subject 
to human affections, and the other in which he is glorified.® 
He wonders why Celsus does not say anything about the star 
in the East, but volunteers an explanation of what is related. 
First, it was a new star, of the nature of a comet. Such stars, 
as is generally held, appear on the eve of extraordinary events. 
He thinks he can make the Greeks understand the visit of the 
Magi. The demons to whom they owed the virtue of their 
accustomed incantations were quelled by the greater power 
born into the world. Hence they desired to seek this out; 
and, possessing as they did the prophecies of Balaam which 
Moses also wrote down, they guessed the meaning of the star 
(Num. xxiv. 17).* Next he undertakes to refute the incred- 
ulity of the Jew regarding Herod’s massacre of the children. 
Herod was moved by the Devil, who from the beginning was 
plotting against the Saviour.® 

Replying to a description of the apostles as ignorant and 
disreputable tax-gatherers and so forth, Origen contends that 
the choice of unlettered men was appropriate, since the Gospel 
was to be preached as a divine revelation, not to be advocated 
as a mere philosophical doctrine with the aid of dialectic and 
rhetoric.6 Perhaps, he remarks, support for the attack on the 
character of the Apostles was found in the Epistle of Barnabas 
(v. 9), where it is said that Jesus chose for his own apostles 
men lawless beyond all lawlessness (imp racav dvoulay dvouwrépovs).7 


1i, 51: Kal 7d Seukvtwevov TOUTO dia Bonrov é€aTw év Tots Tomots Kal Tapa Tos 
Ths mlorews aX)or plots, ws dpa év TH omnralg ToUTw ‘o trod Xpiriavar 
moogKuvovpevos Kal GOavuacouevos yeyévynrat Inoois. 
23, 2, @4. Si; 
3i, 56. wpe 
41. 60. 63 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 69 


But Jesus came, he replies, to save sinners; and what greater 
manifestation of his power to heal was possible than to raise 
such men into patterns of pure life? Philosophy tells of a 
case or two like the conversion of Polemo ; but what are these 
to the work that has been done by Christianity? With their 
boasted care for the public good, its accusers ought at least 
to offer a tribute of thanks to the utility of the new method, if 
they cannot acknowledge its truth.’ 

If Jesus was a god, asks Celsus or the Jew, why was it 
necessary that he should be taken away to Egypt to save him 
from death at the hands of Herod? Origen answers that he 
was of composite nature,” at once God and man, and had not, 
as Celsus appears to think that he ought to have had, a body 
like those of the Homeric gods, shedding ichor instead of 
blood.* Incongruously, as Origen thinks, the Jew is made to 
ask, as if he was an educated Greek, what great thing Jesus has 
done comparable to the deeds ascribed to Perseus, Amphion 
and others, who were said to be of the seed of the gods. He 
replies partly by reference to the miracles of healing and so 
forth, still worked in the name of Jesus; partly by an appeal 
to the mild and philanthropic disposition produced in those 
who have accepted the Christian doctrine in reality and not 
hypocritically for the sake of a livelihood or of human 
necessities. To the Jew’s charge that the impression Jesus 
made was due to magic, he replies that it is not the way of 
magicians to use their arts in order to turn men from evil to 
good.® 

Celsus makes his Jew accuse the Christians of deserting the 
law of their fathers. This Origen takes to imply a misunder- 


1i, 64. 
25.66: otvOerdév Te xphud pauev abrov ~yeyovévat. 


* Elsewhere (ii. 36) Origen says, in answer to the question whether 
there was any such manifestation of divinity at the crucifixion, that it is to 
be found in the ‘‘ blood and water ” of John xix. 34. 


44.67: Kal re ye 7d dvoua Tod "Incod éxordces pev Siavolas avOpdrwy 
adiornar kal Saiuovas 4dn dé Kal vécous, éumroet 6€ Oavyaclay Twa mpadryTa 
kal KatacToNnv Tod HOous Kal gidavOpwriav Kal xpnordryTa Kal HuepoTynTa 
év Tois wh bia TH Biwrikd H Twas xpelas avOpwmikas vroxpwapédvos GANA 
rapadetauévors yvnoiws Tov trepi Geod kal Xpicrod Kal ris écomévns Kploews 


éyor. 


5 i, 68. This was urged by Philostratus in his defence of Apollonius of 
Tyena against the accusation of magic. (Koetschau is of opinion that 
Origen had read the Life of Apollonius, and that he intentionally ignored it. ) 


70 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


standing, on the part of Celsus, of the real position of the 
Jewish Christians, to whom the accusation must be assumed 
to be addressed. The Ebionites, as they are called, do not 
depart from the Jewish law.’ A later passage, however, 
proves that Celsus knew of the Ebionites.? Of course they 
were not necessarily Jews by race; nor according to the 
apostolic legend, which he may have thought himself entitled 
to follow, did Jewish converts to Christianity necessarily con- 
tinue the practice of the law. 

Here as in many other places the apologist exercises himself, 
not without a touch of vanity, in trying to show that he has a 
more accurate knowledge than his adversary of the shades of 
difference among Jews and Christians. However this may be 
in particular cases, the very effort is a tribute to the extensive 
information that Celsus had acquired. That he had gone 
beneath the surface appears sufficiently from the nullity of 
Origen’s reply to the argument, again assigned to the Jew, that 
the Christians in their teaching about “the resurrection of the 
dead, and the judgment of God, and a reward for the just and 
fire for the unjust,” have introduced nothing that was not 
already familiar,—that is, to the Jewish apocalyptists.* ‘ Our 
Jesus,” he immediately answers, “seeing the Jews doing 
nothing worthy of the doctrines contained in the prophets, 
taught them by a parable that the kingdom of God should be 
taken from them and given to those from the nations.” A 
proof of this transference of the kingdom to the Gentiles is 
the fact that the Jews have now no prophets or miracles to 
show, whereas some of the signs that are still found among 
the Christians are even greater than the former (as promised 
in John xiv. 12).4 

To the objection that the predictions assigned to Jesus 
were feigned after the event, Origen replies by simply (or 
rather doubly) begging the question. He points to the fulfil- 
ment, after the time of Jesus, of his predictions of (1) perse- 
cutions for the mere profession of Christianity, (2) the preach- 
ing of it to all nations, (3) the destruction of Jerusalem. 
These prophecies, he says, could not have been written after 
the event: for it is not to be supposed that the hearers of 
Jesus handed down the teaching of the Gospels as a 


+ Tia 2 v, 61. e it. 


411. 8: Kal ef moro écuev AéyorTes, Kal qucts Ewpdxaper. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN a1 


mere oral tradition and left their disciples without written 
memorials." 

In order to remove, in the eyes of ‘‘unbelievers,” the im- 
probability of the resurrection of Jesus, he gravely quotes from 
the Republic the story of Er, the son of Armenius, who was 
revived at so long an interval as twelve days after his death.” 

What is meant by the “ threefold and fourfold and manifold ” 
rewriting of the Gospel, attributed to “some of the believers,”® 
he professes not to understand. He knows only of heretics 
who have altered the Gospels, and this is a reproach not to the 
Word but to the falsifiers. True Christianity is no more to be 
blamed on account of those who have perverted it than philo- 
sophy on account of the Sophists or the Epicureans or the 
Peripatetics,‘ or any who may hold false opinions. But, as 
has been pointed out,> the phrase 7px7 «al rerpaxn evidently 
indicates a distinction between the first three canonical 
Gospels and the fourth. In this notable passage, all are 
treated by the Jew as late writings derived from a more and 
not less apparently fabulous beginning, and even as having for 
their aim to make the story less open to hostile criticism than 
it was at first. 

The Jew dwells on the slightness of the supposed prophetic 
tokens by which it is thought to be established that Jesus was 
God and the Son of God. The Son of God ought to have 
manifested himself by some clear light, like the light of the 
sun, first showing forth himself and then illumining all other 
things.6 For once, Origen lays hold of a real causal relation ; 
which he proceeds to invert into a proof that Christianity must 
have been supernaturally revealed. There was such a mani- 
festation, he replies, for a peace-preserving world-empire was 


ae 3%: 2 ii, 16. 


3 ii. 27 : Twas Tay TicTevovTWwY.. . WS Ex MEANS HKovTas Els TO EperTavat aUTOLS 
peTaxaparrey éx THs TpwTns ypapas TO evayyédov Tpixy Kal TeTpaxy Kal 
moddaxy Kal wetamddrrew, iv’ Exovev mpdos Tovs EX€yXOUS apveicba, 


4 At this period Aristotle was so far from being the idol of the Church 
that he was not even included among the relatively orthodox philosophers. 


5 See the opening of the article on ‘*Gospels” in the Encyclopedia 
Biblica, 


8 ii. 30: Oedv 5é kal Oeod vid ovdels Ex ToLovTwY TUUBdAWY Kal TapaKove"d- 
Tw odd é& obrws dyevvav Texunpiwy cuvicrycl.... wsyapoHruos, pyol, ravTa 
Ta Ga gwrifwy mpGrov airdv dexvier, otrws Expy memounxévat Tov vidv 
TOU Geod. 


72 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


the necessary condition if the way was not to be barred to the 
universal preaching of a mild doctrine that did not even per- 
mit self-defence against enemies: accordingly the Roman 
peace under a monarch had been established by Augustus, in 
whose reign Jesus was born. 

To several things that the Jew is made to say, he objects 
that they are not incharacter. A Jew would not have assented 
to the Christian position that the Son of God is the Word." 
He would not have been likely to quote the Bacche of 
Euripides.” To the objection, however, that the governor 
who condemned Jesus suffered no punishment such as befell 
Pentheus when he had imprisoned a Deity, Origen replies that 
Pilate was not so much to blame as the Jewish race; 
which, by the judgment of God, has been rent and scattered 
over the whole earth worse than Pentheus.® 

The recurrent argument against the divinity of Christ from 
his sufferings and death is met by the reply that those were 
necessarily related to the end of his coming. To try to get rid 
of a real crucifixion, with the succeeding death and burial, is 
to deny the postulate of the Christian system. This, of course, 
was precisely what opponents did deny. 

Celsus, in the person of the Jew, points out the inconsis- 
tency of the appeal to miracles in proof of one doctrine with 
the condemnation of them when they are used to prove 
another.* Origen can only appeal to ultimate success; re- 
marking that that which causes men to lead better lives cannot 
be deception.’ If the claims of rival propagandists in the 
Empire are ever referred to, it is assumed that these can have 
nothing to say for themselves ethically. The existence of false 
miracles worked by magic power, he goes on to argue, proves 
that there must be true ones worked by divine power. To 


ae ba he 


2ii. 34: od mdvu pév obv "Iovéata Ta EXXjvwr girodoyotow. Origen 
might have remembered Philo, to whom he refers elsewhere as remarkable 
for Hellenic learning ; but by the third century, through the intensification 
of sectarian divisions, the Jews had no doubt closed themselves in more. 


3 ii. 34: Gmrep xaTadedixacrat brd Oeot crapaxbev Kal eis Tacay THY yh 
vrép Tov IlevOéws crapaypov dvacmapév. 


4ii. 49: mds odv od oxEéTNLIOY dmb TSY abray epywy Tov pév Bedv Tods dé 
vyonras nyetcOa ; 


> ii, 50. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 73 


infer from the former the non-existence of the latter is as if 
one were to infer from the existence of a sophistical dialectic 
the non-existence of a dialectic leading to truth." Then he 
shows that for a Jew to adopt the line of argument ascribed to 
him by Celsus would lead to rejection of the prodigies recorded 
in his own sacred books equally with those recorded in the 
gospels. Moses, as well as Jesus, gives warnings against 
being led astray by the miracles of prophets who shall teach 
another doctrine.” 

A very stringent criticism of the resurrection story in the 
Gospels is quoted, in which it is compared to similar stories 
among Scythians and Egyptians and Greeks. ‘‘Or do you 
think that the relations of the others both are and appear 
fables, but that with you the catastrophe of the drama has been 
devised becomingly or persuasively?” * As this is assigned to 
the Jew, Origen replies again by putting him on the defensive. 
What plausibility is there in the statement of Moses that he 
alone drew near to God, while the rest of the people stood 
afar off? The Jew cannot apologise for what Moses relates 
of himself without at the same time involuntarily apologising 
for what is related of Jesus. The cases of the Greek and other 
heroes, cited by the Jew but not appropriate in his mouth, are 
not comparable to that of Jesus. They indeed could with- 
draw themselves from men’s eyes and then, when they re- 
turned, feign that they had been in Hades. Jesus could not, 
since he died publicly on the cross. And his disciples would 
not have faced danger and death in order to bear witness to a 
resurrection of which they had fabricated the account. 

A Jew could not consistently question whether it was 
possible for one who had really died to rise up with the same 
body ; for he would have remembered the children whom 
Elijah and Elisha brought back to life. “And I think that 
for this cause also Jesus dwelt with no other nation than the 
Jews, accustomed as they had become to marvels; so that 
by setting the things they held in belief side by side with the 
things that had come to pass by him and were narrated about 
him, they might receive it as true that he who had been the 
centre of greater events and by whom more marvellous deeds 
had been accomplished was greater than all those of old.” 


nae ak 
. | . 
2 ii. 53. Origen, it is perhaps worth noting, takes for granted (c. 54) 
that Moses wrote the account of his own death in Deut. xxxiv. 


cs ae ot ey 2 


74 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


Some of the objections Origen admits to be well taken and 
not altogether easy to dispose of. But, he says, the notion of 
an illusory appearance might account for a dream (gyap), but. 
not for a waking vision (irap), except in the case of madness or 
melancholy. Celsus indeed, in an allusion to Mary Magdalene 
(yuvh réporrpos), INSinuates that this might be the cause ; but the 
written history does not prove it, and he has only this to go 
upon.’ 

If, it is said, Jesus really willed to show forth divine power, 
he ought to have been seen after his resurrection by those that 
had treated him despitefully, and by him who had condemned 
him, and in short by all. Origen replies that Jesus after his. 
resurrection appeared cnly to his disciples, and to them only 
at intervals, because only to the few who were spiritually pre- 
pared, and to them not always, could the vision of his glorified 
body be revealed. The revelation was given to such as could 
comprehend it. 

To the question, ‘‘ What God becoming present to men 
meets with disbelief?” ° Origen replies that, in spite of all the 
miracles they had seen performed in Egypt and in the wilder- 
ness, the Jews themselves disbelieved and fell into idolatry. 
Thus, with their conduct as recorded in the Old Testament the 
behaviour of their descendants in rejecting Jesus was quite 
consistent. 

Jesus, the objector urges, being unable to persuade, uses 
threats and denunciations.‘ So also, replies Origen, does the 
God of the Old Testament, and even divine powers among the 
Greeks. The Sirens persuade with flattery and pleasant 
words. 

Leaving the personification, Celsus now states it as his own 
Opinion that nothing can be idler than the contest between the 
Jews and the Christians about the Messiah.* The Christians, 
he maintains, were in the beginning simply a faction of the 
Jews as the Jews were of the Egyptians. Here of course he has 
adopted, like Tacitus earlier, the inventions put forward by the 
Egyptian annalists to give a different turn to the legend of the 
exodus. On this ethnological point Origen, who knew Hebrew, 
is able to furnish, here and elsewhere, a satisfactory refutation. 


lii. 60. “ii. 6%. 
3 ii. 74: Tis eds mapcw eis dvOpwrous dmioretrat $ 


sii, 76. Siti. I. 8iii, 5. 


CELSUS. AND ORIGEN 75 


The Jews, he proves as far as it can be proved by the test of 
language, belong to an ancient and distinct ethnical group. 

The Christians, says Celsus, few in number and united at 
the beginning, now that they are many are split up into sects.’ 
Origen replies, first, that divisions had already appeared in the 
apostolic times, as is proved by the documents. Then he re- 
marks, with some liberality, that differences of opinion only 
manifest themselves about things of high value ;? citing the 
cases of medicine and of philosophy. Unfortunately, the tolera- 
tion seemingly indicated in this passage was really of a very 
limited kind; as is evident from the tone towards both 
philosophy and “heresy” in passages where Origen speaks 
more conformably to the general spirit of the Church. 

We now come to a very interesting group of statements by 
Celsus which, if examined closely, may reveal a rather complex 
ritual as the hidden core of the earliest Church-life. He 
speaks successively of “fabricated terrors,”*® and of ‘highly 
superstitious worships abounding in mysteries.”* Further, 
he is described as “likening the inner and mystic things of 
the Church of God to the cats or apes or crocodiles or he- 
goats or dogs of the Egyptians.”° And this, as is shown by 
another citation, had some kind of reference to the “ relations 
about Jesus.”® Origen professes not to know what is meant ; 
asking what there is of all this in the doctrine of future 
rewards and punishments, which Celsus also desires should be 
preserved, or in the Gospel story (which perhaps he means) 
of Christ crucified. The ground, of course, is uncertain; but 
does it not seem as if we are here brought into contact with 
the Mystery Play which has been conjectured to underlie the 
story in its present form? We might even be tempted to infer 
from a later passage, comparing the Christians to those who 


1 iii, 10. 
2 iii, 12: ovdevds mpdyuaros, of wh omovdala éoriv 7 apxh Kal TO Bly 
Xphoimos, yeyovacw aipéceas duedpopot. 


sill, 16: deiuara cuureTrAacpEva. 
4111. 17: OpnoKetar udra devordaiuoves kal uvoTynpiwrioes, 


5iji. 21: oOmovcodvTos Ta évdov Kal mwuotiKa THS eExkAnolas TOU Peod Tots 
Alyurriwy aidovpots 7} riOjKkas 7 KpoxodeiNas 7) Tpdyas 7 Kuoly. 


Siii, 19: evjOes Delvac pundev ceuvdrepoy Tpdywv Kal Kkvvav Tov Tap 
Alyuvrriows eicdyovtas ev rais mepi Tod Inoot dinyjoect. 


76 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


bring forward terrifying apparitions in the Bacchic mysteries,’ 
that the drama in its original form included a representation 
of the descent into Hades. The comparison which Celsus 
makes with the eclectic cult which in Egypt had gathered 
round the name and fate of Antinous” tends to confirm some 
such theory. As, however, Church organisers had long been 
engaged in systematically regulating the rites and removing 
scandals, we must not expect to get a very clear vision of the 
earliest cult. Into the process of regulation the first Epistle 
to the Corinthians gives some insight. 

In what Celsus says about men who have become gods 
among the Greeks, Origen finds an artful ambiguity: he would 
have liked him to say clearly what is his own opinion about 
the divinity of the Dioscuri.* With Celsus, however, the stress 
of the argument is on the more recently recorded cases of men 
who have gained a reputation for some supernatural power ; 
who have even been reported divine ; and for all that have not 
become, or have not long remained, the object of a cult. The 
story, for example, is quoted from Herodotus (iv. 14, 15), that 
Aristeas of Proconnesus, who mysteriously disappeared from 
among men and afterwards reappeared, was declared to the 
Metapontines by Apollo’s oracle to be a proper object of 
worship: and yet no one now thinks him a god. This seems 
to Origen an evidence by contrast, of the power of Jesus. He 
has been accepted by multitudes as divine, although the 
demons whose power he came to destroy, instead of announc- 
ing him as a god, stirred up their votaries against him.* 
Then, after referring to some more cases mentioned by 
Celsus, he can only suggest that ‘ certain evil demons” brought 
it about that such stories should be written, in order that the 
things prophesied about Jesus and spoken by him should 
either be classed as inventions like the rest, or, not being 
regarded as pre-eminent, should be in no way admired.® 


liv. 10: €£0uool Huds Tots év rats Baxxikais Tederals Ta Pdopara Kal TA 
deiwara mpoeayouct. 


iii. 36. 
*ili. 22. 
411i. 26: rodrov ovdeis Ere voulier Oedv.- 


ili, 29. Pagan oracles, however, came to be quoted as testifying to 
Jesus. 


hs ane 5 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 77 


After some more reference to the cracles, he formulates the 
alternative. Either Celsus sees nothing divine or demonic in 
prophets like Amphiaraus, who are said to have been raised 
from the dead to the rank of gods, in which case he dissents 
from the religion of the Greeks and is a confessed Epicurean ; 
or he has no right to reject what is related of Jesus on no worse 
evidence. If he accepts it, he will be obliged to go further 
and admit that Jesus is more powerful; since none of the 
others forbids honour to the rest, whereas Jesus condemns all 
of them as evil demons.’ 

Although, for the reasons already indicated, he could not 
explain it, we see that it struck Celsus as a paradox needing 
explanation, that among the Christians a man who had 
actually lived and died should have come to be worshipped 
as a great god, or even as God himself. In speaking of the 
cult of Antinous, he says that the Egyptians would not endure 
to hear him called a god in the same sense as Apollo or Zeus.” 
This Origen, without reason given, declares to be false. The 
ceremonial he finds to be merely a case of the usual deceiving 
mysteries of the Egyptians, brought into relation with a 
particular person.” Of course for Celsus this was the very 
point of the comparison. The only moral he could draw from 
it was that the Christians were more credulous than other men 
in raising a human being to the height of divinity. Yet this 
cannot altogether have satisfied him, for he never ceases to 
express his astonishment at such exalted deification of a man 
recently dead. With the phenomena he saw around him, he 
would have had no difficulty in understanding the rise of a 
minor cult.’ 

After some remarks on the relation between faith and 


‘iii, 35. Origen himself appears to be ashamed of this argument: 
€Boudsuny dé mpds Tov ovK O15’ brws Tatra AéyovTa Toadrd Tiva mpeTovTws 
avT@ adorecx7jTat, 


iii. 37: Kav wapaBddys adr@ Tov ’Amdd\\wva 7} Tov Ala, od« dvéfovrat. 

3 iii. 36. 

4 This was reinforced afterwards by Hierocles with new illustration from 
the Life of Apollonius. 


5 A curious point in Origen’s demonology may be noted in passing. He 
tells us (c. 37), as part of the higher knowledge of ‘‘ esoteric” Christians, 
that, as there are many men who think they possess truth in philosophy, 
so there are among separated souls and angels and demons, some that are 
falsely persuaded they are gods, 


78 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


prejudice, he went on to accuse the Christians of appealing in 
public only to the ignorant and servile," and of underhand 
proselytising among boys and weak women.” Of their secret 
propaganda in households he gives a graphic account. They 
tell youths not to regard their parents or lawful instructors, but 
to listen only to them. If the father or teacher or any person 
of knowledge comes on the scene, their reduction to silence or 
whispering contrasts with their volubility in corners where there 
is no one to oppose them. ‘Thereupon they will lead off the 
children with their playmates to some conventicle, promising 
to give them perfect instruction ; and in this way they succeed 
in persuading them. 

Origen affects to treat all this as abuse. So far as public 
appeals are concerned, the philosophers would be glad to draw 
such multitudes together if they could. Some of the Cynics 
have attempted something of the kind, and when it is a question 
of teaching philosophy, instead of Christianity, to ignorant 
popular audiences, Celsus and his like have no objection to 
raise, but consider the attempt philanthropic.* Far from 
being peculiarly indiscriminate in their appeals, the Christians 
put those who are willing to hear them through a preliminary 
examination, and exercise strict discipline over them after- 
wards.4 The deeper parts of their doctrine they reserve for 
those who have made progress. Why should they be blamed 
for appealing to slaves? ‘The philosophers pride themselves 
on having turned slaves as well as others to the virtuous life. 
Is that permissible to ‘‘you, O Greeks,” ® while “we,” the 
Christians, are to have no credit for our philanthropy? In 
private, Christian propagandists have no wish to draw away 
pupils from grave preceptors or studies.’ To the complaint 
that they will not speak out in the presence of the fathers of 
boys whom they are trying to proselytise, Origen replies 


lili. 50. Cf. 18: mavra pev copov amedavvdyTev Tod NOyou THs TicTews 
av’ra&v povous 6€ dvojrous Kal dvdpamodwoes KahovvTwr. 


A aii; Hb: 

iii, 50. 

asi,’ Gi. 

* iii, (52. 

6 <¢ Greek” here, as so often, means an adherent of philosophic culture or 
‘¢ Hellenism.”? Origen is himself described as a Greek by race. 


7 iii, 56. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 79 


that they are only too glad to open themselves before elders 
who are serious-minded.* Would not philosophers similarly 
mask themselves before the frivolous ? 

Celsus expresses himself as willing to apologise if he has 
said anything too harsh; but, to show that he has spoken 
under compulsion of the truth, he proceeds to quote the 
calls to every one who is sinful, unwise, and so forth, to come 
and be received into the kingdom of God. Does not the 
“sinful” mean the unjust, the thief, the poisoner? What 
different class would a robber call to his company? In the 
other mysteries, the call is to those only who are pure of hand 
and just and of good conscience.” Origen does not here 
venture to make explicit his usual assumption that the ethical 
element was absent from all cults except the Christian, but 
replies by distinguishing between the general multitude whom 
the Christians receive to make them better, and those who are 
admitted to the peculiar mysteries of the religion. These are 
reserved for the just and pure not less but more rigorously 
than any other mysteries. 

We are told, continues Celsus, that God will receive the 
unjust man who humbles himself through baseness ; but the 
just man who has practised virtue and looked up to him from 
the beginning he will not receive. When he is represented 
as having to be moved by loud lamentations over past mis- 
deeds, he is made to judge not in response to truth but to 
flattery. Origen of course meets this by asserting the impos- 
sibility of sinlessness for man; but here he does no more than 
restate in Pauline language a concession made by Celsus in 
words perhaps cited by him from the Book of Job (xv. 14, xxv. 
4).2 Celsus explains his meaning more fully by the observa- 
tion that to change the nature completely is very difficult, and 
that those who (in an ordinary sense) are free from fault, are 
better for the fellowship of life.‘ And Origen is in the end 
obliged to admit that he may have represented the faith of the less 
rational Christians correctly in saying that they regard God as 


1 iii 58. iii, 59. 


iii, 63: TOTO mev-émeckGs adnOés, dTe mépuKé ws TO avOpwrivov Pddov 
duaptavew. The equivalent, however, is to be found in Isocrates, 89B : 
GANG yap Graves wKelw wepixapev éLauaprdavery 7 KaTopBobv. 


4iii. 65: giow yap deta Tedkéws mayxdderov * of 8 dvaydprnros 
Berrlous kowwwvol Biov. ~ 


80 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


an unjust judge who lets off the bad if they bewail themselves 
and appeal to his pity, and rejects the good if they do not.’ 

The charge of hostility to knowledge is one of those to which 
Celsus constantly returns. The Christians, he says, teach 
directly that ‘‘ knowledge is an evil.” The wise, in their view, 
turn away from their doctrines deceived by wisdom.® He 
brings all this to a head by declaring that they thus insult the 
God of the universe ‘‘to the end that they may lead worthless 
men astray by light hopes and persuade them to despise the 
things that are better.” Origen replies by a distinction 
between true and false wisdom. None who have true wisdom 
reject Christianity when explained by a competent instructor. 
Any philosophy that leads men to reject it must be false.’ 
A little later, he attacks all the four recognised philosophic 
schools,—the Epicureans, the Peripatetics and the Stoics by 
name, and the Platonists by implication.® Are any of these 
the skilled physicians from attention to whom Celsus accuses 
the Christians of withdrawing ignorant minds? ‘The Platonists 
Origen does not care to condemn by name, because he is 
engaged in adapting their doctrine of immortality to Christian 
teaching. With those who teach the permanence of the soul, 
he says, we have some things in common. He reserves fora 
more suitable occasion the proof that the blessed life to come 
will be only for those who accept the religion of Jesus and 
allow no regard for generated things to contaminate the purity 
of their theism.’ By this contamination he means the per- 
mission of statues; in which, as he maintains elsewhere, all 
the philosophic schools alike have rendered themselves 
accomplices with the crowd, thus falling under the guilt of 
idolatry. 

Having finished three books, the apologist at length begins 
to be conscious of the seriousness of his task, and, at the 
opening of the fourth, invokes divine assistance. What he 
has to deal with now is a concentrated attack on the idea of 
a special revelation to a particular people or to their self- 
constituted successors. ‘The refutation, Celsus holds, of those 


lili, 71. 7 ii, 7-5: 3 ili, 72, 
4iii. 78. 1 Page 5 of ay 
Titi. 81: mpds obs Kowd Tiva ExovTes EvKaLpoTEpoY TapacThoomev OTe | wéd- 
Aovoa waxapla fwh pdvos Exrat Tots [riv] kara Tov I noodv OeoréBeray kai eis Tov 
Tav ddwv Snuscoupyor evoéBecay eiuxpivh Kal KaBapay Kal GuuxTov mpos Tt wor’ 
oiv yernrov wapadetapevors. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN Sr 


Jews or Christians who say that some God or Son of God has 
come down or is to come down to earth as a corrector of 
things here, does not need a long discourse. Origen finds 
that the defence needs one of some length. 

Does God, the claimants of authority from the revealer are 
asked, come down to learn what is going on among men, as if 
he did not know all? Or does he know, and yet not set 
things right, because he cannot do this by his divine power, 
without sending a deputy? Or does he leave his own seat 
because, being unknown among men and feeling himself 
neglected, he wishes to make trial of those who believe and 
those who do not, like the newly-rich exhibiting themselves in 
their grandeur? To say so is to lay to his charge a stock of 
very paltry desire for signs of honour.’ Or, if they say that 
the coming down is for the salvation of men, how is it that 
God first thought of correcting human life after so long a 
period of negligence ? ® 

The question why God does not set human affairs right if 
he knows them, replies Origen, may be retorted on Celsus if he 
is a believer in providence.‘ In our view, God’s method of 
working is to be always sending those whose office it is to 
introduce corrections. Of old the revelation how he is to be 
served was committed pre-eminently to Moses and the 
prophets. Now Jesus has come, not to be the Saviour merely 
of those in “one corner” of the world, but so far as depends 
on him (rd écov éx’ air), Of all men everywhere.’ One reason 
for divine revelation is that unbelievers may have no excuse.é 
It was not delayed: there were friends of God and prophets in 
every generation.’ A particular race no doubt was preferred : 
“the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his 
inheritance” (Deut. xxxii. 9). But this, the preparation for 
the coming of Christ, is a mystery too profound for the 


liv. 22° 67 6€ Kal XpirriavGy riwes kat "Iovdaio, of uev xaraBeBnxévac 
[Néyougw, ] of 6€ karaBjoer Oa els Thy yay Twa Bedv 7} Oeod vidy Tay THO€ Sixalw- 
THY, TOUT alaxicTov, Kal ovde Jetrar waxpod Adyou Oo éeyxos. 

2iv. 6: moddAnv [yobv] Twa Kal ravu Ovynriv dirotiulay Tod beod KaTauapr~ 
vpovct. 

a. pay B 

4 Celsus, we shall see, had a philosophical theory to meet this. 

5 iv. 4, 

Siv. 6. 

Tiv. 7. 


82 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


popular hearing,\—a matter for deep searching of Scripture 
on the part of those who “ philosophise.”? The many, for 
their part, must be content simply to put their trust in God 
and the Saviour and his ipse dixit (atrds éga). 

The flood and the last judgment, Celsus contends, are fables 
having their source in misunderstanding of what the Greeks 
and others have told about deluges and conflagrations that 
occur in concomitance with certain periodic states of the 
universe.® ‘‘ We,” replies Origen, ‘attach neither the deluge 
nor the conflagration of the world to cycles and periods of the 
stars, but say that the cause of both alike is sin.”* As for the 
“coming down” of God, to which Celsus makes repeated 
reference, this is figurative ; a reply which may serve also for 
the mockery that, according to the Christians, ‘‘ God will come 
down bringing fire, like a torturer.”> When God visits the 
world, he comes to purge sin. The ‘“‘refiner’s fire” 
(Mal. ili. 2) is a metaphor. 

To the argument that God, being perfect and unchangeable, 
cannot become of the nature of mortal man, Origen replies 
first that the Scriptures say so too; and then points out that, 
according to the Christian doctrine, God the Word ceases not 
to exist continually in the same perfection through having 
taken upon him a human body and soul. And yet this 
assumption of a human body and soul is not merely apparent, 
as Celsus argues that it must be,—and therefore, as deceptive, 
must be unworthy of God, ’—if the divine is not to become 
of inferior nature.8 Are “the Greeks,” Origen asks in the 
course of the argument, 9 to be allowed to interpret metaphori- 
cally what is said of the tearing in pieces of Dionysus by the 
Titans and his coming to life again, while the Christians are 
not to be allowed to bring out the logical implications of their 
own Scriptures ? 

On the recriminations between the Jews and the Christians, 
an extremly contemptuous passage of Celsus is preserved ; in 
which he compares them to assemblies of bats or ants or frogs 
or worms declaring that the God of the universe busies him- 
self solely with them and their affairs, that they rank next to 
him, and that all things—earth and water and air and stars— 
have been subjected to them.*® And the worms—that is, 


liv. 8. iv. 9. Siv, II. “iv.- 12. 
P iv, 13: 7 6 Oeds KaraByjoerar Olknv Bacanorod rip dépwr. 


Siv. 15. av. 16% 8 iv. 19. 9iv. 17. Wiv, 23. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 83 


says Origen, ‘“we,’—are made to say: ‘‘ Now, since some 
among us offend, God will come, or will send his Son, that he 
may burn up the unjust and that the rest of us may have 
eternal life with him.” These things, Celsus added, would be 
‘‘more tolerable from worms and frogs than from Jews and 
Christians quarrelling with one another ;” meaning evidently 
that the arrogant claim to be exclusive objects of divine care 
is less worthy of rational than irrational animals. 

For Origen, the question is settled in advance by the des- 
truction of Jerusalem and the ruin of the ‘‘race of all Jews,” 
at the end of “one whole generation,” after what Jesus had 
suffered at their hands. If any one wishes to refute the 
assertion that they did thus draw upon themselves the wrath 
of God, let him show it to be false that they are now in this 
condition.! The fact that the piety of Christian believers is 
so steadfast as not to be overcome by the persuasiveness of 
rational arguments, ought, Origen thinks, to contribute to the 
proof that they are not to be compared to worms.” The 
comparison—which, however, he will not imitate Celsus by 
making—would apply better to the philosophers who try to 
contemplate the nature of the universe and of the soul without 
divine revelation. ° 

Though insisting that the Jews are now for ever rejected 
from divine favour, Origen has still to contend for the illus- 
trious character of their race. One evidence is that there was 
no painter or sculptor in their State*: so rigorous were they 
in rejecting idolatry. That they were not merely fabling for 
themselves an illustrious ancestry in tracing back their pedigree 
to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he tries to show by appeal to 
the fact that these names conjoined with the name of God, 
are used in prayers and exorcisms not only by members of the 
nation but by those in general who occupy themselves with 
enchantments and magic.® This was no doubt the fact on 


liv, 22. 


Ziv, 26: A Tydixa’Tyn edcéBera, oH Urd Tove 06 bard Kwddbvou Oavdrou 
ob8 bd NoyiKGy wiPavoTATwV ViKwWLEYN. 


Siv. 30. 
4iv, 31: otre yap fwypados ot’ dyaduatorads év TH wodiTeig abTay jv. 


5iv. 33: Gv Tocotroy duvarat Ta Gvéuara owamnrTdueva TH TOU Oeod 
mpooryopia, ws ob pdvor Tovs a7d rod €Ovous xphcOa év Tals mpos Gedy evxais 
kal év Tw KaTemade Saiwovas TH O Beds "ABpadu Kal 6 Beds ‘Ioaak Kai o Geds 
*laxaB adda yap cxeddv Kal mavTas Tos Ta Tov éTwdaV Kal payerov 


TT Pay LAT EVOMEVOUS. 


84 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


which Celsus relied in maintaining, as he seems to have done, 
that the names were those of certain deceivers of old who were 
in great repute for their arts, and from whom therefore the 
people desired to trace its descent. Origen takes the same 
fact as a proof of the holiness of the ancient men whose names 
were thus used. In the eyes of modern comparative 
mythologists, it will tend to confirm the theory that the names 
were at first those of ancient gods of the Semitic race, and that 
only later did they become those of its heroes and ancestors. 
A similar, though not quite identical, conclusion is suggested 
by what Origen tells us about the use of the angelic names 
Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, and, it may be added, of the 
name of Jesus. All were at first names of gods; and how 
much of the supernatural character remained, or how much 
could be restored, depended on obscure circumstances only 
traceable in an imperfectly preserved literary tradition. 

Celsus went on to describe the stories in Genesis of the 
fashioning of man by God from the earth, and of his fall, 
as clumsily put together by the Jews in a corner of Palestine, 
where they had never heard that these things had been sung 
long ago by Hesiod and innumerable other inspired men.’ 
This gives Origen an opportunity to make one of his 
rhetorical points. Can it really be the Epicurean Celsus who 
calls the poets “inspired men” (dydpas év@éous)? Such mytho- 
logisers as Homer and Hesiod, the Christian Father holds, 
were rightly expelled by Plato from his ideal State; but of 
course Celsus is a better judge than Plato!* The account in 
Genesis, he proceeds, is maliciously turned into ridicule by 
Celsus, who does not even consider the possibility of an alle- 
gorical interpretation, though in the sequel he says that the 
more reasonable-minded Jews and Christians try to allegorise 
things they are ashamed of.* Then, provoked by the refer- 
ence to the formation of woman out ofa rib of the first man, 
he quotes from the Works and Days the account of the 
fashioning of Pandora by Hephezstus at the command of 
Zeus. And this ridiculous myth, he exclaims, is to be treated 
as a philosophical allegory! So also, it seems, are the stories 


a 99,36. 
2? The Hellenic Platonists respectfully dissented from their master on this 
point. 


3iv. 38: Kalrou ye év Tots éE7s Néywv Ste of émvecxéorepor "lovdalwy re kat 
Xpirriavev emi rovros alcxuvduevoe wecpHvtal mws addnyopety aura, 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 85 


told by Egyptians and other barbarians. The right to allego- 
rise is to be refused to none but those who interpret the Jewish 
authors. 

He then tries to show the allegorical nature of the occur- 
rences in the Garden of Eden by comparing the Platonic myth 
of the birth of Eros. This, he thinks, may have been borrowed 
by Plato when he was in Egypt from those who knew something 
of Judaism. He complains that the attack ignores the more 
edifying things in Genesis. When, however, Celsus, referring 
to the plot of Rebecca and Jacob against Esau, declares it 
absurd that God should be represented as dwelling nearest to 
such as these, Origen finds here no exception to the beauty 
and strength which he sees in the recorded actions of the 
friends of God.' If, as Celsus objects in the ancient spirit of 
contempt for interested morality, God is made to reward the 
just by abundantly satisfying their material needs, it is replied 
that “all these things happened unto them for types: and 
they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of 
the world are come” (1 Cor. x. 11). On the story (“ worse 
than Thyestean,” Celsus calls it) of Lot’s daughters, Origen’s 
apology” might have served as a model for the most accom- 
plished of the casuists satirised by Pascal. Naturally, he does 
not spare a counter-attack on the Greek myths. Then he 
returns to the question, Who has the best right to allegorise ? 
Celsus maintains that the Jews and Christians have no such 
right, their early records being mere foolish stories without 
any deeper philosophical meaning.’ It appears that he was 
not judging without examination, but had looked into some of 
the allegorising writers. ‘Their allegories,” he says, “fit to- 
gether, with a kind of amazing and absolutely tasteless folly, 
things that can in no way be harmonised.”* In passing, he 
described a disputation between ‘‘ one Papiscus and Jason” as 
‘worthy of pity and hate rather than of laughter.”* This has 
not come down to us; but it is known to have been a popular 
work in which the Christian view of the prophecies supposed 
to refer to Christ was defended against the Jews. Origen 


liv. 43: Gyxuora bé rovros Tact cuurod:tevduevov el Payer Tov Gedy, rh 
irorov mpdocouey Treduevae undé more dgurtdve Thy é€avTov GeidryTA Tov 
peTa TOO Kas kai éppwpuévws Brody air@ dvaxeywévwv ; Esau was a bad 
character (cf. 46: dvdpds kara Thy ypagphy duoroyouuévov pavdov). In v. 
59 Origen says that he knows only of a plot of Esau against Jacob, not ofa 
plot of Jacob against Esau. 


75. AS) 3iv. 50. 4iv. 51. ob 


86 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


insists that “pity and hate” are incompatible feelings, but 
allows that the book is not among the writings adapted to 
move intelligent readers. He thinks that if Celsus had read 
Philo with attention he would have thought better of his alle- 
gorising method ; since there is much in Philo of Greek philc- 
sophy. 

Starting from the Timeus (like Julian afterwards) Celsus 
proceeded to develop a philosophical view of creation as 
against the Judzeo-Christian view.’ Though Origen here finds 
that nothing is to be made of the attempt to excite prejudice 
against the ‘‘ Epicurean,” modern readers must be struck with 
the bent towards scientific naturalism that went along with 
the Platonism of Celsus. He seems to have opposed to the 
idea of an original production of the various kinds of bodies by 
successive acts of volition, the general philosophical conception 
that it is of the essence of material things to be in an alternat- 
ing flux; so that particular bodies must be explained as 
resultants of one uniform natural process, and not assigned 
without further inquiry to the will of a maker.” ‘No offspring 
of matter,” that is, no particular material body, ‘‘is immortal.”® 
The necessity of evil (as with Plato) results from the plunging 
of souls into the flux. Since its primal source is always the 
same, its total quantity can neither be increased nor diminished.* 
There are periodic movements of mortal things, but no mira- 
culous catastrophes.’ 

To part of this, Origen raises the objection that some evils 
have been abolished while others have sprung up in human 
history.6 An obvious reply would have been that this illus- 
trates the balance; but in any case the objection does not 
touch the position of Celsus, who had spoken of the “evils in 
things ” (xaxa év rots ofow) regarded as portions of the whole. 
He did not hold that human societies have always existed, 
but, in a Lucretian spirit, traced man back to beginnings as a 
mere animal.’ ‘Without philosophising,” Celsus had 
remarked, “it is not easy to know whence evils are born.” 
“Nor yet is it easy if you do philosophise,” retorts Origen, 
‘“‘nor perhaps possible without divine inspiration.” The 


liv. 54 ff. 


2iv. 60: Kowh i? mdavTwy tev mpoeipnuévwy cwudtwy dicts Kal pla és 
duoBhy marivrporoy lotca Kal éravioica. 


iv. 61. 4iv. 62. >iv, 69. Siv. 63. 


7iv. 79. Origen tries to make an inconsistency out of this. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 87 


greatest of evils is ignorance how God is to be served; and 
that some of the philosophers have been thus ignorant is 
proved by the existence of different sects in philosophy. 
According to the Christian view (xaé’ judas), nO One who does 
not know that it is an evil to think that piety is preserved in 
the established laws of what are commonly thought to be 
States, has it in his power to know the source of evils. And 
no one who has not an accurate knowledge regarding the 
Devil and his angels and how he came to be the Devil has it 
in his power to know the source of evils... Evil in us has not 
matter for its cause, but the choice made by our ruling 
principle.” A periodic and necessitated cosmic movement, 
like that which Celsus affirms, would take away our moral 
responsibility (73 颒 juiv)-” 

Miraculous interpositions, which Celsus had _ protested 
against as involving an anthropomorphic conception of Deity,‘ 
Origen defends asa kind of medicine periodically administered 
by the Creator when the world is in need of it. That evils 
are such only to individuals, and are part of the order of the 
whole, he is able to admit in his own way.° The Scriptural 
imagery about the “wrath of God,” he defends as a mode of 
speech adapted to human weakness. When Celsus, going more 
into detail, argues against the view that all things were made for 
man, Origen points out that he is in opposition to the Stoics, 
and again affects to associate him with the Epicureans.* But 
in fact it was especially by the Platonists that the opposition 
to the narrow teleology of the Stoics was carried on. What 
is given of the arguments of Celsus has much in common with 
the treatment of the subject by Plutarch earlier and by 
Porphyry‘later. He points to the signs in the lower animals 


liv. 65. One implication is that the Devil and his angels founded ‘* the 
religion of the Gentiles.” 


2 Of course no one denied that moral evil is properly a wrong choice 
made by the will or the person. The metaphysical question was, How is 
this possible? Platonic philosophers tried to solve it by the necessity of 
‘* matter” as a principle of diremption, setting one thing (in a world like 
ours) in rivalry with another. What Origen puts forward as a different 
solution, is a mere restatement of the problem. 


3iv. 67. 


4iv. 69: GAN odd ws dvOpwros TexTHvapevds Tt évdeds Kal drexvdrepov 6 
Beds mpocdye SidpPwow TH Kéopw, Kabalpwy airy KaTax\vop@ 7 éxmupwoet. 


Siv. 70. Siv. 75. 


88 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


of an innate intelligence by which they rule their actions for 
their own preservation, as against the view that they are 
simply “irrational” and created only to be subservient to 
man. With Origen it is a fixed dogma that no animal but 
man can possess reason. If any seem to perform rational 
actions, it is in them blind instinct of nature; they are really 
moved by a divine intelligence external to them. The 
hexagonal cells in hives are part of an arrangement set in action 
that bees may provide men with honey.’ In referring to what 
Celsus relates of the way in which ants help one another with 
burdens, Origen comments to the effect that to represent ants 
as having knowledge in doing this, will turn away people of 
the simpler sort from giving the like mutual aid, because they 
will no longer have the consciousness of a superiority as human 
beings.” Remembering afterwards a well-known passage in 
Proverbs (xxx. 24-28), he escapes from the necessity of 
admitting that the animals mentioned are really “wise,” by 
treating proverbial, or “parabolic,”*® literature as consisting 
essentially of “‘enigmas.” ‘ Wherefore also it is written in our 
Gospels that our Saviour said: ‘These things have I spoken 
unto you in proverbs’ (or parables).” And here he thinks it 
appropriate to quote the statement of Celsus that those who 
allegorise the books of the Jews and Christians do violence to 
the intention of the writers ; adding the triumphant declaration 
that now it may be considered as confuted. 

That Celsus did not seriously found anything on what 
he brought together about the divinatory powers of certain 
animals,‘ Origen himself suspects. The argument that such 
animals are in closer relation to the Deity than the men who 
have to consult them in order to gain knowledge of the future, 
looks like a final and rhetorical touch in a brief literary develop- 
ment of the thesis, and does not seem intended to be taken 
for more. At any rate, it gives Origen an opening for a long 
disquisition, in the course of which he states it as the Christian 
view that certain demons of the Titan or giant race, impious 
and fallen from heaven, enter into the bodies of animals, 
preferably birds or beasts of prey, and making them the vehicles 
of their own fore-knowledge, lure mankind by this means from 
the worship of the true God.® 


liv. 82. 210s 83. 
iv. 87: émvyéyparra yap 7d BiBAlov Tapouular. 
tiv. 88. Siy. O02. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 89 


The tone in which Celsus brings this portion of his argu- 
ment to a close seems of itself to exclude the idea that he 
attached any weight to his excursion into the lore of divination. 
“Not therefore for man have all things been made, as neither 
have they been made for the lion or the eagle or the dolphin ; 
but that this world as a work of God should become complete 
and perfect altogether. For the sake of this, have all things 
had their measure assigned, not for the sake of one another 
(except secondarily) but of the whole. And God cares for the 
whole; and this whole providence never forsakes; nor 
does it become worse; nor does God after an interval turn it 
back to himself; nor does he become angry on account of 
men, any more than he becomes angry on account of apes or 
‘mice. Neither does he threaten those beings of which each 
in its particular order has received its allotted part.”’? 

Origen goes through this, point by point, agreeing or differ- 
ing as his dogma requires. Then he concludes the fourth 
book by again, as at the beginning, invoking divine assistance 
for the continuance of the work. 

At the opening of the fifth book, he observes that Celsus 
in asserting as he does that no God or Son of God has ever 
come down to men,’ is in effect denying the popular mythology. 
The philosophical resistance to the new faith was at a tactical 
disadvantage here, and the Christian apologist can again 
profess to discover traces of the impious ‘‘ Epicurean.” 

Passing now from the nature of the supreme unity to the 
graduation of beings in the universe, Celsus puts questions 
skillfully directed to show that Christianity, and even Judaism, 
implied in principle as much “polytheism” as the official 
religion of the Greeco-Roman world. Of what nature, he asks, 
are the “‘ angels,” spoken of by the Jews and Christians? Are 
they what others call gods, or are they ‘““demons”?* And 
since the Jews revere the heaven and its angels, why do 
they refuse all honour to the sun and moon and the other 
stars P 4 

To this Origen replies with a certain moderation. The angels 
are sometimes called “‘gods” in the Scriptures, but they are 
not therefore to be worshipped in place of the supreme God.° 
They are certainly not “demons,” for this name is to be 
understood only of evil powers acting without a gross body.® 


liv. 99. ee a¥) As 295 Gs: 


oh Pe. ch’ Oa 


go CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


The Jews worship a God not merely above the parts of the 
heaven, but above the whole heaven itself. As the chosen 
people of the Supreme, they were not allowed to worship any- 
thing subordinate like the heavenly bodies, which were assigned 
to “‘the nations” (Deut. iv. 19, 20.)' Yet the sun and moon 
and stars, as works of God, are often celebrated in the Scrip- 
tures. Perhaps they are guided by higher intelligences. The 
opinion of Anaxagoras, that the sun is merely a ‘‘ red-hot mass,” 
does not commend itself to Origen. Like Philo, he has here 
come under the influence of the later Hellenism. 

Accordingly he does not, in replying to the attack of Celsus 
on the ‘‘resurrection of the flesh,” defend the literal sense of 
the doctrine. This was held, he seems to allow,’ by the 
simple-minded believers; but St. Paul, in what he said about 
the ‘‘ spiritual body,” had indicated a truer view. Celsus, on 
his part, distinguishes ‘‘some of the Christians” from those 
whom he is attacking; but on the believers who cherish the 
*‘ hope of earthworms,” that after being long dead they are to 
rise up from the ground with the bodies they formerly had, 
his attack is unsparing. What soul of a man would desire 
a putrified body? And how can a body, once decomposed, 
return to its former state? ‘‘ Having nothing to answer, they 
flee to a most absurd subterfuge, that everything is possible 
to God. But God cannot do what is vile, nor does he will to 
do what is against nature . . . For he is the Reason of all 
beings, and cannot do a werk that is contrary to reason or to 
himself.”* Contemptuous as the phrases are, Origen does not 
feel himself hurt by them. For in fact his own doctrine is. 
the immortality of the soul, contrasted by Celsus in the same 
passage with that of a physical resurrection. The ideas of the 
earliest believers have been left behind, and those of Greek 
philosophy substituted, as they had begun to be in the Pauline 
writings. With the heretics, however, who altogether deny 
the Scriptural dogma of the resurrection, Origen will not make 
common cause. There is to be a body, but it is to be 
glorified.* And even a literal resurrection of the former 
body, he retorts on Celsus, is in accordance with some 
doctrines of the Greeks. The Stoics suppose that, after their 


gy IO. 9 16. 


3 v.14: abros yap €or 6 rdvTwv Tay byTwr Adyos * ovdev ody Ofds TE Tapddo- 
vyov ovdé map éaurdv épydcacba, 


4y, 22. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN gt 


world-conflagration (for they too have this), bodies exactly 
like those that existed before will appear in the new cycle 
without even the remains of these togrow from. And surely 
this is more paradoxical than what is really held by Christians, 
who suppose the new body to grow, not indeed from the old, 
but from a \éyos latent in it. 

The Jews, Celsus proceeded, whatever one may think of 
their religion, do at least agree with other men in practising a 
form of worship which is that of their ancestors. This seems 
expedient, not only inasmuch as they are preserving laws that 
were arrived at by common consent in the particular country 
where they are in force, but also because it is a reasonable view 
that the different parts of the earth have been from the be- 
ginning distributed among different powers.” Thus it is unholy 
to dissolve what has been established by custom in each 
place. 

To this view Origen brings as an objection unholy customs, 
such as incest and human sacrifice, sanctioned by various 
religions. Are these to be preserved where they are estab- 
lished?* Further, if religion is an affair of local custom, 
must not the same principle be applied to the moral virtues ? * 
Then he attempts a positive view. Celsus, in what he says on 
the distribution of the parts of the earth among the gods of 
the nations, has been misled by certain dim traditions “ outside 
the divine word.” To learn the truth, we must go to 
Deuteronomy (xxxii. 8, 9) and to the account in Genesis of 
the tower of Babel. This indeed has a secret meaning not to 
be divulged to the uninitiated, but a hint may be given. All 
except one race wandered “from the East” (Gen. xi. 2), that 
is, from the light of truth, and may be supposed to have been 
placed as a punishment in various localities under the 
government of inferior angels. The one race that was “the 
Lord’s portion” was not, indeed, exempt from shortcomings, 
but for a time these were not irreparable. At length, this race 
too having been completely scattered abroad for its sins, the 
revelation of Jesus is come to all; and, against a revelation 


ly, 23. 


2y. 25: doxel & obrws kal cuppepery, ov udvov KaGdre emt voiv AAOev GAS 
GrAws vouloa kal det puddrrew Ta és Kody KeKupwyeva, GARG kal Ort ws 
eikds Ta pépyn THs yas €& dpxjs Ga GrXas érémras veveunuweva Kal Kava 
Twas émkparetas SuecAnuuéva TavTy Kal drocketras. 


3 y, 27, 4y, 28. 


92 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


from the supreme God, the customs prevailing among the 
dispersed portions of the human race under the penal dominion 
of lower powers have naturally no right to exist. Accordingly, 
when Celsus asks the Christians whence they in particular 
derive their paternal laws, and tells them that they are merely 
revolters from the Jews, Origen replies that now, “in the last 
days,” “the house of God, which is the Church of the living 
God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. iii. 15) is 
‘‘exalted above the hills” and that ‘‘all nations shall flow 
unto it” (Isa. ii. 2). ‘And we say to those that ask us 
whence we are come or what leader we have, that we come 
according to the pledges of Jesus,” from all nations, to beat 
our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning- 
hooks, ‘‘ becoming through Jesus sons of peace.” ? 

Here are plainly to be seen the theocratic pretentions of the 
‘‘oreat Church”? as against the system of local liberties and 
tolerance which Celsus was defending in terms of a “ theologico- 
political” theory elaborated to meet practical exigencies. It 
did meet them on the whole, but it needed accommodation, 
as Origen was able to show. For the empire did not recognise 
every detail of religious custom as absolutely sacred. More 
than a generation before the treatise against the Christians 
was written, a decree of Hadrian had made all human 
sacrifices illegal. And the local religions, while their privileges 
generally were maintained, had no power of coercion over 
individual dissentients who chose to neglect their rites. So, 
when Celsus quotes the famous passage of Herodotus (11. 18) 
on the inviolableness of their own customary laws to each 
people, Origen replies by asking what then is to be thought of 
the teachings of the philosophers against superstition (kara 
dewotdauovias), And if the right of those who philosophise to 
desert paternal custom is recognised, how can that of the 
Christians be denied? Celsus and those who think with him, 
were they serious in their appeal to custom, would have to lay 
down the rule henceforth that those who in Egypt adopt the 
opinions of the philosophers must continue to practise all the 
abstinences from kinds of food and all the ritual of the 
Egyptian religion. Any one who did this would be a queer 
philosopher.® 

It seems to have been already perceived in the second 


1 23 2h wae 


v.35: yerotos av ein pirdcogos adirdcopa mpaTTwv. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 93 


century that pleas of this form, urged on behalf of the Church, 
were not really for liberty but for power. Thus Celsus, as if 
by anticipation, had devoted the next portion of his argument 
to invalidating the exclusive claims of the Christians (founded 
on those of the Jews) by setting against them other claims that 
seemed a priori no less valid. ‘Then, at the end of the section, 
he pointed out that those who arrogate a divine right of 
dominance over the world cannot even agree among themselves 
but differ more fiercely than other men. Origen’s method of 
reply is simply to reaffirm the claims; but there is some 
interest in observing how he does it. 

The god Ammon, says Celsus, has no worse claim to 
convey messages as to what is sacred than ‘the angels of the 
Jews.”* Ammon, replies Origen, may command abstinence 
from the flesh of cows, and such a command may to a super- 
ficial view appear on a level with similar prescriptions in the 
Jewish law. If, however, Celsus had known the true meaning 
of such legislation as that of Deut. xxv. 4, he would have 
known that it is symbolical and refers to the relations of men 
(cf. 1 Cor. ix. 9), and not to “irrational animals.’” 

There is record in history, Celsus pointed out, of the 
introduction of a new god, Serapis.*° But the Son of God, 
Origen replies to the intended parallel, if he came but recently 
to dwell among men, is not therefore new; for the Scriptures 
have knowledge of him as the eldest of all creatures, by whom 
man was made in the image of God. Serapis came in yesterday 
or the day before by the deceit of Ptolemy, who wished to 
show to the Alexandrians, as it were, a god manifest.* How 
he was constructed, and what various things of nature he 
participates in, we have read in Numenius the Pythagorean. 
Then, as if unaware that he is himself displaying the parallel 


owe oS 


2 From a modern point of view this is an unfortunate example. Origen 
had an opportunity of drawing attention to the humanity of the Jewish 
legislation regarding animal life ; and the texts he could have quoted would 
have met with recognition from a Pythagorean ora Platonist, Yet, so far 
is he from taking this line that he seems to go out of his way to enforce 
the characteristic hardness of the new Teligion, faithfully preserved in the 
authorised teaching of the Catholic Church as still expounded by its 
philosophic theologians. 


is ITP 
4v, 38: epi dé Dapdmidos odd} kai didgwvos icropla, xGés kal mpwny eis 


pécov €hOdvTos kaTad Twas payyavelas ToD BovAnOévTos IIToXeualov oiovel 
éripavy detiae Tots év ANeEavdpela Gedy. 


94 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


syncretism, he goes on to set forth the all-comprehensive 
attributes of the Son of God." 

The Jews, Celsus concedes, are not to be blamed for 
clinging to their own customs, but only for the claim they make 
to be holier than other men.” Though Origen’s reply here 
repeats some positions given above, it contains one or two 
details worth noting. If it is true, as Celsus maintains, that 
neither the monotheism nor the rites of the Jews are their 
peculiar property, we must still distinguish. The name by 
which the Highest is called is not indifferent: for, as was 
said before, names are something more than conventional 
signs. This is especially the case with divine names. To 
call upon “‘the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and 
the God of Jacob” has an efficacy in controlling the demons 
which would be entirely lost if one were to substitute in the 
formula translations of the names of the patriarchs. So 
likewise with the names of Israel, of Sabaoth, and of Adonai. 
Zeus is not the same as Sabaoth: for his name is not divine at 
all, but is that by which a certain demon pleases to be called 
upon, who is not friendly to man nor to the true God.° 
Circumcision, though it cannot be denied to be common as a 
rite to the Jews and to other nations, nevertheless differs 
according as the doctrines of those who practise it differ. It 
may have been performed because of some angel hostile to the 
Jewish race, who was thus deprived of his power to injure.* 
When Jesus had undergone the rite, the angel’s power against 
the uncircumcised who worship only the Creator was altogether 
destroyed, so that there was no further need to avert injury by 
the shedding of blood. Kinds of abstinence, again, differ 
according to the intention. If for example, Christian ascetics 
abstain from the flesh of animals (though no_ longer 
required to observe the distinctions of meats according to 
Jewish law), this is in order to bring the body 
into subjection, and not, as with the Pythagoreans, because 
they think they are sparing their kindred.® 

Reference to the Jewish and Christian doctrine of angels led 


ly, 30. cs pyrene 3y. 46. 


4v. 48. Following a method already adopted by Hebrew interpreters 
for getting rid of anthropomorphisms in the Bible, Origen substitutes an 
‘angel ”’ for ‘the Lord” in the barbaric story of Ex. iv. 24-26. Celsus 
would hardly have seen in this explanation a proof that the Jews and 
Christians were exempt from demonolatry. 


Fv. 49. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 95 


again to an incidental criticism of the resurrection-narratives in 
the Gospels. Origen begins an attempt at reconciliation of 
discrepancies, but cuts short the reply by hinting at a mystical 
significance of the number of angels at the tomb in the 
different narratives. Equally strange stories, he proceeds,’ are 
told among the Greeks. 

In noting the contradictory positions of the Christian sects, 
Celsus brought in the speculations of the Gnostics ; though he 
was aware of the exclusive pretentions of the ‘ great Church,” 
with its acceptance of the God of the Jews as at once the 
creator of the world and the highest God. It appears from 
the account given that he knew of Christians who lived 
according to the Jewish law,” as well as of the anti-Jewish 
Gnostics. Origen repudiates some of the Gnostic sects 
on the ground that they are not Christian at all. Of some he 
declares that he has never come in contact with them. Here, 
however, what Celsus was chiefly concerned to bring into view 
was the unmeasured vituperation of one another by sects all of 
which claimed to be Christian, and their deadly mutual hate.® 
Origen tries to palliate differences, as before, by comparing 
with them the quarrels of philosophical and medical sects. 
The hatred imputed he will not admit. To hate those that 
have been led astray by heresies would be inconsistent with 
the blessings pronounced in the Gospel on peacemakers and 
on the meek. Celsus from his point of view had not failed to 
observe the same contrast ; as may be seen from his trenchant 
summing-up. ‘All those,” he says, “who are so much at 
variance and who in their wranglings confute one another 
with the most shameful abuse, you will hear saying, ‘The 
world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.’”4 Where- 
upon the apologist exclaims in triumph that all cannot say this ; 
for some of the heretics do not accept the Pauline epistles. 
Now the passage cited is from Paul (Gal. vi. 14), and they 
would not quote the Apostle whom they reject. 

Though the beginning of the doctrine is naught, continues 


ag, 59 

2 vy. 61. Of these Origen writes : ofrou S'eicly of durrol’EBiwvaio, roe éx 
mapbévou ouoroyoirTes ouolws Huiv Tov Inooty % ov~x oTw yeyervfjcbar adda 
ws Tovs Aourovs avOpwrrous. 

3v, 63: Kal Bacdyuotcr 54, pyoty, els GAAHAovs obToL wdvdewa pynra Kat 
Gppynra * kai ovK ay eifacey ode Kal’ Orwoiv els oudvoiay, mdvty aAAHoUS 
GMooTUyoUurTeEs, 


4¥, 64, 


96 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


Celsus in entering upon the next section of the argument, let 
us examine the teaching itself. Then he compares the 
religious and moral precepts of Christianity with those of 
philosophy, and finds that the same things have been said 
better by the Greeks and without overstrain, or the assertion 
that they were spoken by God or a son of God.? To this 
Origen sets himself to reply in the sixth book; remarking 
first that he has no quarrel with the teachings adduced 
from the philosophers, but that, excellent as they are in 
themselves, they have the defect of not appealing to the mul- 
titude. He is obliged to confess, however, that if Plato is read 
only by students, Epictetus at any rate is in popular use.® 

Then the tone changes. It turns out that Plato’s wisdom 
became folly, according to what St. Paul said (Rom. i. 21-23): 
for the men who have written such things as Celsus quotes 
about the “first good” go down to the Pirzeus to offer up 
prayer to Artemis and to gaze on a procession of the vulgar.’ 
In the opening passage of the Republic, the Christian Father 
can see nothing but a degrading compliance with popular 
idolatry ; which was appropriately avenged when God chose 
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, ‘that no 
flesh should glory before God” (1 Cor. i. 27-29). The truth 
that was in Plato did not profit even himself, for he thus 
incurred the punishment of sinners.” 

Pursuing the argument, Celsus remarks that Plato, although 
perceiving that the highest knowledge is accessible to but few, 
does not talk in a portentous manner, and stop the mouths of 
questioners, and straightway command the acceptance as of 
faith that ‘‘such is God, and he has such and such a Son, and 
this Son came down and conversed with me.”® Apparently as 
a proof that there was after all something portentous about the 
philosophers, Origen thinks it relevant to quote various 
marvels from their biographies ; again bringing forward the 
story of Plato’s virgin birth. Moreover, Plato himself, in one 
of his epistles (Ep. vi. p. 323 D) has stated the doctrine of a 


ly, 65: oép ody, ef kal pndeulay apxnv Tod dédyparos éxovow, airdy 
éferdowpev Tov éyov. 
2 vi. 1. 3 Vi. 2. - vi. 4. 


5vi. 5. Cf. 3: 51a Tod7T0 dé kal rods TA GXNOH Tepl Oeod UrodaBdrras Kal 
bh Thy akiav THs epi adTod adnOeias PeoréBerav acxjnoavTdas pawev UroKeio Gar 
Tals TOV auapTavévTwy KoAdoETW. 


6 vi. 8. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 97 


divine sonship ; speaking of the God of all as the Father of the 
ruling principle and the cause. 

In what Celsus had to say about faith, there occur in the 
form of deductions from the Christian view, put as absurdities, 
positions that have since been adopted seriously by the 
bolder apologists. Because we say that the Son of God suf- 
fered the most disgraceful punishment, “‘ Believe all the more.” 
Again ; if one sect brings in one person, another another, and all 
alike say, ‘Believe if you wish to be saved, or depart,” what 
shall they do who really wish to be saved? Shall they decide 
by throwing dice?” The first challenge was accepted in the 
paradox of Tertullian.* The second will at once suggest to 
modern readers “the wager of Pascal:” Stake your eternal 
happiness on the truth of that creed whose promises and 
threats are the most transcendent. 

The distinction between human and divine wisdom, observed 
Celsus, is not new, but is to be met with in Heraclitus and 
other philosophers. Then he points out that a fitting humility 
in presence of the divine law is taught by Plato (Leges iv. 715 
E-716 A). This the Christians have distorted into a base 
humility. Plato had also said, before the Gospels, that no one 
can be extremely rich and attain the height of goodness.” In 
reference to the last point, it is interesting to note that accord- 
ing to the spokesman of the Church the expressions “ rich and 
poor” in the Gospels are not to be understood literally. ‘‘ For 
not even the first man you meet would praise the poor indis- 
criminately, of whom the most part have the very worst 
morals.”6 

A tangled disputation on the sources of the idea of a 
heaven or heavens, and on the gnostic sects, Christian or non- 
Christian, and related topics, is important for ecclesiastical 
history, but does not contribute much to the direct argument 
on either side. It may be noted that, according to Origen’s 


1 yi, 10: TavTy Kal wadXov TicTevoor. 

Swi. il. 

3 De Carne Christi, 5. 

4 yi. 15: 6 Tamewoppav dcxnuivws Kal drawiws Tamewovrat, XAMALITETHS 
émi t&v yovdrwy Kal mpnvns éppimpevos, écO7jra dvornvwy dudurxéuevos kal 
ov €TAapLamevos. 

5 vi, 16: dyabdv Svra diapdpws Kal movorov elvae StadepdvTws advvaror. 

6 yi, 16: obk ay yap ob8 o TUXay dxplrws Tovs mTwxovs emyverev, ay oi 
modXol Kal pavAdrarol elo TA HON. 


98 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


report, certain Oriental sects (the ‘‘ Ophiani”), declared by him 
to be non-Christian, and perhaps representing the oldest 
Gnosticism, denied even the existence of Jesus; going beyond 
the ‘“docetists” who said that he had only an apparent 
body.’ Celsus, in his investigations, had come upon strange 
formule of Eastern mystagogues, in which the primeval idea 
recurred of a “slaying” of the heaven and earth and of many 
people that they might live, intermingled with ideas of the 
cessation of death by the death of sin. Everywhere he found 
the symbolism of the “tree of life,” and of a ‘resurrection 
of the flesh from the tree”; but of course completely mis- 
interpreted it when, with vigorous sarcasm, he treated 
it as derived from historical circumstances.” Modern 
anthropologists know that, whether an actual Jesus died on the 
cross or not, the imagery is far older. The suggestion of 
Origen that Celsus had invented the most primitive details of 
it ® is peculiarly absurd. 

A passage which has been thought inconsistent with the 
opinion that identifies Celsus with Lucian’s friend who wrote 
against magic would by itself rather confirm this; although 
for the rest the evidence is decidedly against it, since the 
friend of Lucian was plainly an Epicurean.‘ Celsus quotes, 
as from a certain Dionysius whom he had met,° the view that, 
for those who live the life of philosophic virtue, magical arts 
lose the power they have over others. The fact that he quotes 
this, instead of giving it directly as his own view, would seem 
to show that he desired to avoid any except a purely hypo- 
thetical concession to the claims of magic. 

While pointing to representations derived, as he thought, by 
Christianity from Mithraism, Celsus does not appear to have 


lyj, 28: 8pa yodv mas ddoywrarov memoinxev 6 Kédoos év tots kara 
Xpicriavay Adyos maparaBay ws Xpicriavods rods und’ axovew Oeddvras 7d 
dvoua Tov Inood, Kay bri codds Tis } wéTptos TA HON 7 GvOpwrds Tis Fv. The 
4 before &v@pwros was omitted on conjecture in the edition of Delarue 
(1733), which till Koetschau’s served as the basis for newer editions. (See 
Koetschau’s textual note, vol. ii. p. 98). 


2 vi. 34: mavtaxod dé éxet 7d Tis fwijs EVNov kal dvdoracw capkds awd 
EvNou, didre oluce 6 Siddoxados a’rav acravp@ évnrdOn kal Fv téxrwv rhy 
TéEXVNY. K.T.D. 

3vi, 35. 

4The failure of the attempt to maintain the identification has been 
made clear by Pélagaud. 


5 vi. 41: Acovtordy Twa povoixdy Alyimriop. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 99 


connected the idea of Satan in particular with the Persian 
religion. He finds that the old Greek mythologists, in their 
stories of Titans and Giants, offer sufficient materials for dis- 
tortion into the Christian notion of the Devil. This he 
regards as involving an impious attribution of human weakness 
to the highest God, who is represented as having an adversary © 
limiting his power.* Origen’s reply consists mainly in an 
attempt to show that the idea of a diabolic resistance to God 
is present in the Hebrew Scriptures, and therefore cannot have 
been derived from Greek fables, which are younger. Into his 
attempts at allegorising we need not try to follow him, especi- 
as he admits himself that they are rather beside the mark.? 
They are exceeded in irrelevancy, however, by his disquisition 
on the Antichrist. ° 

The idea of the Son of God Celsus takes to have been 
derived from the language of “ancient men” who applied 
similar names to the world because God is its source. 4 
Origen once more replies by insisting on the greater antiquity 
of Moses and the prophets as compared with the ancients 
whom Celsus has in view. 

Next comes a discussion on the Mosaic cosmogony, which, 
so far at least as the creation of man is concerned, Celsus 
declares to resemble the stories of world-production that the 
poets of the Old Comedy set forth in jest.° In the detailed 
argument, Origen evades some points by affecting uncertainty 
whether Celsus is aiming his darts at the cosmogony in itself or 
as it is interpreted by the heretics. To the description of the 
heterodox interpretations as “abysmal nonsense ” (Ajjpov Badr), 6 
he would have had no objection; but Celsus, he complains, 
has not even discriminated heresy from heresy.’ He does not 
profess here to give a full reply: for an adequate exposition 
whole treatises would be required. With the subject of the 
six days’ work he has dealt in his commentary on Genesis.® 
In what follows, he appropriates as far as possible the Platonis- 
ing expressions of Celsus on the relation between God and the 
universe. Of course the most refined philosophical theses are 
supposed to be present in the Scriptures. No light that was 


1vi, 42. 2 vi. 44. 3 vi. 45, 46. 
4 vi. 47: dvdpes madaol révde rov Kédcpov ws €x Beod yevduevov maida Te 
avrod Kal niPeov mpocetzor. 
5 vi. 49. 8 vi. 50. Ti. 53. 


8 vi. 60. This exposition is lost. 


100 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


not there can have been derived from the heathen. Celsus is 
in darkness, and wishes to cast darkness over the eyes of 
Christians.’ 

Amid the deluge of Scripture-quotations and expositions in 
which it is hardly possible to detect anything that appears as if 
it might once have looked like the semblance of a reply to an 
outsider, a topic of some philosophical interest emerges. 
Celsus raises objection to the expression ‘God is spirit” 
(rveSua 6 Geds) as having a corporeal reference ;* and maintains 
that the Christians, in what they say of the “spirit of God,” do 
not differ from the Stoics, with their notion of a divine breath 
that runs through and contains in itself all things.* Origen’s 
reply is that when God is said to be “breath ” or “spirit,” this 
is to be taken in a metaphorical sense, just as when he is 
described asa “fire”; and that the Christians do not agree 
with the Stoics in holding the divinity to be corporeal. In 
reality, they understand by what they call “spirit” an incor- 
poreal ESSENCE (dowparov ovolar). 

Celsus was here of course thinking in terms of the Greek 
psychology, for which spirit (zveGya) meant breath or warm air, 
intermediate between soul and gross matter. For the Jews 
and Christians, the ‘“ spirit” of man or God, coming primarily 
from a more archaic psychology, had acquired an application 
to the highest part of the soul, or principle of life and thought, 
conceived as a recipient of divine inspiration. Thus it could 
take no intermediate position, but must be made parallel with 
mind or intellect (vots), the highest part of the soul in the 
psychology of the Greeks. The Platonising Fathers, having 
adopted the idea of an opposition of nature between soul 
(yuxj) and body, must a fortiort dematerialise “spirit.” Their 
device, we see, was to treat the expression as figurative. For 
the possibility of introducing more exact distinctions into their 
own psychology, they had to wait till another advance had 
been made by independent Greek thought. It would be vain 
to look for an immanent development in that which, by 
courtesy, receives the name of patristic philosophy. 

A passage quoted from Celsus a little later puts briefly some 


1 yj. 67: Kédoos ev obfv kal of mapamAjoo atr@ mpoBddrew oKdrov Tov 
6pOarpav judy Oddovew, jets 5¢ TH Hwri Tod Adyou éEagavifouwev 7d oKdros 
Tov aceBay SoypaTwr. 


2 vi. 70. 


ch, 6 Pie IS 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN IOI 


characteristic objections to the Christian scheme of revelation. 
“If God, waking up, like the Zeus of the comic poet, from the 
long sleep, was willing to rescue the race of men from evils, why 
did he send this breath, as you call it, to one corner, when he 
ought to have blown through many bodies alike and despatched 
them throughout the whole inhabited world?! But it was by 
way Of raising laughter in the theatre that the poet let his Zeus 
be waked up, and then made him send Hermes to the 
Lacedemonians and Athenians. And can you avoid the 
thought that you have done something more ludicrous in 
sending the Son of God to the Jews?” When Origen treats 
it as unworthy of the dignity of philosophy to compare the 
awakened sender of Hermes in the comedy with God the Maker 
of all,” the retort is obvious. It is precisely the intermittent 
action and the partiality ascribed to the God of the universe, 
as distinguished from the gods of popular belief, that the 
philosopher regarded as more ludicrous. 

For the Christian apologists of those ages, as we have in 
part seen, the vital centre of the case was the fulfilment of 
what were held to be the Messianic prophecies, by the life and 
death of the Christ. Thus, when Celsus returns to the attack 
on this position, again setting the various supernaturalist claims 
in rivalry with one another, Origen marks the point reached 
in the controversy by opening another book (the seventh) ; at 
the beginning of which he once more invokes divine aid, 
adding a prayer for the destruction of words against “the 
truth.” 

The Christians, says Celsus, while they take no account of 
the innumerable oracles among Greeks and Egyptians and 
others, which have benefited mankind by giving equitable 
decisions for the settlement of the earth, regard as miraculous 
the things spoken or not spoken by the men of Judza.* To 
this Origen replies by a tirade against the “‘demons.” Apollo’s 
oracle at Delphi, among other discreditable circumstances, 
such as being uttered through women instead of men, once 
went so far as to call frivolous writers like the tragic poets 
‘“‘wise.”4 He notes the insinuation of Celsus in the words 


Lyi. 78: déov rodda bpolws Siadvejoau copara Kal KaTa Tacay arocret hat 
Thy olkoupévny. 


2 Our God (rév rod ravrés Snusoupydy Oedv juav), as Origen puts it, thus 
emphasising the point that offended the philosophers. 


S vii. 3. 4 vii, 6, 


102 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


“spoken or not spoken” (Aex6évra 4 wh AexOév7a) ; remarking that 
if Celsus thinks the Messianic prophecies were only written, 
without having been previously spoken, that shows his 
ignorance of Hebrew chronology." 

Celsus had gone on to state that predictions such as the 
Christians rely upon in the Jewish writings were still, to his own 
knowledge, put forth in Phoenicia and Palestine. There are, 
he says, many kinds of prophecy; but the most consummate 
is as follows. Then he gives a description of many nameless 
prophets, in temples and out of temples, each of whom is 
ready and accustomed to say: “I am God, or Son of God, or 
Divine Spirit. I am come; for already the world is being 
destroyed, and you, O men, are lost through wrong-doings. 
But it is my will to save you; and you shall see me coming 
again with celestial power. Blessed is he that now worships 
me, but upon all others I will cast eternal fire, and upon cities 
and countries. And men who know not their own recom- 
PENSES (of wh ras éavrdy owas icacr) Will repent in vain and groan ; 
but those that have obeyed me I will eternally preserve.” 
They add further, he proceeded, such utterly obscure and 
crazy things as no one with intelligence can find out the 
meaning of, for they have no clearness and are nothing; but 
to every fool or charlatan the things said give a pretext for 
making out of them anything he likes about anything.” Some 
of these prophets Celsus claims to have personally confuted 
and brought to confess their method of fabrication.® 

To this very damaging attack Origen replies by flatly 
declaring the statements to be falsehoods. If Celsus asserts 
that prophecy of the old kind has continued in Phcenicia and 
Palestine, this must be false; for prophecy ceased among the 
Jews through the departure of the Holy Spirit in consequence 
of the rejection of Jesus. The statement that many kinds of 
prophecy are known to him is a false pretence.° His assertion 
that he has personally confuted some of the prophets is a 
manifest lie. If he wished to be believed, why did he not 
mention their names?® Yet Origen himself tells his readers 
more than once that he has witnessed the casting out of devils 
by Christian exorcists. It is fair to add that he does not press 
his individual testimony, recognising that the fact will, by 
outsiders, be thought incredible: but he might have remem- 


1 vii, 8. 2 Vii. 9, S vii. 11. 


‘vii, 8. 5 vii. 9. 6 vii, II. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 103 


bered that the statements of Celsus had on the face of them 
less improbability than his own. 

We may believe without difficulty both that Origen thought 
he had seen devils cast out, and that Celsus had actually 
exposed some Messianic impostors or “false Christs.”’ 
Whether any “true Christ” had appeared whose actions agreed 
with the Hebrew prophecies as interpreted by the Christians, 
he thought not worth more particular inquiry. What was to 
be said on this topic as between one supernaturalist and 
another, he had relegated to the discourse of his imaginary 
Jew. For himself, the reflection sufficed that, even if certain 
writings did predict that God was to eat the flesh of sheep and 
to drink vinegar or gall, such things were not therefore to be 
believed ;? though, in his opinion, nothing so degrading 
could have been foretold by the prophets. The question 
is not whether a work has been declared beforehand, but 
whether it is worthy of God. In the base and shameful, 
though all men go mad and seem to foretell it, we must still 
disbelieve. With much of this, Origen, by one of the 
theological distinctions that were then being wrought out, 
was able to agree formally. It was not God the Word that 
suffered and died, but the man Jesus, with whose body and 
soul God dwelt.‘ 


1The bearing of these ‘‘false Christs” on the mythical theory of the 
Gospel narrative is ambiguous. On the one hand, it may be said that if 
the apocalyptic model was so far predetermined that real persons conformed 
themselves to it, the same model would naturally contribute some of the 
lines when imaginary but typical incidents were to be woven around an 
ideal figure. And if, as is likely, insurgent leaders who had uttered 
apocalyptic prophecies were put to death by Pontius Pilate, it would be 
easy to assert, after the lapse of a generation, that the New Messiah had 
appeared during his procuratorship and suffered the same fate. Then we 
should find ascribed to him the customary predictions of the end of the 
world mixed with predictions of real events that had happened after the time 
of Pilate ; as in what the critics call the ‘* small apocalypsis ” incorporated 
in the Gospels. On the other hand, the vivid sketch which Celsus gives 
of the religious agitation continually going on in the East makes it impos- 
sible to declare a priorz that the historical Jesus, if he existed, could not 
have proclaimed himself the Son of God. 


2 vii, 13. 


3 vii. 14: GAN ovK av mpoelrovey TodTO of mpopyra * Kady yap éore Kal 
dvécvov. ovKotv ott’ ei mpoeiroy ovr’ ef un mpoetrov, cxerréov, GAN ei 7d 
épyov diidy ore Oeod Kai kaddv. TE Faicxpy kal Kax@, Kav wdvTes dvOpwror 
pavouevor Tpodéye Soxwow, amioTyntéov. 


4 vii. 16, 17. 


104 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


Celsus next contrasts the legislation of Moses and of Jesus. 
If the prophets of the God of the Jews foretold the coming of 
Jesus, why does God through the law of Moses make it the 
aim of human life to be rich and powerful, and command his 
people to slaughter out their enemies without sparing youth 
or age, and to kill the whole race of them, on pain of suffering 
the same things themselves if they disobey ; while his Son the 
Nazarene (6 Nafwpatos &vOpwros) issues the contrary law, that no 
thought is to be taken about meat or clothing, and that the 
other cheek is to be turned to the smiter? ‘‘ Whether does 
Moses or Jesus lie? Or did the Father, when he sent him, 
forget what he had laid down to Moses? Or did he he con- 
demn his own laws and repent ?”’? 

Though Origen’s knowledge of the Old Testament enabled 
him to point out texts, especially in the prophets and psalmists, 
containing the principles, and even the very expressions, of the 
teaching of Jesus, he can make no effective use of them, but 
soon takes refuge in allegory. For the other teachings are 
there also; and the whole was held to be inspired. According 
to the true meaning of the old law, as penetrated by what 
Origen supposed to be a deeper critical insight, the enemies 
to be slaughtered out are sinful thoughts in the soul ;” while 
riches and poverty, just as in the New Testament, have a 
“spiritual” interpretation. To show that the prophets could 
not have made riches, in the literal sense, the reward of a 
righteous life, he quotes from the Epistle to the Hebrews 
(xl. 37, 38) the list of their sufferings.* This of course is 
doubly irrelevant. The document quoted is Christian; and 
Celsus had spoken of the ethical teaching of the law in 
particular, and not of the prophets, as opposed to that of 
Jesus. An incidental remark is indeed ventured, that with a 
law of non-resistance to enemies it would have been impossible 
for the ancient Jews to maintain themselves as a separate 
political community ;‘ but, as this is brought into no sort of 
relation with what has gone before, it only makes more con- 
spicuous the failure of the reply as a whole. 

The Christian idea of a “new earth,” Celsus proceeded to 
argue, was derived from Plato or from the ancient poets.° 


‘vii. 18. We may here detect an allusion to one of the gnostic positions 
about the Demiurgus, of which the mythological development is 
indicated in the words that follow (kai rdv &yyeXov Kal émt rots évavrlous 
amooTéAXet ;) 


2 vii. 22. > vii. 18. 4 vii. 26. 5 vii. 28. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 105 


But Moses, replies Origen, was of much greater antiquity than 
Greek letters, not to speak of Plato and the rest of the Greek 
authors, who were younger not only than Moses but than most 
of the prophets. Now Moses had already introduced God as 
promising the “holy land,” the “land flowing with milk and 
honey.” And by this land he could not mean the literal 
Judza, which is a part of the earth generally that was cursed 
for Adam’s transgression. The “ pure earth situated in a pure 
heaven,” spoken of in the Phedo, came therefore from the 
Hebrews; Plato and “the Greeks” having either heard of 
or met with the sacred writings and appropriated what they 
said about the “ better land.” 

To modern readers, accustomed to a Platonised Christianity, 
the attack on the Christians for the grossness of their materia- 
listic conceptions will seem paradoxical: yet Origen’s admis- 
sions make it clear that the literalness with which imagery (as 
he himself regarded it) was understood by the multitude of 
believers, did not even need to be rhetorically exaggerated 
for attack. Refuted on every side, continues Celsus, they will 
return, as if they had heard nothing, to the same question: 
‘“‘ How then, unless he be perceptible, shall we know and see 
God? And how shall we go to him?”’* Well, he comments, 
if bodily perception really seems to them the only means of 
knowing the divine, let them go to the abodes of such gods 
in human shape as Amphiaraus and Trophonius and Mopsus. 
These at any rate associate constantly with those who will; 
and have not merely glided once to their side.” In the opinion 
of Celsus, then, says Origen, what appeared to. the disciples of 
Jesus after his resurrection was a phantom. But how can 
a phantom have been the source of so many conversions and 
of so many expulsions of devils?® Celsus, however, introduces 
the Christians as again asking, ‘“‘ What is it possible to learn 
without sense-perception?” and answers: ‘The voice is not 
that of man nor of the soul but of flesh. And yet let them 
hear, if indeed, craven and body-loving race as they are 
(as Seddv Kal girrocduarov yévos), they can give ear to anything. 
Shut off the vision of sense, and look up with the mind; turn 
aside from flesh, and awaken the eyes of the soul: only thus 
will you see God.” And if they are in quest of a leader on 


1 vii. 33. AWia. 35. 


3The “visible gods,” of whom Celsus speaks, ‘‘we know to be 
demons” (icuev yap tmeis Tovrous daluovas dvras). 


106 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


this way, let them shun deceivers and jugglers and those that 
follow after idols; taking care not to be themselves exposed 
to derision as having fallen to a lower level than idolatry, 
worshipping not even an image but a dead man, and seeking 
a father like unto him.’ 

The last touch, as we learn from Origen’s repudiation, refers 
to the notion that the ruling principle of the world is corporeal,” 
which historians of philosophy attribute to no less instructed a 
Christian than Tertullian. So far as the defence is relevant, it 
consists in the citation of thoughts from the New Testament 
that suggest a more refined interpretation, such as the Pauline 
distinction between things invisible and the visible things of 
nature.* We shall see, however, that Celsus did not really 
confound the Christians in an indiscriminate mass, but recog- 
nised that those who, in their own language, called themselves 
the “spiritual,” had more philosophical ideas. 

Again Origen disclaims formule that Celsus may have heard 
from the ‘“ Ophiani,” who absolutely deny Jesus.‘ These, he 
gladly admits, are indeed deceivers and jugglers, and indulge 
in mythopceeic fancies ; but they have nothing in common with 
true Christians. 

Whom then, the apologist asks, does Celsus wish us to 
follow? He sends us, as he says, to inspired (év@éovs) poets 
and philosophers, for whom he would have us desert Moses 
and the prophets. ‘Blind guides concerning the truth,” 
though they may not have been wholly blind.? The pas- 
sage quoted by Celsus from the Timaeus (28C), where 
Plato speaks of the difficulty there is in finding out “ the 
Maker and Father of this whole,” he admits to be nobly ex- 
pressed ; but adds that to Plato or any of the Greeks the diffi- 
culty was actually insurmountable, for if it had not been so 
they would have worshipped the Creator only. Celsus appears 
to think that the knowledge of God is to be attained by some 
process of mental synthesis or analysis or analogy. In this 
way, it is at most possible to arrive at the vestibule. In the true 
sense of knowing, ‘“‘No man knoweth the Father save the 
Son, and he to whom,” by a certain divine grace, “the Son 
will reveal him.”6 


1vii. 36. 2Cf. vii. 27. 8 vic 37. 


4 vii. 40: "Odiavol . . . ws Kal év Tots dvwrépw édéyouer, Tov *Inootv && 
drwy apvovpevot. 


S vii, 4I. 6 vii. 44. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 107 


Pointing to the disquisition in the sixth book of the Republic 
on the visible and the intelligible world, Celsus thus exhorts 
the Christians: ‘‘ These things have been said by men of intel- 
ligence, and if you too comprehend anything of them, it is well 
with you. And if you think that some spirit coming down 
from God announces divine things, by that spirit we may sup- 
pose that these are declared ; filled with which, men of old pro- 
claimed much that is good. But if you cannot understand 
this, be silent and hide your own ignorance, and do not call 
those blind who see, and lame who run; yourselves being 
altogether lamed in soul and mutilated, and living with the 
body, that is, with the corpse.” 

Weare careful, replies Origen, not to set ourselves in hostility 
with what is well said, even by those outside the faith ; and it 
is we, the abused Christians, who not merely in word distinguish 
between “being” and “ birth,” between the “intelligible” and 
the ‘ visible,” between the truth of the former and the decep- 
tion of the latter. ‘‘ But some who, by the providence of God, 
have ascended to the knowledge of such things, act not 
worthily of the knowledge, and commit impiety.”” That is (as 
he explains in the sequel with the usual embellishments from 
the Epistle to the Romans), the philosophers, by not dissenting 
from the religious use of statues, were involved in the general 
guilt of idolatry ; so that their superior knowledge only rendered 
them the more inexcusable. Further, the sacred writers have 
not been content with a theoretical distinction between “ birth ” 
and ‘‘ being,” but have applied it by treating the whole natural 
life of man on earth as corruption and vanity.® 

Since you were bent on some innovation, continued Celsus, 
why did you not take up Orpheus, if none of the other heroes 
would suffice? By common consent he was in possession of a 
holy spirit, and he too died a violent death. But perhaps you 
felt that you had been anticipated. There was Anaxarchus, 
however, who, being cast into a mortar, and broken under 
most outrageous blows, said, ‘‘Go on bruising the case of 
Anaxarchus ; himself you cannot bruise.” This was in truth 
the voice of a divine spirit. Or, if he too had followers already, 
there was still Epictetus, who, when his master was twisting his 
leg, said, undisturbed and with a gentle smile, “ You will break 
it;” and then, when he had broken it, ‘“ Did I not say you 
would break it?” What speech of this kind did your God 


vii. 45. 2 vii, 46. 3 vii. 50. 


108 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


utter when he was being punished? Or else,—since some of 
you can interpolate her verses—why did you not put forward 
the Sibyl as the child of God? Or you might have taken 
Jonah under the gourd, or Daniel from among the wild beasts, 
or personages still more portentous.* 

Origen is inclined to conjecture that if Celsus had not been 
in search of an abusive parallel to Jesus, he would have con- 
demned the poems of Orpheus to be expelled from the well- 
regulated State; for the Orphic is even more impious than 
the Homeric theology.” The saying of Anaxarchus to the 
tyrant of Cyprus, and the words of Epictetus, are undoubtedly 
magnanimous; but the silence of Jesus under insult is still 
more impressive.® If, as Celsus asserts without proof, the 
Christians have interpolated the Sibylline verses, let the genuine 
uninterpolated ones be pointed out. In what he says of Jesus 
(whom, in accordance with the Jewish story, he speaks of as a 
malefactor), Origen thinks that Celsus was moved by some 
spirit whose power Jesus had destroyed to the end that he 
might no longer have blood and the reek of sacrifice, nourished 
on which he used to deceive the people who seek God in 
images.‘ 

The claim made to novelty on behalf of revelation, Celsus 
now tests first in the case of an ethical precept, and then in the 
prohibition of statues, so much dwelt on by Origen. The 
Christians, he says, have a precept, not to resist violence, but 
“if you are smitten on the one cheek, offer also the other.” 
This too is ancient. All that they have done is to coarsen the 
expression. Plato makes Socrates, talking with Crito, argue 
that one ought never to inflict an injury in return for an injury. 
This was the opinion of Plato, as it had been the opinion of 
divine men béfore him. ‘But about these and the other 
things which they spoil in the borrowing, let what has been 
said suffice. He who cares to seek further will acquire the 
knowledge.” 

This, Origen finds, is at any rate an admission of the truth 
of the Christian precept. And if the substance in the gospel 


1 val.” 5. 2 vii. 54. 
3It might have seemed obvious here to quote the saying of Luke xxiii. 34 ; 
but this does not occur in the earliest manuscripts, and was pretty certainly 
not extant in the time of Celsus or of Origen. Cyril, in his reply in the 
fifth century to Julian, who seems to have pleaded it against the Christian 
persecution of the Jews, declared it spurious. 


‘vii, 56. S vii. 58. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 109 


and in the quotation from Plato is the same, we must not 
think that the beautiful phrasing of Plato’s Greek raises it 
entirely above the commoner and simpler language 
in use among Jews or Christians; although, it must be said, 
the diction of the prophets has in the original Hebrew an 
elegance of its own. A greater benefit has, in fact, been con- 
ferred on mankind by those who devoted themselves to putting 
moral precepts in a popular form than by the Greek 
philosophers, who wrote only for the few. 

This argument, which, in one shape or another, we have met 
with before, if it is intellectually a favourable specimen of 
apologetic reasoning, is not too ingenuous. Christianity as 
understood by Origen did not come forward simply with the 
aim of diffusing a popular version of philosophical ethics. 
And his Church was fundamentally more hostile to independent 
philosophy than to “idolatry,” as was shown by the event. 
When it was securely in power, the schools of philosophy were 
suppressed and “idols” adopted. For the present, however, 
these were the objects of violent declamation, and intolerance 
of them the character on which the Christians most prided 
themselves. Celsus therefore, going on to the next point, 
tried to show that it was no such ground for pride. The 
same non-endurance of temples, altars and statues is found 
among the Scythians and among the Libyan nomads and other 
nations the most impious and lawless. The Persians too, 
as is related by Herodotus, thought the use of these external 
things foolish, because the gods have not human forms; and 
Heraclitus speaks of the folly of those who pray to statues 
and cannot distinguish the nature of a hero or a god. But to 
take statues for actual gods is an error of the most infantile 
kind. No extraordinary wisdom is needed to see through this. 
Moreover, the Jews and Christians have no special right to 
condemn statues in human shape. According to their own 
documents, ‘‘God made man in his own image.” ? 

But, answers Origen, if others are intolerant of the same 


1vii, 59: ovd€ rddw imd TOD KaddAOUs THS “EAAnuKAs Ppdoews Neyduevor 
TO avTO TavTWSs KpEiTTOV elvat vouLoTéoy TOU EvTEhécTEpoY amrayyeddopevou Kal 
amdovorépats NéLeot mapa Lovdaiors } Xpiocriavois’ Kalrou ye 7 mpwry lovdalwy 
Aésis, 7 ol mpopyrac xpyoduevor xatadedolracw nuiy BiBria, ‘“EBpaiwy 
diaéxtw kal copy cuvOéce trav év TH Siadéxtw Kar’ éxelvous dvayéypamrat. 
This is one of Origen’s most judicious remarks, and may serve to remind 
us how much the New Testament owes to the English Translators. 


4 vii. 62. 


I10 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


things, their intolerance is not therefore equivalent to ours.’ 
The same act in different persons may be due to the most 
diverse opinions. What distinguishes the Jews and Christians 
in their refusal to pay regard to statues, is that they are 
obeying a command of God, whose law forbids them to make 
the likeness of anything and to worship it.? 

Celsus went on to say that he was aware of the Christian 
view that statues are representations of demons. But why 
should not the orders of divine beings called ‘‘dzmons” or 
“angels” or “heroes” receive their own share of honour? 
Has not their place in the whole been assigned them by the 
providence of the supreme God?’ Origen replies that all, 
or nearly all, who acknowledge the existence of demons 
acknowledge that some of them are evil. Now God does not 
appoint, but only permits, the part which evil beings have in 
the whole. This, indeed, belongs to a deeper investigation, of 
which Celsus had no knowledge. So far are the Christians 
from approving a worship of the demonic or diabolic powers 
served by ‘‘the nations” that they exorcise them by prayers 
and by lessons from the Holy Scriptures. 

To judge by the opening of his eighth book, Origen thought 
that this method might not be without efficacy as applied to 
the spirit or demon that animated Celsus.£ He had before 
this been brought to confess that his own arguments scarcely 
suffice without the aid of faith divinely implanted in his hearers, 
and that the worth of his confutations depends on something 
other than the “ wisdom of men.” ® 

The Christians, says Celsus, when they raise objection to the 
worship of the “‘demons” on the ground that “no man can 
serve two masters,” are, so far as their thought is concerned, 
impressing a copy of their own passion on the mind of God.® 
No doubt there is among men a detraction from the service of 
one when another is served; and the same competition is 
conceivable in relation to different heroes or demons. But 
with the highest God, who is untouched by injury or grief, 
there can be none to compete. Rather, in the service of those 
ministers who must have received their places in the whole 


} vii. 63: ob mapa Totro toov éoti TO wn avéxerOat TovTuw éxelvous T@ Kal 
nuas un avéxer Oat atrav. 


2vii, 64. vii, 67. CF. vii. 56, viii, ro. *Chv. 1. 


Svili. 2: voulfer dé rods ToUTo Aéyorras Td bcov ép Eavrois droudrrecbat 
Td opérepov mddos els Tov Oedv. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN III 


by his appointment, he himself also is served. To say other- 
wise involves the impiety of dividing the kingdom of God and 
making a sedition, as if there were some party-chief opposed 
to him in the universe.’ For the rest, if they did in fact refuse 
all honour save to one God, there might be some rational con- 
sistency in their unbending attitude ; but, as it is, they devote 
an excessive worship to him who lately appeared, and do not 
think that in the service of this his minister they commit any 
fault towards God.* If you should tell them that their founder 
is not peculiarly the Son of God, but that God is the Father of 
all, and is alone to be truly worshipped, they would not hear 
of it. What distinguishes them is not really their high venera- 
tion for the Supreme, but their extraordinary magnifying of 
the founder of their sect. ® 

Origen, in the small portion of his reply which has a 
philosophical character, admits that properly there can be no 
grief or injury to God. Worship of God, to the exclusion 
of other powers, is for the sake of the worshippers, who thus 
guard against withdrawal from their own highest good.‘ Here 
he coincides in principle, though not in application, with a 
defender of the pagan ceremonial cults like the author of the 
De Mystertis, who agrees with his antagonist Porphyry that 
observances cannot move the gods, but holds that they bring 
those who perform them nearer to the divinity. And in 
speculation, here as on occasion before, the Christian Father 
admits a kind of polytheism. Subordinate “gods” (i.¢., the 
angels) are spoken of in the Bible; though “all the gods of 
the nations are devils.”° On the “demons,” he thinks it 
sufficient to educe from the Scriptures the accepted Christian 
position. Whence, he inquires, can Celsus prove that honours 
have been appointed to these as to subordinate powers? If 
Celsus puts a corresponding question about Jesus, “we shall 
prove that to be honoured has been given him of God, ‘that 
all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the 
Father’ (John y. 23).” The proof has been furnished through 
prophecy and miracle. No worship is withdrawn from the 
Father, since the Father and the Son are one (John x. 30): 
and yet there are two “hypostases,” of which the second is 
subordinate to the first.7 Thus the Saviour is not by the 


A viii. 11, 2 viii, 12. 3 viii. 14. 4 viii. 6, 8. 


S viii. 3. S viii. 9. T viii. 12. 


II2 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


Christians (with the exception of a few among the many) 
regarded as the highest God; for they believe his own saying, 
“The Father who sent me is greater than I.” It is therefore 
a calumny when Celsus accuses them of subjecting him whom 
they now call the Father to the Son of God." 

We might have taken this for a slightly rhetorical statement 
by Celsus of the practice of the orthodox Christians as distin- 
guished from their theory; but it is evident from the passage 
next following® that he had definitely some of the Gnostics in 
view, who in their formulze declared the Son of Man greater than 
the God that rules the world. Origen, as usual, repudiates the 
‘heretics ;” but he cannot do this without a recurrence to the 
absurd suggestion that perhaps Celsus did not find the theory, 
but constructed or added to it. There is nothing whatever in 
the character of Celsus as revealed in the fragments of his work 
to justify the ascription to him of fraudulence or indifference to 
truth. On the contrary, these are the qualities that most 
strongly arouse his moral indignation. 

To forms of cult he evidently attached no importance. In 
the endeavour to understand the scrupulosity of the Christians, 
he could only conjecture that their avoiding the setting up of 
altars and statues and temples must proceed from reliance on 
the policy of holding together as a secret society.* Pure theism 
does not necessitate their religious separatism. The God who 
is common to all is good and has need of nothing, and is with- 
‘out envy. What prevents those who are especially dedicated 
to him from taking part also in the national festivals?‘ If the 
‘“‘idols” are nothing, what harm is there in a public feast? If 
there are any ‘‘demons,” then it is manifest that they too are of 
God, and ought to be propitiated in accordance with the laws.° 

The religion of the Christians, answers Origen, is too inward 
and spiritual to permit of their founding external altars and 
statues and temples. And it seems more reasonable, having 
regard to the nature of God, to abstain from festivals that trace 
their beginnings to fabulous stories. If some one should urge 
that the Christians have holy days of their own, the reply is 
that the perfect Christian rises above all this symbolism,® which 
in its sensible form exists to remind the many of what they 
might otherwise forget.? These seem to be the rational ele- 


1 viii. 14. 2 viii. 15. 3 viii, 17. 4 viii, 21. 


5 vill, 24. 6 viii. 22. 7 viii. 23. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 113 


ments of his answer, disentangled from the Scriptural exposi- 
tions in which they are involved. 

The next argument of Celsus is clear enough in itself, but 
seems to have been fundamentally unintelligible to Origen 
through his inability to realise that there could be any ultimate 
standard but a supernatural revelation. If the Christians 
have some traditional rule (7: rézpiv)* that requires them to 
abstain from sacrificial meals, then they ought to abstain from 
the flesh of all animals, as was the opinion of Pythagoras, 
because of the honour he paid to the soul and its instruments.” 
The implication clearly is: such a generalised position would 
put the particular scruple on the ground of reason and humanity. 
In answer, Origen proceeds again to quote the Scriptures in 
order to show what is or what is not a divine command. if 
there is any ground for abstinence apart from revelation, to him 
it can only be the ascetic ground.® The Christians do not 
share the opinion of Pythagoras about souls, but honour only 
the rational soul and its instruments.‘ 

In the same passage, however, we come upon a curious point 
of coincidence between the philosophers and the orthodox. If, 
proceeds Celsus, the Christians abstain for the sake of not 
joining in a banquet with the demons, “I congratulate them 
on their wisdom,” which consists in a slowness to understand 
that they are always thus participating. For do not the bread 
they eat and the wine they drink and the fruits they taste and 
the very water, and even the air they breathe, come to them 
from the “‘demons?” The same argument, with the substitu- 
tion of ‘‘ demiurgus ” for ‘‘ demons,” was pressed by the Fathers 
against the Gnostics. Celsus is of course arguing on the basis 
of what was held in common by Jews, by Christians, and by 
heathen polytheists, who all alike conceived the powers of the 
visible world under this personal form. But, Origen replies, 
the good things mentioned come from the angels of God, not 
from the powers called demons. From these, which are all 


1 Such as the rule of the Essenes, 

2 viii. 28. 3 viii, 30. 

4 Whatever insight was contained in the distinction between the human 
and the animal mind which the Christians were appropriating, was of course 
derived from the Peripatetics and the Stoics, who had made it clear to 
themselves that conceptual thought is peculiar toman. The true line of 


psychological advance, however, was to make the dogma not more but less 
hard-and-fast. This was attempted by Plutarch, Celsus and Porphyry. 
8 


114 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


evil, come famine and drought and pestilence." He thus gives 
his adherence to a kind of Persian dualism, as against the 
extreme pessimism of some Gnostics, who formally declared 
the whole visible world evil. Later orthodoxy tended to a 
completer acceptance of the philosophic position that the system 
of the world is an absolute unity; though this had still to be 
reconciled with the existence of a devil. By the belief in the 
devil and his angels Origen is so deeply permeated that he will 
allow those who, like Celsus, are under their government, and 
“know not God,” to give thank-offerings to demons.” And 
comparison with other passages shows that this is not mere 
irony.° 

The remainder of the book strongly confirms the view that 
Celsus was not simply a detached philosopher, but was a 
practical administrator, probably a Proconsul, like Hierocles, 
the later opponent of Christianity, His last resource is to try 
to persuade those who will still, in spite of all argument, adhere 
to the new faith, not to set themselves in open opposition to 
public institutions and withdraw wholly from civic life. The 
danger of a combined attack by the barbarians on the Empire 
was visible, as indeed it had been to Tacitus. The spirit to 
resist, Celsus evidently felt, was departing. Thus he is brought 
to appeal to the surviving patriotism of the more reasonable 
Christians to come to the aid of the State against its impending 
destruction, which threatens to involve philosophy and their 
own religion in one ruin. Those who have commented on the 
closing passage have noticed how Origen has cut down the 


1 viii. 31. 
2 viii, 33: Kal dud rovadra dé Kédoos wey ws dyvodv Oedv Ta xXapiorhpia 
daluoow amrod.déTw. 


3Cf. viii. 34: o0K dvatpotuev ody Kai quets TO TodXovs elvar daluovas él 
vis GNAd paper elvar uev abrovds kal divacBa ev Tots Pavdors did Thy éxelvwv 
kaklay, undev 5€ SivacOac pds Tods Evdvoapuévous Thy mavorNlay Tov Geod. 
In c. 36 a curious fact is given about foods ‘‘ tabooed”” in the names of the 
“* demons,” accompanied by a characteristically naive explanation. 


4See Agricola, 12; Germania, 33. Consciously or unconsciously, Tacitus 
brings into proximity with the danger from without a symptom of internal 
decline. Speaking of voyages to discover the reported ‘‘ pillars of Hercules ” 
in the northern Ocean, he remarks that ‘‘ daring was not wanting to Drusus 
Germanicus, but Ocean stood in the way, both of inquiry into himself and 
into Hercules. Soon no one any longer made the attempt: it seemed 
holier and more reverent to believe than to know about the deeds of the 
gods.” (Germania, 34.) This was praeparatio evangelica in the ancient 
religion. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 115 


appeal. Substantially he has nothing to reply to the charge of 
“incivism” against the Christian Church. Indeed, some 
ground is given for the inference that the conversion of the 
barbarians after the dissolution of the ancient State was already 
a not unattractive prospect. 

Before his final appeal, Celsus tries to terrify the fanatics, 
who publicly insult statues and blaspheme the gods,’ with the 
vengeance of those ‘‘ demons” in the reality of whom, we must 
remember, they firmly believed. Origen, while half conceding 
that this may have been done by uneducated Christians, 
declares it contrary to the divine law, which bids us “ bless and 
curse not;” and argues that no Christian could be foolish 
enough to expect that his impunity after such an act would 
contribute to destroy the ordinary opinions about the gods. 
For neither the founders of the impious systems of so-called 
philosophy that deny providence nor those who embrace their 
doctrines have suffered any of the things that are thought 
evil by the multitude. On the contrary, instead of having 
fallen visibly under the displeasure of heaven, they enjoy health 
and wealth. 

A priest of Apollo or Zeus, says Celsus,’ would answer with 
the verse of the gnomic poet about the “mills of the gods,” or 
with that of Homer on the punishment of children’s children." 
Origen of course knows the philosophic teaching which Celsus, 
as we see by his putting the appeal to terror in the mouth of a 
priest, holds in reserve. This teaching he urges against the 
tone of the appeal. Chastisement is not in the end an evil 
to be feared, since it is for the good of the punished ; and the 
individual is responsible only for his own sins. To show that 
this “better” view is the teaching of the Bible, he quotes 
Ezekiel ; adding that the present is not the proper occasion to 
explain the significance of the “parable ” in Exodus about 
“visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the 
third and fourth generation.” Then, to the counter-argument 
of Celsus, that the God of the Christians did not avenge what 
was undergone by his Son, he replies that vengeance was taken 
when Jerusalem was destroyed.” 


lyiii, 38: elra... dyol rods Xpurriavods héyew" ido) wapacras T@ 
dyddpare Tod Awds 4’ AmddAdNwvos 7 drou dn Geod Bracgpnue Kal parifw, Kat 
ovdéy we GuvveTat. 


2 viii. 40. 3 owe Gedy adéovar mtdor, dréovae dé Nerd, 
47/7, xx. 308. 5 viii. 42. 


116 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


To an enumeration of the benefits conferred by oracles, he 
opposes similar marvels related in the Scriptures ; observing 
incidentally that the philosophic schools of Democritus and 
Epicurus and Aristotle have not believed in the Greek stories, 
but would perhaps have believed in “ours” if they had 
witnessed the evident miracles performed by Moses or by some 
of the prophets or by Jesus himself.* And what but miraculous 
powers could have given the apostles of Jesus, ‘‘ unlearned 
and ignorant men,” the courage to devote themselves to the 
preaching of Christianity.” 

The mystagogues of other sacred rites, says Celsus, hold 
out the threat of eternal punishment as you do. Why should 
we believe your threats more than theirs?? Origen here again 
proposes the ethical test. Who is brought to live better by the 
threatenings? For the rest, the evidence relating to the pagan 
oracles is nothing compared with that from the fulfilled pre- 
dictions of Hebrew prophecy. 

Approaching now the end, Celsus turns with a final expres- 
sion of contempt from those who believe they are to rise again 
for reward or punishment with their bodies, and makes his 
appeal to the more philosophical, who conceive that which is 
eternal in them to be the soul or the mind (whatever they 
choose to call it, spirit or living soul or offspring of a divine 
and incorporeal nature). With Christians of this kind he can 
hold discourse.4 Perceiving evidently the kinship of their 
“spiritualist” doctrines to the more mysterious among the 
teachings of early philosophers, he goes on to cite Empedocles 
as one of those who declare that men have been banished to 
a life of wandering in the body, either because this is requisite 
for the ordering of the whole, or to expiate some ante-natal 
sin, or through some drag on the soul.° Then, since the 
“demons” are the guardians of this earthly life, must you not 
pay deference to them if you wish to live at all, and not forth- 
with to go out of the world?® The Egyptians, for example, 
tell of the control such powers exercise over the parts of the 
human frame.’ Yet, on the other hand, “perhaps we ought 


1 viii, 45. 2 vill. 47. 3 viii. 48. 
4 vil’. 49: Tots unV ye Thy puxnv 4 Tov vouv (Eire mvevpaTiKoy ToOTOY EbéXovCL 
Kkadety etre med po. voepoy drytov Kal waKkdpiov elite Wuxnv (Goav eire Oeias Kal 
acwudtou picews Exyovoy Umrepor ipdvidy Te Kal dpOaprov el? 8 te kal 6 Tu 


xalpovow dvoudgovres), Tots ToUTo édmifovow efew alwviov cv Hew, TovTos 
dradéEouat. 


5 vill, 53. 6 viii. 55. 7 viii. 58. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 117 


not to disbelieve wise men,” who say that most of the terrestrial 
demons, being bound to fleshly things, can only hold out to 
men or cities the prospect of material benefits ; whence devotion 
to them must have its limits, so that we may not become too 
much attached to the body and forget what is divine.’ 

This concession was adapted to the popular demonology of 
ofthe Platonists, who were joining with Neo-Pythagorean reformers 
to oppose animal sacrifices. From those reformers Christians 
of the higher type, to whom Celsus is now addressing himself, 
had no doubt derived some positions, as the Essenes are 
thought to have done earlier. Porphyry, who himself wrote 
against blood-sacrifice, and urged as a popular argument the 
demonology here referred to by Celsus, appears to have main- 
tained in his work against the Christians that they had no right 
to reject in principle what was commanded by the Jewish law. 
The Christian Father has hardly a glimpse of this difficulty. 
Any one, he exclaims triumphantly,? who may have thought 
our position impious when Celsus was theologising on oracles, 
and we affirmed that they were works of demons, can now see 
that in the end he is obliged to agree with the Christians, “as 
if conquered by the spirit of truth.”® We can have nothing to 
do, he reiterates, with the powers that love the reek of sacrifice. 
And yet service to such a power was just as plainly commanded 
by the Jewish law as by the laws of ‘the nations ;” though it 
was opposed in passages of the prophets, as by Greek 
philosophers and reformers, from Heraclitus * onward. Origen, 
to whom names were so important, would probably have 
defended himself by distinguishing between “ angelic” and 
‘‘demonic” exactors of bloodshed; if he had not chosen 
rather to recur to his method of allegorising the law. 

To the appeal of Celsus not wilfully to provoke the anger of 
rulers, who cannot have had assigned to them the government 
of things here without some demonic might, Origen replies 
partly in language not unworthy of a philosopher, by rejecting 


1 viii. 60. 2 vill. 62. 


3 When Celsus suggests as an alternative that it may be better to regard 
the demons as really in need of nothing and as doing justice without 
favour, but as pleased with the voluntary offerings of piety, Origen finds 
that he has slipped back into falsehood under his own wickedness. Then 
he judicially concludes: doxe? 6é wor cvyxeioOar kata Tov Térov Kal bre ev 
Td ipyeuovixoy bd Tev Saudvwr TapdrTecbal, Eo bre 5é Kal ’avaynpwy ard 
ris br’ éxelvots ddoyiorlas ex’ dAlyov Te BAErew TOD ddnPovs. (Vili. 63.) 


4Fragm., 5 (Diels). 


118 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


all unmanly compliance, and partly by calling to mind that the 
Christians too have been taught that “the powers that be are 
ordained of God” (Rom. xiii. 1)* and have been commanded 
to “honour the king” (1 Peter ii. 17).” They cannot, how- 
ever, swear by the emperor’s fortune; because ‘ fortune” is 
either nothing but a name, in which case it ought not to be 
sworn by, or it is actually one of the evil demons. Celsus 
doubtless remembered that he was addressing Oriental sectaries, 
from whom the modes of thought that had given birth to the 
titles of Alexander the son of Ammon, and Ptolemy the 
Saviour, and Antiochus the God Manifest, and Divus Julius, 
were not alien; yet he shows no disposition to override the 
individual conscience, but allows, and even affirms strongly, 
that all tortures and all deaths ought to be endured in preference 
to doing or saying anything impious towards God.® But, he 
says deprecatingly, and as if hoping that esthetic feeling might 
count for something, you will show more reverence to God by 
praising the Sun or by singing a beautiful pean to Athena, 
thus going through the manifestations of divinity in detail, 
than by stopping short at a colourless devotion to the highest.‘ 

We have no objection, Origen replies, to praising the Sun, as 
a creature of God: indeed we do this of our own accord ; but, 
as we flee fables and seek truth, we cannot dissociate Athena 
(whom some may allegorise into Wisdom),’ from the manifold 
adventures of the goddess. Nor may we sing hymns except 
to God and his only-begotten Son, whom the sun and moon 
and stars also hymn. 

Then, returning to the argument about the respect to be 
paid to rulers, he quotes the warning of Celsus to the Christians 
that, in view of their attitude, it is reasonable for the 
Emperor to take measures against them. “ For if all should do 
the same as you, there will be nothing to prevent his being 
left alone and deserted, and the things on earth becoming the 
prey of the most lawless and the wildest barbarians; no fame 
being left any longer among men either of true wisdom or of your 
religion.”® And, he proceeded, it is no use your saying that 


1 viii, 65. 2 viii. 68. 3 viii. 66. 


4 viii. 66: ed dé Kede’y Tis edpnutoa Tov “HALov 4 Tiv’AOnvay mpodupd- 
TATA META KAaNOD maLavos eUpyuety, olTw Tor TéBew wadrov Sdkers TOY weyay 
Gedv, édv Kat tovode durys* Td yap OeoceBes Sia mavrwy dieivov TeewWrepov 
ylvera. 


5 viii. 67. 6 viii. 68. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 119 


if the Romans are persuaded by you, and give up their 
ancestral laws about things divine and human, your Most 
High will come down and fight for them. In spite of all the 
promises you attribute to him, his first worshippers, instead of 
being lords of the whole earth, are left without a clod or a 
hearthstone ; and you yourselves are in hiding and are sought 
out to be condemned to death.’ You fancy indeed that you 
will persuade one set of rulers after another till you have 
brought all the world under a single authority ;? but he who 
thinks it possible that the inhabitants of Asia and Europe and 
Africa, that Greeks and barbarians to the ends of the earth, 
should agree in accepting the same law, knows nothing.’ Come 
and help the Emperor with all your strength: be his fellow- 
labourers in administering justice ; fight in the army as soldiers 
and as commanders.‘ Take part in governing your country.” 
The extremely fragmentary character of the concluding 
citations is obvious on the surface. Origen’s reply, here 
especially, fills much space but can easily be brought into 
small compass. ‘If all should do the same as I,” the bar- 
barians will yield themselves to the word of God and be the 
mildest and most law-abiding of men.’ It has been foretold in 
the prophetic writings that all the nations shall be brought 
“under one yoke.” This, in its full sense, is perhaps not 
possible for those still in the body; but it is not impossible 
when they are released from the body.’ We help the emperors 
by praying for them, as we are instructed to do (1 Tim. ii. 1, 2). 
You do not make the priests of your own temples serve in the 
army, seeing that they have to keep their hands pure for 
sacrifice.8 The Christians, more than all other men, benefit 
their countries; for they train their fellow-citizens to piety 
towards the city of God, ‘taking up into a certain divine and 
heavenly city those that live well in the least cities.”® In each 
city we have a fatherland of another constitution (4X0 oternua 
rarpisos), founded by the word of God; and we call to govern- 


lviii. 69. This, it is held, fixes the time of composition of the work of 
Celsus after 177 (or 176), the date of the rescript of Marcus Aurelius here 
alluded to; while a reference in c. 71 to “‘ our present rulers” (ol viv Baoe- 
Nevovres udv) places it within the time when Commodus was 
associated in the empire (177-180). (See Koetschau’s Introduction, p. 1.) 


2 viii. 71. 3 vill, 72. 4 viii. 73. 5 vill. 75. 6 viii. 68. 
T viii. 72: kal Taxa ddnOds 4dtvarov pev Td ToLODTO Tots ert Ev TwpacL, Ov 
ny advvatoy kal aroXvGeiow avray. 


8 viii. 73. 9 viii. 74. 


120 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


ment over the churches of God those who are unwilling to 
rule, but whose fitness we recognise and therefore constrain 
them." 

Finally, Origen asks Ambrose whether Celsus fulfilled his 
promise to write another book, in which he proposed to give 
instructions to those who were willing to take his advice. If 
so, he is requested to send it, so that Origen may refute the 
false doctrine it contains, and at the same time bear witness to 
the truth of anything that is well said. 


It is not altogether because the event is known that readers 
have been impressed in the concluding passage of Celsus with 
the consciousness of impending defeat, and throughout the 
treatise of Origen with his full confidence in victory. As Plutarch 
said, that from the time of Cesar the whole drift of things seemed 
to be to monarchy, so a century or two later it might have 
been perceived that the drift was to its complement theocracy. 
Yet, if we look at the present state of the world, we shall find 
that, so far as there is a principle of rational order in it, it has 
returned to a system much more like that of Celsus than of 
Origen. Europe was indeed for a time brought under the 
“one yoke” of the “great Church,” whose law, as Origen pro- 
claimed, was to be king to the exclusion of other laws ;” but 
the new reign still left ‘“‘many unsubdued.” In Europe itself 
the turn of the tide came; and now the Western successors of 
those who adopted Christianity or had it imposed on them re- 
cognise, within limits differing little from those that Celsus and 
the statesmen of his time would have fixed, the autonomy of 
local religions. The claim of an authoritative creed to lay 
down the law within that which it considered its own sphere is 
repudiated by the principles of legislation. ‘Take for example 
the government of India, and observe whether it conforms 
more to the model of Rome in the age of the Antonines or to 
the ideal of the historic Christian Church. 

The doctrine of the ‘one yoke” is of course still repre- 
sented. It is cherished by reactionary minds in Europe; and 
it is embodied in the claims of actual institutions. The 
Papacy, the Caliphate and the Tsardom alike proclaim an 
order that is in theory universal, authoritative and revealed. 
The head of each is a spiritual descendant of the anointed — 
priest-king whose phantom, hovering over the world, has more 


1 viii. 75. 2¥. 40. 


CELSUS AND ORIGEN 121 


than once organised the hopes and fears of the multitude in 
the interests of absolute power. This ideal, though we call it 
Asiatic, does not, however, extend over all Asia. Probably 
starting, as we have seen, from Babylonia, it moved on the 
whole westward. It was promoted by the denationalising 
process carried out by Assyrian kings. It seized the imagina- 
tion of Persians and of Jews, and took form in systematic 
religious propaganda.’ At last it realised itselfin the Christian 
and to a less extent in the Mohammedan religion; in “ Holy 
Wars” for Cross or Crescent, and in the Holy Inquisition. 
Eastern Asia, though not since then wholly untouched by the 
movement, has in the meantime preserved its own types which 
are different. In India, a priestly caste secured for 
itself the highest social rank; but, being pre-eminently 
speculative, it maintained philosophic liberty, though its dis- 
tinctive philosophy began as a mystical development of religion, 
and hardly at ail went through a scientific stage like philosophy 
in ancient Greece and in modern Europe. The more 
secular-minded races of China and Japan, while preserving 
the outward form of a political theocracy—the emperor being 
held divine—placed the idea of the State and not of a Church 
uppermost. Geographical extremes therefore in a manner 
meet. The nations that have emerged from the theocratic 
order of Christendom into the  systematised religious 
tolerance of modern Europe and America have a certain 
common ground with those that have stood outside the process 
and formed themselves on a different model from the beginning. 

In spite of the industrial chaos and barbarism through which 
we are passing, a kind of “grammar,” not of ‘‘assent” but of 
a liberal order, thus appears to be secure. And on a general 
survey it does not seem likely that the forces of light will be 
overpowered by the forces of darkness. Still, it is worth while 
to remind ourselves that the ancient European civilisation, 
even in its later and on the whole inferior phase, had some- 
thing which we have not. The theoretical principles to which 
the men who practically directed affairs openly appealed as the 
highest, were those of a free philosophy, not of an authoritative 
creed. Now the unity that may for good and not for evil 
embrace the world is that which is arrived at in the end by 
the consensus of the best minds; not a unity imposed in the 
name of something outside humanity. For the order of the 


1See the works of Professors Meyer and Gunkel, referred to above. 


122 CELSUS AND ORIGEN 


universe, so far as man is concerned, expresses itself, as Celsus 
may still teach us, through human reason, and not through 
superhuman beings coming down to live among men. 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


es 


WHENEVER the time shall arrive for a final estimate of the 
doctors of Latin scholasticism, the compassion expressed by 
Dante for the virtuous and philosophic heathens whom he saw 
in Limbo’ will be transferred to them. Powerful as were their 
intellects, not even the greatest of them could achieve work 
having the permanent suggestiveness or the esthetic value we 
find even in much that is not of supreme rank in ancient and 
modern thought. Under the compressive force of authoritative 
revealed religion, the most that they could do was to prepare 
the way for happier ages by showing, through the very failure 
of all constructive effort, that their faith and their philosophy 
could not live together. In the end, positive advance came 
not from their results, but from fuller knowledge of the Greeks, 
whom they themselves, with imperfect means, had sought out 
as the masters of all science. The humanists and thinkers of 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took the right way in 
breaking, as far as might be, with the middle period. Now, 
however, that the intellectual contest has long been decided, 
even those who have least sympathy with that period, ought to 
make some attempt at doing justice especially to the figures in 
it that belonged by spiritual affinity not to their own but toa 
past or a future age. 

Among these, unquestionably, the greatest is John Scotus 
Erigena. Born in Ireland early in the ninth century, he does 
more than any one else to confirm the opinion that has found 
favour about the adventurous genius of the Celt. For, while 
frequently penetrating, through the veil of its Christianised 
version, to the genuine thought of that Neo-Platonic philosophy 
which was the last expression of Hellenism, he is even more 


* Inf. iv. 43-45. 


124 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


remarkable by his direct anticipations of Spinoza and Berkeley 
and Hegel. And these are not the casual thoughts of one who 
did not know whither they might tend. No one was ever more 
clearly conscious of what he meant to say, and of its bearing ; 
and no thinker was ever more audacious. Yet even this 
illustrates the strength of the spiritual yoke that had now been 
laid on the European mind. When Erigena comes down from 
the heights of metaphysics where he is at home to the details 
of his system, it is evident that for him there is no conceivable 
structure of life and thought but that of Catholic Christianity. 
Historical sense has disappeared. Boethius, who died in 524 
or 525, was still an ‘‘ancient.” For him, the Greek and 
Roman past presented itself in perspective. For Erigena, on 
the other side of the gulf, it is all ‘‘heathendom,” with its 
‘secular philosophers,” whose intellectual authority has sunk 
under that of the Church and its fathers. A father like Origen, 
who had shown comparative independence, he places among 
the greatest of men. And yet to the intellect of Erigena, in an 
atmosphere not fatal to criticism, it would have been evident 
that in the kingdom of thought the least among the Greek 
philosophers is greater than Origen. 

Of his own predilection for the Greeks he was perfectly 
conscious, though he fancied that it was for the ecclesiastical. 
writers whom he read, when really it was for the older thoughts 
they transmitted to him. He must have been one of the last 
in Western Europe to possess an effective knowledge of Greek 
before it ceased for six centuries. This he had no doubt 
acquired in the monastic schools of Ireland. From Ireland he 
found his way to the court of Charles the Bald, the grandson 
of Charlemagne, who placed him at the head of the royal 
school in Paris, and set him to translate into Latin the writings 
attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. To his translation, 
Erigena appended some verses in which he vigorously assailed 
papal Rome, and declared that the glory had departed to the 
Greeks and to Constantinople. This was an illusion of which 
doubtless a visit to the Greek empire would have cured him ; 
as the last Neo-Platonists were cured of their illusion that they 
would find the ideal state in Persia. The Latin West was at 
any rate alive: the double-headed system of Pope and King or 
Emperor was less deadly than the Byzantine form of theocracy, 
as events have shown. Amid conflicting wills, the division of 
power between the spiritual and the secular chiefs allowed 
modern Europe to emerge. And Erigena found in practice 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 125 


the advantage of the division. His imperial patron could 
protect him from the demand of Pope Nicholas I. that he 
should be sent to him to be examined, or at least should be 
dismissed from court... The demand may not unnaturally 
have been provoked by such verses as these. 


‘“‘Constantinopolis florens nova Roma vocatur : 
Moribus et muris Roma vetusta cadis. 
Transiit imperium, mansitque superbia tecum, 
Cultus avaritiae te nimium superat. 
Vulgus ab extremis distractum partibus orbis, 
Servorum servi, nunc tibi sunt domini. 


Truncasti vivos crudeli vulnere sanctos, 
Vendere nunc horum mortua membra soles. 


2 


But of course it would be an error to regard this as an attack 
on the order of Western Christendom. The imagination is 
already that of Dante, that an ideal Christendom had once 
existed, and that its rulers had become corrupt. 

Erigena, it appears from contemporary evidence, was not an 
ecciesiastic. He is described as a scholasticus or man of 
learning. As such he had won a great reputation, accompanied 
by suspicions of heterodoxy. These may first have arisen from 
the treatise he wrote, at the request of Hincmar, Archbishop 
of Rheims, and Pardulus, Bishop of Laon, against the ultra- 
Augustinian doctrine of predestination put forth by the monk 
Gottschalk. The treatise of Erigena De Pyraedestinatione, 
which saw the light (or the darkness) in 851, was condemned 
by the Synod of Valence in 855, and by the Synod of Langres 
in 859. These condemnations, however, had no traceable 
effect on the fortunes of Erigena, and they certainly did not 
change the spirit of his philosophising. In his great work De 
Divisione Naturae, the distinctive views of his early tract fall 
into their place as part of a comprehensive system ; and still 
more audacious positions are added to those that had called 
forth even in that age the wail, ‘‘ Putas Filius hominis 
veniens inveniet fidem in terva?”* Not till the thirteenth 
century, however, was his later work decisively suppressed. 
The reason assigned for the suppression was that the “ worms 


1 Toannis Scoti Opera, Migne, Patrol. Lat. vol. cxxii., pp. 1025-6. 


2 Opp. 1194. 
3 See the ‘‘ Monitum ad Lectorem ” prefixed to the Liber de Praedestina- 
tione. (Opp. 353-4-) 


126 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


of heretical pravity” with which it was found to swarm had 
attracted the lovers of those profane novelties that the 
Apostle gives instruction to avoid. In short, it was thought 
to have contributed to the revolt against the Church which 
had just been stamped out in blood and fire. After the 
Albigensian Crusade came the centralised Inquisition ; and, in 
1225, Honorius III. (‘“‘ Bishop, Slave of the Slaves of God, 
etc.”), with the usual preamble about the enemy who ceases 
not to sow tares, sentenced it to the flames.’ 

Thus for the later Middle Ages—for typical Scholasticism— 
the system of Erigena was unknown. [If either then or at the 
opening of the modern period it had any influence, this must 
have been indirectly, through positions of his heretical successors 
in the twelfth century, quoted by orthodox schoolmen in order 
to refute them. At last, in 1681, Th. Gale, Dean of York 
(who also edited the book De Mysteviis), coming upon a manu- 
script that had escaped destruction, published the first printed 
edition. With no long delay, the De Dzvisione Naturae 
was placed upon the Index of Prohibited Books (1685). 
Since then, however, the authorities of the Roman Church 
have decided that, as Erigena’s works are so important for the 
history of Scholastic theology, they may be officially reprinted. 
Thus the edition that students must now possesss is that of H. 
J. Floss (first published in 1853) in Migne’s “ Latin Patrology.” 
There appears to be still important textual work to do;* 
though in the edition of Floss good use was made of the 
materials available at the time. It seems only fair to recognise 
here a certain liberality; but, as may be gathered from the 
notes and preliminary essays, the condemnation passed on 
Erigena’s doctrines has been in no way withdrawn. 

The present study aims at giving some account of the 
philosophy of Erigena as set forth in his principal works. For 
us, the interest of these is that, in a dark period of European 
history, they recall the light of the past and prefigure the return 
to it. Yet, while in speculative power Erigena was probably 
inferior to no metaphysician that ever lived, we must not expect 
in the study of him more than historical interest. He cannot, 
as both late Greek and early modern thinkers still can, furnish 
us with hints for new paths to follow. Freer though he was 
than the systematisers properly called ‘‘ Scholastics” who came 

1 Opp. 439-40. 

2See J. Draseke, Johannes Scotus Evigena und dessen Gewahrsmanner 
(1902). 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 127 


after him, the superincumbent weight of religion was too heavy 
to be shaken off. The freedom he could enjoy was the spiritual 
freedom that has been found not out of reach of a prisoner. 

To form an estimate of his intrinsic power, it is instructive 
to consider the limitations in the philosophical culture of his 
age. Any History of Philosophy may be consulted for the list 
of books that he read. He possessed a portion of the Timaeus 
in the Latin translation of Chalcidius, Aristotle De Interpreta- 
tione, the Categories with the Isagoge of Porphyry; and, for 
the basis of encyclopzedic knowlodge as then understood, the 
compendia of Martianus Capella (fifth century), Boethius, 
Cassiodorus (sixth century), and Isidore of Seville (seventh 
century). Metaphysical doctrines of Aristotle he knew only 
at second hand. He was trained of course on the Latin 
Fathers, and drew much from Augustine’s Confessions and 
City of God. Works ascribed to Augustine on Dialectic and 
the Ten Categories were used by him. His favourites, how- 
ever, were the Greek ecclesiastical writers, whom he read in the 
original. Of these he is especially devoted to the Pseudo- 
Dionysius (end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century), 
and to Maximus the Confessor (seventh century), who 
depended on Dionysius and on Gregory of Nyssa (fourth 
century). This Gregory, Erigena in citing him confuses with 
Gregory Nazianzen. Through this series he derives, on the 
theological side, from the school of Origen, whose Principles 
he quotes. 

Perhaps it may be thought that the very narrowness of his 
training gave him some advantage. The discontinuity of 
culture in the West was doing what Proclus had seen the need 
of when he expressed the wish that the mass of ancient writings 
might for a time be withdrawn from the eyes of men. The 
ancient structure of thought being broken up, it was easier for 
some of its separate original ideas to go on to new phases. 
Thus Erigena could carry forward some of the ideas of Neo- 
Platonism—which, in its genuine Hellenic form, he probably 
did not know at all—to what we now recognise as a more 
modern stage. While repeating the mystical positions, he 
gives the impression of being personally very little of a mystic ; 
and he is more explicitly a pantheist, and is a pantheist of a 
more naturalistic type, than the ancient Neo-Platonists. On 
this side he may have been inspired by the poets. As is noted 
by Prof. W. P. Ker," he quotes the famous lines of Virgil on the 


1 The Dark Ages (1904), p. 163. 


128 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


immanent spirit of the world. These were afterwards the 
favourite quotation of Bruno (who of course cannot have read 
his medizeval precursor). To the new faith no positive virtue 
can be attributed in bringing on this development. Bruno 
was in conscious opposition to the medizeval view of life; and 
Erigena deliberately puts forward this side of his thought 
against what he takes for granted are the received opinions. 
If the faith had any part in the altered point of view, it was 
that of Sin and Death and Hell in the philosophy of Erigena 
himself ; these being, according to his interpretation of theo- 
logical doctrine, the negative element involved in a world- 
process leading to perfection. 


Although the whole philosophy of Erigena is contained in 
his chief work, On the Division of Nature, it is worth while 
first to give a short account of what he found it possible 
to bring out in his refutation of Gottschalk. Theologically 
as the topic of predestination was conceived, he appears from 
the beginning as a philosopher. ‘True philosophy and true 
religion, he declares, are identical." The formal statement, 
indeed, is adopted from Augustine; so that too much stress 
should not be laid on it taken by itself. But while it might 
have been applied in either direction, Erigena sets out to 
argue as a philosopher, and only in a secondary way tries to 
prove his agreement with the authorities. This gives colour 
to what in itself is a neutral assertion. 

In his references to Gottschalk, the philosopher descends to 
the conventional language of theological controversy,’ and 
professedly holds himself to be defending the Catholic faith 
against heresy. What the orthodox representatives of the 
faith thought of the defence, they were not long in showing. 

And, if Erigena’s rhetoric sometimes goes far, it must be 
remembered that he was protesting against what he himself 
describes as the ‘‘most stupid and most cruel madness” ”® 
of the position that part of the human race is, by divine 
decree, damned to everlasting fire. That there was in his 


1 Liber de Praedestinatione, cap. i. 1, 358 A: ‘‘ veram esse philosophiam 
veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam.” 

iii. 7, 369 D: ‘ Merito quippe in oleo atque pice ardere debuisti, qui 
et lumen caritatis et mysterium praedestinationis perperam docere non 
timuisti.” 

3i. 4: ‘*stultissima crudelissimaque insania.” 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 129 


inner thought no horror of heresy as such is shown by his 
contention that heresies (including that of Gottschalk) are 
useful in stirring up inquiry. * 

What had drawn down on Gottschalk the condemnation of 
the church was not precisely the cruelty of his doctrine. Here 
the question could only be between lighter and darker shades. 
The true ground of objection was the exalted and self- 
confident fanaticism that would have diminished the function 
of the priest. If there was a “ double predestination,” by 
which every man was already assigned to hell or heaven, the 
mediation of the hierarchy between man and God, though 
not necessarily made an end of in theory, became in effect 
of smaller importance. Now Erigena’s position was here not 
less dangerous than Gottschalk’s. Making divine predestina- 
tion indistinguishable from divine foreknowledge,” he is as 
thoroughgoing a determinist as his antagonist can have been. 
On the other hand, he abolishes the real hell of the theologians, 
belief in which was not Gottschalk’s heresy. God, he 
maintains, knows only the real: hence both sin and punishment, 
being unrealities, fall outside the divine knowledge and have 
no true causation.® They are—to anticipate the later result— 
passing illusions determined by the apparent separation of 
;ndividualities which are never really separate, and which will 
in the end return in appearance also to the unity of the whole. 

The practical-minded prelates who had called in a 
dialectician to help them must have been dismayed to find 
him, in his opening pages, starting off from the juridical 
problem of the Roman theologians to speculative metaphysics. 
For him “the will of God” is identical with the cause of all: 
and the logic of this does not allow him to think of God as 
a person among persons, laying down laws and rewarding 
or punishing their observance or transgression. ‘To necessarian 
antagonists it must have seemed an evasion when he argued 
that because the sum of things is a product of the will, which 
is identical with the being or nature, of God, the predestination 
in them is not “necessitated” ; since the will of God is free 


ah ee F 
2ii. 2, 361 B: ‘* Quod est ergo Deo esse, hoc est ei sapere, et quod est 
ei sapere, hoc est scire, et quod est scire, id est destinare.” The 


qualification that follows is not allowed essentially to affect this position. 


8 This is a general philosophical statement of his doctrine. Cf. iii. 3, 
366 B: ‘‘Peccatum, mors, miseria, a Deo non sunt. Forum igitur 


causa Deus non est.” 


130 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


and exempt from all constraint of necessity. What he meant 
was, that there is no difference between the real nature of 
things and the nature of God, and that this is caused by no- 
thing outside itself. The fundamental thought of Erigena 
about the causal order allows no more place than that of 
Spinoza for the possibility that anything could be other than 
itis. Evils, he grants, are also foreseen in a manner, and there- 
fore predetermined:* for, as the position was afterwards de- 
veloped, there is no actual evil that does not contain an effort 
after some good, and this is real. Nor does he altogether 
refuse to employ the term ‘necessity ” in relation to particular 
things.” The thought that love in all things loves God, that 
is, itself, ° has received a Spinozistic turn. 

Of course the argument could not remain all through at this 
high philosophic level; and much trouble had to be taken 
in manipulating the authorities. Erigena, however, finds 
general support in the theory of Augustine, derived from Neo- 


Platonism, that sin by itself has no positive nature ;* the- 


disappearance of all good being equivalent to the disappearance 
of all essence. This he developed with rigorous logic on his 
own lines, and heroically tried to make the Father agree with 
him in detail. Who, he asks, can think of contradicting 
Paul or Augustine?° He repeats that sin and death and 
eternal torments are nothing at all: wherefore they can neither 
be foreknown nor predestinated.® God’s foreknowledge or 
predestination is one with the true and positive essence of 
things. 

Still, though what is proper to evil may be only privation, 
there is the appearance to explain. Whence comes the 
appearance of sin and suffering? The answer of Erigena is 
that it comes not from any divinely created nature, but from 
a perverse motion of the individual will. As the sin arises 
from the will of each person, so does the punishment.’ 
Neither sin nor punishment comes from God.® ‘The sinner 
damns himself. And it is not the “nature” of the sinner, 
but only the perverted will, that sins and is punished. No 


Mil. 4, 5. 
2ii. 6, 364 B: ‘*Nam si omnium naturarum est necessitas Dei 
voluntas, erit Dei voluntas naturarum necessitas.” 


3 iii. 6,368 D: ‘Caritas in omnibus Deum, id est, se ipsam diligit.” 
4vii. 6. Quoted from De Libero Arbitrio. 
ee: ey Os) 50 Ck ay ae hei Pe. bm ® 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 131 


nature, as such, will be punished, and therefore none will 
be miserable. For every nature either is God or was made 
by God. Now the creative nature is incapable of misery ; 
and it cannot justly punish the natures which it created.? 
In the system of things, the evil will is prevented from finally 
attaining its end; and in this its punishment consists. As 
no nature is punished so also no nature, whether creative or 
created, punishes.” It is sin itself that punishes sin. There 
is no separate place of punishment.* ‘ Accordingly, if 
there is no beatitude except life eternal, and eternal 
life is knowledge of the truth, then there is no beatitude 
except knowledge of the truth. But whatever is believed of 
beatitude, the counterpart of this must necessarily be 
believed of its defect, which is misery. ‘Thus if there is no 
misery except death eternal, and eternal death is ignorance 
of the truth, then there is no misery except ignorance of the 
truth.” 4 

In this particular treatise, Erigena does not go forward to 
his doctrine of the restitution of all things at the end of the 
world-process. No “nature,” it is said, is damned; and all 
natures, as such, enjoy happiness. Yet, as the appearance of 
sin and punishment, found in the present life, is not said to 
cease in the future, ‘eternal damnation” is formally retained, 
if in an unorthodox sense. Sin continues to punish itself in 
the future life. A distinction exists between those that are 
predestined to life and those that are simply left to undergo, 
in their individual wills, the penalty of sin. As all have 
sinned, how is this “election” just? Why should any, even 
so, be “reprobate ?” 

The theory on which Erigena grounds his reply is that all 
individual wills were placed in the first man, and therefore can 


lyyi. 1, 418 AB: ‘*Naturam creatricem miseriae esse capacem, 
dementissimum est suspicari, Creatrix autem natura quali justitia punitura 
sit naturas, quas ipsa creavit, non invenio. Nulla dehinc natura punietur, 
non punita non erit misera.” Cf. xvi. 5, 423 A: “‘divina aequitas non 
punit, quod sua bonitas creare voluit.” 


2 xvi. 4. 

3xvii. 7, 428 D: ‘ Proinde nulla universitatis parte punitur impius, sed 
sua propria impietate in se ipso.” 

4 xvii. 9, 430 AB. 


5xvi. 6, 423 C: ‘‘In omni enim peccatore simul incipiunt oriri et 
peccatum, et poena ejus, quia nullum peccatum est, quod non se ipsum 
puniat, occulte tamen in hac vita, aperte vero in altera, quae est futura.” 


132 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


justly be punished; for each, as thus prefigured, sinned. 
That which sinned was not the general nature of man.’ A 
different view would make the punishment unjust, for in no one 
can another’s sin be justly punished. And, it is repeated, 
what sins and is punished was not substantially created by 
God.?. It was, however, involved somehow in the eternal 
order of things. To the question why the consequences of sin 
should be healed in some natures and not in others, an answer 
is assumed that appears formally orthodox. All might justly 
have been left in the general mass, but free grace was given to 
the elect. In the later treatise this is turned into a 
philosophical doctrine of the necessity that there should be a 
scale of beings in the universe. Some must be “reprobate,” in 
the sense that all cannot be gods or seraphim. None are 
deprived of happiness, but there are degrees. 

The foregoing exposition, of course, gives little notion of the 
medium through which Erigena was obliged to work his way to 
these theories. Yetit must be obvious that the language of 
the faith did not well fit them. It is interesting to observe 
that, rough as the time was, he could still make a point 
incidentally by urging the less vengeful character of human 
justice as against the theological hell. Even human laws do 
not decree that men shall sin, and then punish them for sin- 
ning ; but threaten punishments in order to deter them if 
possible, and punish to correct them.’ 

The Division of Nature, to which I now proceed, is in the 
form of a dialogue between a master and a pupil. This 
dialogue is not a catechism. ‘The pupil shares equally in the 
argument, both putting serious objections and from time to 
time taking up of his own accord the thread of the positive 
exposition. The conversation, indeed, is not dramatic in the 
sense that there is collision between different types of thought. 
The system expounded is that of Erigena and no other. Yet 


1 xvi. 3,419 BC: ‘*‘ Non itaque in eo peccavit naturae generalitas, sed 
uniuscujusque individua voluntas.” 


2 xvi. 3,420 A: “In nullo quippe vindicatur juste alterius peccatum. 
Proinde in nullo ratura punitur, quia ex Deo est, et non peccat. Motus 
autem voluntarius, libidinose utens naturae bono, merito punitur, quia 
naturae legem transgreditur, quam procul dubio non transgrederetur, si 
substantialiter a Deo crearetur.” 


> xiv, 5, 412 B: ‘‘ Quod siita est in legibus mutabilitate temporum 
transitoriis, quid putandum fieri in aeternis pietatis justitiaeque immutabili 
vigore refertis?” 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 133 


the form adopted gives the discussion a certain increased 
liveliness.’ 

The work begins by a broad statement of the “ division.” 
** Nature is the general name of all things that are and that are 
not.” Its “parts” or “species” are: first, that which creates 
and is not created ; second, that which is created and creates ; 
third, that which is created and does not create ; fourth, that 
which neither creates nor is created.? The first is God as 
principle; the fourth is God as end. The second is the 
intelligible system of causal ideas or reasons by which the 
world was produced; the third is the visible world as a 
system of effects. In reality all are substantially identical: 
each is the whole viewed ina certain aspect. This is to be 
understood when they are called parts or species or forms. 
We are obliged to use the words; but here they indicate no 
essential division or demarcation. 

Not all these points are brought out at the very beginning ; 
but, as will be seen, they are a fair summary of Erigena’s 
metaphysical position. And he transports us rapidly to the 
centre of it. ' 

A disquisition on the various kinds of “not-being” 
introduces the paradox, well-known later to the mystics, that 
that which surpasses all intellect, as well as that which falls 
below it, may be said not to be, or to be nothing. This can 
of course be traced to Plato’s idea of the good beyond being ; 
its antithesis, which is indeterminate matter, being treated as 
similarly incomprehensible. In the use of this form of paradox, 
it may be observed, the Neo-Platonists were more cautious 
than the mystics of the East or of medizval Europe. I do 
not think the assertion is anywhere flatly made by Plotinus, 
that God, or the One, both “is and is not.” The principle of 
things ‘‘is not” any of the particular things that have being ; 
though in another sense (as Erigena also says) it is all of them 
because it produces them. 

Of the remaining antitheses, the most important for its 
bearing on the argument that follows is this. In one sense, 


1This observation has been made by Noack, the German translator of 
the De Divisione Naturae. See his ** Schluss-Abhandlung ” (1876) in 
J. H.v. Kirchmann’s Phtlosophische Bibliothek, Bd. 66. In the preface 
to the translation, Noack oddly tries to claim Erigena as the first representa- 
tive of the ‘Christian German consciousness.” As in the case of 
Shakespeare, the British Islands have a prior claim. 


2 De Divisione Naturae, lib. i. 1. 


134 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


things are said to be or not to be according as they exist at a 
particular place and time among products of generation, or are 
still latent in their causes. For example, the men that are to 
be born in the future, though already existent in the creative 
reasons that prefigure them, are said not to be. In living 
things the virtue of the seed is said not to be so long as it 
keeps silence among the secrets of nature: when it has 
appeared among actual births and growths of animals, or in the 
flowers and fruits of trees and herbs, it is said to be.’ On the 
other hand, according to the philosophers, those things only 
that are comprehended by intellect are said truly to be; and 
these are the reasons of things. Generated things that appear 
at particular times and places, and are subject to change and 
corruption, are said not to be.” 

God cannot be known in essence to any intelligence what- 
ever, even angelic. What is called knowledge of God is, and 
must always continue to be, through certain ‘ theophanies.” 
The height of knowledge attainable would be to view all things, 
whether sensible or intelligible, as manifestations of God. 
Thus, while in one sense the divine nature is nothing, in 
another it is all that exists. It not only creates but is created, 
‘because there is nothing essentially beside itself; for it is the 
essence of all things.”® A similitude may be found in our 
intellect, which is said to be (esse) before it arrives at thought 
and memory, and to be made (/ievz) when it has received form 
from certain phantasies. As it becomes thus formed though 
in itself without all sensible form; so the divine essence, itself 
above intellect, is self-created in all forms of intellect and sense. 
This self-creation is identical with the creation of things. 

The same positions are more elaborately developed in a 
discussion on the two kinds of theology, the negative (¢rogarix) 
and the affirmative (xarag¢aric). The first shows how nothing 
can be predicated of the divine essence ; the second, how all 
things that are can be predicated of it. Terms like ‘“ super- 
essential,” and so forth, positive in form, have a negative 
meaning. For what is definitely asserted is “‘ not essence” ; 
what there may be beyond, remains undefined. As there is 
nothing opposite to God, so no term that has an opposite can 


li, 5. 21, 6. 


3]. 12, 454 A: ‘‘creatur autem, quia nihil essentialiter est praeter ipsam ; 
est enim omnium essentia.” 


i hie 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 135 


be predicated of him: hence not “being,” not ‘ goodness.” 
In reality this negative theology agrees with the affirmative. 
For the affirmative says, the divinity can be called this, but 
does not say, it is this properly: the negative says, it is not 
this, although it can be called this.’ 

The negative theology is carried through in the form of a 
proof that every one of the Aristotelian categories loses all its 
sense when applied to the divine nature.” Detailed discussion 
of the category of place in particular leads to its resolution into 
“‘ definition.” Every definition is contained in some scientific 
discipline, and every discipline in the mind. Hence place 
exists properly in the mind,’ and is therefore incorporeal ; as 
are indeed in the last resort all the ten categories. Erigena 
then goes on to prove that corporeal matter is nothing but a 
“composition of accidents.”* It is, as he says afterwards, put 
together from incorporeal qualities.* If common usage asserts 
the essence of things to be nothing but their visible and 
tangible body, that is only as all things known by sense or 
reason or intellect are predicated of God, though the pure 
contemplation of truth approves him to be none of these.® 
The essence underlying the composition of accidents called 
body is a certain individual unity (unum quoddam individuum), 
to be thought of as incorporeal. 

Place and time are inseparable, and without them are no 
generated things.’ All essence (o%cia ) created from nothing 
is local and temporal: local because it is in some manner, 
since it is not infinite; temporal because it begins to be what 
it was not. The “nothing” from which creation takes place, 
we are told elsewhere, is indistinguishable from the divine 


1i, 14. 


2 Erigena brings the categories under two genera, motion and rest ; and 
these again under 76 may. See i. 22. 


3i, 28, 475 B: “*Si enim definitio omnis in disciplina est, et omnis 
disciplina in animo, necessario locus omnis, quia definitio est, non alibi 
nisi in animo erit.” 

“3. 34. 

5i, 42, 484 C: ‘‘Ipsa etiam materies, si quis intentus aspexerit, ex 
incorporeis qualitatibus copulatur.” 


a A 


7i. 39, 482 A: ‘‘Itaque aliquo modo esse, hoc est localiter esse, et 
aliquo modo inchoasse esse, hoc est temporaliter esse.” 


Si. 45, 487 A. 


136 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


nature ; for there is in reality no other nature. What we are 
to understand here by the creation of particular things is that, 
before the local and temporal manifestation of an eternal 
essence, that local and temporal manifestation did not exist ; 
not that the eternal essence did not exist. ‘The manifestations, 
however, constitute all that gives determination to the essence.’ 

On matter and body, no new argument seems to be added 
to what may be found in the Neo-Platonists; and the dis- 
tinction between the technical terms has become a little 
blurred. The conceptions of formed body and of merely 
potential matter run into one another. The advance is in the 
tendency, characteristic of British thought more than of modern 
thought in general, to single out the problem of the external 
world as a specially interesting one, instead of leaving it to be 
settled by implication as part of.a total philosophical system. 
This leads to the pointed assertion that there is no “corporeal 
substance” distinguishable from the immaterial essence of the 
individual. When the concourse of phenomenal “ accidents ” 
is taken away, no reality at all remains in body as such. To 
Erigena, as to Berkeley, any other view seems almost too 
absurd for refutation.? Of course he does not anticipate 
Berkeley’s empirical treatment of the problem. 

He is fully conscious of the objections that will be raised to 
his ‘“‘negative theology,” but this does not prevent him from 
following it out to its last results. Action and passion, he 
finds, can be predicated of God only by metaphor: “and so 
in reality God neither acts nor suffers, neither moves nor is 
moved, neither loves nor is loved.”* But is not this, the pupil 
asks, opposed to the authority of Holy Scripture and of the 
Fathers? The teacher cannot be unaware how difficult it 
will be to persuade simple minds, when even the ears of those 
that seem to be wise are horrified. ‘Be not afraid,” the 
master replies. ‘‘For now we are to follow reason, which 
investigates the truth of things, and is put down by no 
authority, nor is in any manner hindered from publicly 
opening and declaring what the effort of studious inquiry 
searches into and with labour discovers.”* While the authority 
of Holy Scripture is to be followed in all things, it is not to 


11. 45, 487 B: ‘*‘ Nam et causa omnium, quae Deus est, ex his, quae ab 
ea condita sunt, solummodo cognoscitur esse; nullo vero creaturarum 
argumento possumus intelligere, quid sit: atque ideo sola haec definitio de 
Deo praedicatur, quia est, qui plus quam esse est.” 


21. 47. 3 i, 62, 504 B. 4 i, 63 fin. 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 137 


be believed that its words in their obvious meaning always 
convey the truth: rather, certain similitudes are used in order 
to raise up our yet rude and infantile senses. Hear the 
Apostle, who says: “Lac vobis potum dedi non escam.” 
Thus, while the faithful are provided with something definite 
to give a stay to their thoughts of the divine nature, reason 
goes beyond and shows that of God nothing can properly be 
asserted. And yet not irrationally, on the other side, all 
things from the height to the depth can be asserted. The 
Creator is even the cause of contraries, in virtue of what he 
has positively created ; and thus to the opposites of each good 
their place in nature is allowed till the process shall be com- 
pleted that ends by abolishing even the appearance of evil." 
After these and other explanations, the disciple feels himself 
ready, in spite of the terrors of authority, to proclaim his open 
adherence to what reason clearly establishes; ‘“‘ especially as 
such things are not to be treated of except among the wise, to 
whom nothing is sweeter to hear than true reason, nothing 
more delightful to investigate whilst it is being sought, 
nothing fairer to contemplate when it is found.” 

In the remainder of the first book, the antithetic statements 
are continued. All significant terms carried over from natura 
condita to natura conditrix, we are told, must be understood 
as predicated tvanslative only, not proprie.* It is thus when 
God is said to love and to be loved, to make and to be made. 
God is without beginning and end, therefore without motion 
or process, and therefore, since making implies movement, 
in the proper sense can neither make nor be the object of 
making.‘ But if he is conceived as a maker, then his 
making must be regarded as co-eternal and co-essential with 
him. Thus understood, his making or action is indistinguish- 
able from his essence. He alone truly is, and nothing else 
subsists by itself.° What is really signified by the words used 
in Scripture,—such as, to will, to love, to see, to hear,—is 
nothing but the ineffable essence, or rather, the more than 
essence, incomprehensible by all intellect,® On the other 
side, God is rightly said to love because he is the cause of 


1i, 66. 21. 67 fin, Fi. Oo: ok Pal 
5i, 72, 518 A: ‘* Cum ergo audimus, Deum omnia facere, nil aliud 
debemus intelligere, quam Deum in omnibus esse, hoc est, essentiam 
omnium subsistere.” 


sly § 


138 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


all love: by this love all things are held together in the 
whole and are moved towards the end of their desire. In 
short, every action and passion may be affirmed and denied 
of him alternately. Yet the denial belongs to a higher 
order of truth.” For the affirmation, as we have seen, is by 
metaphor (tvanslative); the negation, in the proper sense 
(proprie). And Erigena does not try to evade the conse- 
quence by insisting on terms like wtrepd-ya6os, imepovovos, and so 
forth. ‘‘ More than” goodness and essence, he has pointed 
out, means only ‘‘ not goodness and essence as understood by 
us.” On the other hand, when the divine essence is conceived 
as in all things, true reason compels us to say, in the words 
of Scripture but with no limited reference to the disciples of 
Christ: ‘It is not you who love, who see, who move, but 
the Spirit of your Father.” ® 

Still, however, the pupil is troubled by the question, how 
is this compatible with Holy Scripture and with the Catholic 
faith? Philosophically, it has been proved that God is no 
being along with others, and yet is all beings. But in the 
Christian doctrine of the Trinity, a series of definite assertions 
is made about the divine essence. Why this particular selec- 
tion from all possible assertions? Whenever the difficulty 
recurs (and it recurs frequently), it is met with the curt reply 
that the object of the doctrine seems to have been that 
Christians might have something distinctive to say. And yet, 
in detail, Erigena has an elaborate philosophical interpretation 
of the Christian Trinity. In his historical circumstances this 
is, of course, perfectly intelligible. | He could emphatically 
declare that reason is by nature prior to authority. True 
authority is nothing but truth found out by reason and handed 
down in written tradition for the benefit of posterity.* But 
the authority referred to was that of the Fathers (with the 
Scriptures). A philosopher of the ninth century might try 
to turn them also into philosophers to be respected by the 


1i. 75, 521-2: ‘*Deus itaque per seipsum amor est, per seipsum 
visio, per seipsum motus: et tamen neque motus est, neque visio, neque 
amor, sed plus quam amor, plus quam visio, plus quam motus. . . . Amat 
igitur seipsum et amatur a seipso, in nobis et in seipso: nec tamen amat 
seipsum nec amatur a seipso, sed plus quam amat et amatur in nobis et in 
seipso.” And so for the rest. 


21. 76, 522 B: ‘*Verius enim negatur Deus quid eorum, quae de eo 
praedicantur esse, quam affirmatur esse.” 


34, 76. 41, 69. 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 139 


after-world for their insight and discoveries; but not thus was 
the ‘‘ dogmatic slumber” of Europe to be definitively broken. 
The non-philosophical data of their system were for them its 
essence; and these no medizval thinker could in so many 
words set aside. Thus Erigena, after scaling the heights of 
reason, has to plunge again and again into the morass. 
Fortunately, this side of his thinking can be in great measure, 
though not wholly, ignored. We see how external it was to 
him in reality. 

At the opening of the second book, the teacher proves 
expressly that one identical ground is indicated by all the 
four terms of his division of nature. The division is not 
really of genus into forms or species, nor of whole into parts, 
but proceeds “by a certain intelligible contemplation of the 
universality—by the universality I mean God and creatures.” 
All may finally be brought back to a single individual unity, 
which is both cause and end. ‘The first term and the fourth, 
—namely, that which creates and is not created, and that 
which neither creates nor is created,—are evidently to be 
understood only of God, and so refer to one subject. The 
first indicates the unformed principle of all; the fourth, the 
end which all things desire and to which all return. These 
are in themselves indiscernible. Only “in our theory,” ac- 
cording to a difference of aspect, are the principle and the 
end two and not one. That which takes the second place 
in the division, namely, the nature that is created and creates, 
consists of the primordial causes “in created nature”; from 
which primordial causes the nature created and not creating 
flows as effect. The reality indicated by this third term, and 
that which is indicated by the second, as alike included in 
‘created nature,” are there one. Further, Creator and creat- 
ure, the sole self-subsistent and that which, so far as it is at 
all, is only a participation in the sole self-subsistent, are in 
reality the same: so that the reduced pairs are not to be held 
apart, but coalesce into a single unity. In the present book 
is to be discussed mainly the procession of creatures from the 
one first cause though the primordial causes or ideas." A 
warning, however, is given that, in view of the connexion of 
one aspect with another, the topics cannot be strictly limited. 

Certain distinctions of Maximus are first introduced, leading 
to the position that in man is represented every creature, 


oe A SR A ae 


140 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


visible and invisible. Here we find ourselves involved in 
mythology. Man, we are told, in accordance with the theory 
of Maximus, was originally a sexless unity, This was divided 
into the two sexes and multiplied into diverse varieties in 
consequence of the fall, but is to be restored to unity in 
Jesus Christ, “in whom there is neither male nor female.” 
A noteworthy point is the insistence of Erigena that the 
dignity of human nature has not been lost. Its character as 
the microcosm of creation is innate and indestructible.?2 The 
punishment due to the fall was inflicted not in anger, but as a 
means of bringing man back to his original state of unity. 

A difficulty is raised by the pupil as to the relation between 
the history in time thus presupposed, and the unity that never 
ceases to exist while the process including the lapse and the 
restitution is going on. For by pure intellect the world is even 
now contemplated not as a changing aggregate of diverse and 
separate parts, but as a whole immutably subsisting in its 
reasons.” To be quite clear about the solution (here only in 
part given), it is necessary to keep well in mind a whole series 
of discussions both in the present and in the later books. 
Particular statements might otherwise be found misleading. 
The general result may be thus anticipated. Erigena accepted 
the Neo-Platonic view of ‘‘ creation ;” namely, that it does not 
refer to an order in time, but in ‘“‘dignity.”* It is in this sense 
that the cause of all precedes the ideas, and that these precede 
the things of time and space. The unity remains in reality 
unbroken. The whole is always perfect: in the universe, all 
contraries are harmonised. At the same time, the datum of 
the Christian revelation is accepted, that there is a total process 
of finite and temporal things, having a beginning and an end. 
Before and after this process there is nothing but eternity. 
Erigena makes no attempt to explain this away, and even 
declares it rational: yet he nowhere gives distinct philosophical 
reasons for it. His metaphysical doctrine in truth required 


ii, 5 zzzt.: ‘*Est enim ex duabus conditae naturae universalibus 
partibus mirabili quadam adunatione compositus, ex sensibili namque et 
intelligibili, hoc est, ex totius creaturae extremitatibus conjunctus.” 


"ii. II, 539 CD: ‘* Non enim in mundo moles corporeas, spatiisque 
distentas, multiplicesque diversarum partium ejus varietates vera ratio 
considerat et honorificat, sed naturales et priiwordiales illius causas, in 
seipsis unitas atque pulcherrimas, in quas dum finis suus venerit, reversurus 
erit, et in eis aeternaliter mansurus.” 


ie Fe Si. Sa: 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA I4I 


the view that there is no limit in the past or in the future to 
the history of appearances; but, on this side, he never came 
face to face with the logic of the position. It is enough for 
him that all the reality of the world is prefigured in the eternal 
ideas. Process, involving beginning and end, can therefore 
be treated as really nothing.’ But, a Neo-Platonist would 
have said, if the mixture of illusion arises by some necessity, 
is not the necessity always the same? What ground then is 
there for assigning any limit in time to the world of mixture? 
Erigena often puts questions bordering on this, but this 
precise question he never puts. ‘The evasion, however, seems 
unconscious. And thus, it may be remarked, the opinion is 
confirmed that he did not know the original Neo-Platonists, 
whose treatment of the topic had been quite explicit. An 
attempt to sap orthodoxy by indirect methods and ironical 
phrases would have been impossible in his age. Where he 
differs from the received view, he points out the difference and 
openly defends his own. And, as a matter of course, any 
view taken is defended on the ground that it is really 
compatible with the orthodox and catholic faith, however 
strange it may appear to the vulgar. 

In an elaborate interpretation of the Mosaic cosmogony, 
contained partly in this and partly in the next book, the sacred 
writer is found to be setting forth in general the relation 
between the intelligible and the sensible world, and in detail 
the elements of physical science as this was understood in 
Erigena’s time. A long disquisition on the Trinity leads to 
the psychological theory of man. In human nature there is 
found to be the derivative trinity of ovcla, divams, évépyera, 
essentia, vivtus, opevatto; again, vols, Aéyos, didvom, 4y- 
tellectus, vatio, sensus. These trinities are the same. 
Here “sense” means internal, not external sense (aic@yo1s), 
which refers, as the Greeks say, to the conjunction of body and 
soul. Within this trinity are not included, as substantial parts 
of human nature, vital motion and the corruptible body. 
These are the results of sin; and, at the resurrection, will not 
indeed perish, but will lose their separateness and pass over 


1ii, 21, 561 A: ‘ea sola, quae aeterna sunt, ante hunc mundum fuerunt, 
et post eum futurasunt. Et nihil sub sole novum, hoc est, quicquid novum 
sub hoc mundo est, nihil est ; mundus enim iste totus novus dicitur, quia 
aeternus non est, et in tempore ortus est ; ideoque nihil est.” 


142 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


into the essential trinity of human nature.’ In paradise,— 
that is, in the archetypal state,—man’s body was spiritual, as 
it is to be after the resurrection. 

The psychology here presents nothing scientifically original. 
The intermediate position, for example, of discursive reason 
between pure intellect and sense-perception was an established 
doctrine of later antiquity, transmitted by the Greek 
Christian writers. The discussion brings us, however, to an 
interesting metaphysico-theological development. The 
human soul, it is concluded, being the image of God, 
resembles God in everything save that its essence is derivative. 
But between God and his image, asks the pupil, is there not 
also this difference ; that God knows both that he is and what 
he is, whereas the soul knows only that it is, not what: it is 
(quid sit)?* I see, replies the teacher, that you have been 
deceived by a semblance of true reasoning. For if God is 
absolutely infinite (universaliter infinitus), he must be 
indefinable not only by every creature but by himself. How 
can the divine nature understand what it is, when, as was 
shown in the first book, it can be brought under no category 
and is none of the things that exist? God does not know 
‘‘what” his nature is, because distinctively it is not anything.® 
This paradox of the ‘‘ divine ignorance,” which is the highest 
wisdom,* is further developed. One corollary is that God does 
not know evil. If he knew it, evil would have a substantial 
existence in the nature of things. ‘‘ For God does not there- 
fore know the things that are, because they subsist; but they 
therefore subsist, because God knows them.’ That is to say, 
God knows only in creating determinate existences. The 
indeterminate, whether above these like the divine essence, 
or below them like “ privation,” is unknowable. In God, to 
know and to do are the same. He knew all things that were 
to be made before they were made. ‘‘ And, what is more 


lii, 23, 571 A: ‘*In hoc enim ternario summae ac sanctae Trinitatis 
imago expressa cognoscitur.” 

"ie 27. 

3 ii. 28, 589 Bc: ‘Deus itaque nescit se, quid est, quia non est quid ; 


- . . Seipsum non cognoscit aliquid esse.”’ 


4ii. 28, 594 A: ‘‘Ipsa itaque ignorantia summa ac vera est sapientia.” 
Cf. ii.29, 598 A: ‘‘ Et in quantum se nescit in his, quae sunt, compre- 
hendi, in tantum se scit ultra omnia exaltari ; atque ideo nesciendo seipsum, 
a seipso melius scitur.” 


> ii, 28, 596 B. 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 143 


wonderful, all things therefore are because they have been 
foreknown. For the essence of all things is no other than the 
knowledge of all things in the divine wisdom.”' By an applica- 
tion of these positions, as we have seen, Erigena thought to 
banish the doctrine that God predestines to evil. The 
knowledge which God has of all that he creates does indeed 
carry with it predetermination; since the divine knowledge 
necessarily causes the existence of the things known (or is 
those things): but evil, as a falling-off from the reality of 
nature, is outside this knowledge. 

Of theology, says the master, the part called negative 
(droparixn) has now again been set forth; in which it is 
shown that God is none of the things that are and that are 
not, and knows not himself as any of them; ‘which species 
of ignorance surpasses all knowledge and understanding.” 
Under the head of the theology called affirmative 
(xaragarixy) we are offered further developments on the 
Trinity. The end of all that can be uttered about the Trinity 
in Unity, it is observed, is merely that we may have something to 
say in praise of what is ineffable.* Incidentally we meet with 
a modification of a “Johannine” thought. If human nature 
does not first know and love itself, how can it desire the 
knowledge of God?* The book ends with the reaffirmation 
that the ‘ primordial causes,” which the Father created in the 
Son, are ‘‘ what the Greeks call ideas.” They are also called 
predeterminations (poopicuara) or predestinations, or divine 
volitions (Geta #eAjuara); and are said to be the principles 
of all things because all objects of sense or thought, whether 
in the visible or in the invisible world, subsist by partici- 
pating in them.° 

The third book is specially devoted to the consideration of 
the nature which is created and does not create; but the 
desirability is recognised of first setting forth some descending 
order of the causes among themselves, though this can have 
no absolute philosophical validity. 

The order to be adopted is that of St. Dionysius the 
Areopagite in his treatise De divinis Nominibus. This order 
is discerned in the mind that contemplates rather than in 
the causes themselves. As it depends on our choice 


7, 550.6.) 7a. 30, 90. co. “Fi. Se. 4 ii, Say 1 th 26 
wm, 2,624 A: ** Ipsae siquidem primae causae in seipsis unum sunt, et 


simplices, nullique cognito ordine definitae, aut a se invicem segregatae, 
hoc enim in effectibus suis patiuntur.” 


144 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


whether we begin with one or another of the spaces into which 
a circle is divided by its radii, so, in considering the primordial 
causes, we may begin where we like. The choice has been 
made to begin with goodness as a principle. But this 
choice, says the pupil, cannot be altogether arbitrary. Nor 
is it, the teacher concedes: but he desires to avoid any 
rash promise of satisfaction, finding that he has ‘scarcely a 
place among the last followers of the great philosophers.” ? 
If possible, however, he would escape the doom of the servant 
who neglected his one talent. He will therefore venture an 
explanation why goodness comes first in the series. 

The explanation is that things are because it was good that 
they should be: it is not their mere being that makes them 
good. Goodness being entirely taken away, no essence 
remains. And it is not conversely true that, essence being 
entirely taken away, no goodness will remain. For there 
is a goodness beyond that of “beings”; which are so called 
because they fall under definite forms of intellect or sense. 
Thus goodness is more general than essence. ‘The things that 
‘‘are not” (in any circumscribed mode) are better than the 
things that “are” (as thus defined). * 

Here Erigena has thought his way back to a metaphysical 
position of Plotinus. The method which he follows of 
descending from the more general to the more special is carried 
through on the model fixed for the latest dependents on Neo- 
Platonism by Proclus. As goodness is more general than 
essence, so essence is more general than life, and life 
than reason. This, as has been said, is not in strictness 
true of the primordial causes themselves; but it has 
its application to their effects as mentally contemplated. 
For in goodness participate things that are and that are not, 
but in essence only things that are; in essence things living 
and not living, but in life only things living; in life things 
rational and irrational, but in reason only things rational. All 
the “distributions,” we are always to bear in mind, are 
united “‘ by a certain ineffable unity.” ° 

As with Proclus, so with Erigena, the outward progression 
has its complement in a return of all things to their source. * 
The difference is, on the one side, that for Proclus the relation 


liji, 1, 627 A. a7, 2: 3 iil, 3. 
4iii. 4, 632 C: ‘‘ iterumque per secretissimos naturae poros occultissimo 
meatu ad fontem suum redeunt.” 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 145 


of principle to end does not express itself by a total process in 
time ; on the other side, that for Erigena the pantheistic thought 
is more explicit. The cause of all is all.’ An analogue is 
our own intellect, which remains intrinsically invisible and 
incomprehensible while manifesting itself by certain signs. 
Hence in both cases a whole series of coincident contraries : 
‘“‘ appearance of the non-apparent,” and so on. 

The Christian dogma of creation however, brings back 
the difficulty: How is the eternal existence of all things 
in the Wisdom of God compatible with their beginning 
to be and ceasing to be in time? How can that be eternal 
which was not before it was made? ‘The supposition of a 
formless matter in which temporal things are generated from 
their eternal causes offers no way of escape, since this too 
has no origin outside God, but is among the things divinely 
predetermined. 

The teacher cannot promise a complete solution ; but he 
will go as far as thought, divinely illumined, permits, and 
then, when the mind has reached its limit, confess ignorance. * 
After some further preliminaries on the existence of the 
causes, ideas or reasons of things in the Word of God, which 
may also be called the Reason and Cause, the answer already 
hinted at is given more circumstantially. If you take 
away their eternal causes from the things that begin to be 
and cease to be in time, these are nothing, Their real ex- 
istence is identical with their ideal pre-existence.* As pre- 
existent, they are both “made,” in the all-inclusive Word, 
and eternal. As temporal, they are partly real (having eternal 
causes), partly unreal. The pupil, however, cannot all at once 
get over the apparent opposition, and restates the difficulty in 
a pointed form: ‘“ The things that are eternal never begin to 
be, never cease to subsist, and there was no time when they 
were not, because they always were; but the things that have 
been made have received a beginning of their making.” * 
Moreover, that which has begun to be must inevitably cease 


liii, 4, 633 A: ‘‘ Ambit enim omnia, et nihil intra se est, in quantum 
vere est, nisi ipsa, quia sola vere est.” Cf 634 A: ‘quae ineffabilis 
diffusio et facit omnia, et fit in omnibus, et omnia est.” 

*iii. 7. 

3iii, 8, 640 AB: ‘* Nihil enim aliud nos sumus, in quantum sumus, nisi 
ipsae rationes nostrae aeternaliter in Deo substitutae.” 

4 iii, 9, 647 C. 

10 


146 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


to be. It is not conceivable that the master has in view 
to defend the position of some who think that the visible 
creation, or part of it, will last for ever in the future 
and thus maintain a kind of ‘“semi-eternity,” in spite 
of its having had a beginning. Rather it may be con- 
jectured that he follows those who hold that, while the 
whole world will be dissolved, its incomposite nature will 
survive ; this being incorruptible because incorporeal. The 
teacher confesses that he did once accept the false opinions 
referred to; but he has retraced his steps. Then the pupil 
goes on to say that the views now commended to him on 
the authority of St. Dionysius the Areopagite are in- 
comparably deeper and more wonderful than his former 
ones. What he had held was that God alone is without 
beginning, and that all things else are not eternal but have 
been made. The new position is “yet unheard of and un- 
known not only to me but to many and almost to all. For 
if it is thus, who would not straightway break forth into this 
speech and cry out: God therefore is all, and all things are 
God! Which will be esteemed monstrous even by those who 
are thought to be wise.”* Let the doubt then be resolved, 
so that he may not sink back in thickest darkness after the 
hope has been raised of the dawn of light to be. And let 
the way of reasoning be begun with natural examples, “which 
none resists unless blinded by excess of foolishness.” 

The example given by the teacher is from the science of 
arithmetic, interpreted according to a speculative idea which 
he traces to Pythagoras.” Unity, or the “ monad,” eternally 
contains in itself, as a system of latent “reasons,” infinite 
number and all the rules by which numbers are combined. 
Number is thus, in analogy with creative deity, at once maker 
and made; maker as the monad, made in all determinate 
combinations of numbers. ‘The monad as principle is 
identical with the monad as end, into which all the numbers 
produced return when analysed. Its existence as unity does 
not cease though the production of plurality ; and all that it 
contains and makes is eternal like itself, not having its origin 
from a beginning in time. It is itself one eternal product of 
the deity, to whose action it furnishes a natural analogy. Of 
arithmetic as of the other natural arts, the created and human 


liii, 10, 650 CD. 
2 iii, 11,652 A. 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 147 


intellect is not the maker but the finder, though it finds them 
within itself, where they are produced, and not without.! 

This is only illustration. The direct reply is a restatement 
of the principle of immaterialism already affirmed.? The 
things that begin and cease to be have their true being in 
their ‘“‘ primordial causes,” which are eternal. As determined 
to a particular time and place, they are only appearances. 
To the difficulty that time and place too must have their 
primordial causes in the Word of God, so that even “accidents ” 
do not fall outside the Word, the concession is made that here 
is a mystery of which the mode is beyond investigation. All 
is no doubt predetermined, including what are to us accidents. 
Thus these too have corresponding to them a reality; but, 
difficult as the distinction may be, this reality is not to be 
confounded with the beginning and ending and _ spatial limita- 
tion of the appearances under which the causes of things are 
manifested. An illustration may be found in the incorporeal 
virtue of the seed, manifested in all that grows out of it, from 
grain to harvest. And, if any one objects that this requires a 
matter to manifest itself in, the reply is, that every manifesta- 
tion can be resolved into something in the last resort 
immaterial, such as colour, odour, and so forth.® 

Thus it is God himself who is created in all that exists. 
There is no being or not-being outside his essence. And 
within the divine nature there is nothing that is not co-essential 
with it. We must not conceive of God and the creature as 
two things standing apart from one another, but as one and 
the same.‘ ‘Eternal, he begins to be, and immoveable he is 
moved to all things,’ and in all things he is made all.” And 
this, the teacher explicitly declares, is not said of the Incarna- 
tion of the Word in human form, but of the universal theophany 


liii. 12, 658 B. 

iii. 14, 663 A: ‘*Mac. Recordarisne, quid de ipsa materia in primo 
libro inter nos est confectum, ubi ex intelligibilium coitu ipsam fiezi 
disputavimus? Quantitates siquidem et qualitates, dum per se incorporeae 
sint, in unum vero coeuntes informem efficiunt materiam, quae adjectis 
formis coloribusque incorporeis in diversa corpora movetur. Disc. 
Recordor sane. Mac. Ex rebus itaque incorporalibus corpora 
nascuntur.” 

3 iii. 16, 

4iii. 17, 678 Bc: ‘* Proinde non duo a seipsis distantia debemus 
intelligere Deum et creaturam, sed unum et id ipsum.” 


5 Movement, as with Aristotle, means change in general. 


148 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


which has neither cause nor matter nor occasion outside the 
divine nature. 

This leads to that “identification of contraries” which 
fascinated later pantheists. The two extremes of super- 
essential reality and not-being are alike formless ; and in each alter- 
nately, according to the point of view, may be seen the source of all 
that is manifested in the appearances of the visible world. 
Are they not then equally good names for the indefinable cause 
which is all and yet nothing? The Scripture seems to bear 
this out. ‘“‘ His light,” says the Psalmist, “is as darkness.” * 

Not only are the extremes identified, but the mean—that is, 
the graded variety of existing things—is declared identical with 
both. ‘‘ Accordingly the divine goodness considered as above 
all is said not to be, and to be nothing at all; yet in all things 
it both is and is said to be, because it is the essence of the 
whole universality.” Thus considered, as having passed from 
“nothing” to “something,” every category may be applied to 
it.” In descending the scale of production it is therefore made 
apparently the basest and vilest things; and to say this can 
offend those only who are unwilling to see the clear light of 
wisdom : for to the universe as a whole there is nothing vile or 
base. God is now all in all, and is not merely to be made so 
at the end of a process in time.® 

When Erigena comes down from metaphysics to physics, he 
has to educe such science as he can from the account of the 
six days’ work in the Book of Genesis. Throughout the 
exposition, he insists that the six days are not to be under- 
stood of an order in time, but of an intelligible order 
of causation. ‘The visible world issued as a whole, and not 
part by part, from its invisible primordial causes.* Here again 


AGH. SRO. 

iii. 19,681 D. Cf.681 A: ‘* Dum ergo incomprehensibilis intelligitur, 
per excellentiam nihilum non immerito vocitatur. At vero in suis 
theophaniis incipiens apparere, veluti ex nihilo in aliquid dicitur procedere, 
et quae proprie super omnem essentiam existimatur, proprie quoque in 
oni essentia cognoscitur, ideoque omnis visibilis et invisibilis creatura 
theophania, id est divina apparitio potest appellari.” 


Sill, 20, 683 B: ‘*Acsic ordinate in omnia proveniens facit omn a, 
et fit in omnibus omnia, et in se ipsum redit, revocans in se omnia, et dum 
in omnibus fit, super omnia esse non desinit.” 


45i1. 27,699 C: ‘‘decausis adhuc incognitis, ac veluti formis adhuc 
carentibus omnium rerum visibilium conditio, nullis temporum spatiis vel 
Jocorum interpositis, simul in formas numerosque locorum_ et 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 149 


it is explicitly declared that the cause and the effect are in 
reality identical.! Against those who, professedly founding 
themselves on Scripture, say that the heaven with its stars, the 
ether with the planets, the air with its clouds and winds and 
lightnings, the water and its fluctuant motion, earth likewise with 
all its herbs and trees, are without soul and every kind of life, 
he cites Plato and his disciples;* who not only assert a 
general life of the world, but also confess that no bodily thing 
is deprived of life, and have had the hardihood to give to this 
life, whether general or special, the name of soul. This 
position he defends at length, arguing that the “ most universal 
soul,” or ‘ most general life,” penetrates all that exists, even 
what appear to our senses to be dead bodies ; and this it does 
in a manner of which the all-diffusive power of the solar rays 
furnishes an imperfect similitude. 

While protesting that he would avoid the appea ‘1c€ 
“following the sect of Plato,”* he again takes up the position 
that man is a microcosm, uniting in himself the intellect of 
angelic spirits (in terms of the Christian transformation of 
Platonism) with the discursive reason peculiar to himself and 
the sensitive and nutritive life of the animal and of the living 
germ that is in all things.‘ So far as this book is concerned, 
he seems to be on the way to a doctrine like that of the 
Arabian philosophers who held that the only human immor- 
tality is the immortality of the race and its general mind. At 
least in explaining the unlikenesses among men, he brings in 
no intrinsic difference between one human soul and another, 
but lays down the position that all manifested unliknesses are 
due to accidents of time and place and circumstance; the 
“substantial form” of human nature being one and the same 
in all.2 We may infer, however, from portions of the later 


temporum producta est.” Cf. 31, 709 D: “ ipsa natura simul 
in omnes coepit currere creaturas, nec ulla alteram locorum seu temporum 
numeris seu spatiis praecessit.” 


liii. 28, 704 B: ‘* Aliter enim in causis, aliter in effectibus una eademque 
res theoriae speculationibus intimatur.” Cf. 25, 693 AB. 


2iii. 36, 728 A: ‘* Plato, philosophorum summus, et qui circa eum 
sunt.” 


Sil, 37, 732 D. 

4iii. 37, 733 B: ‘non immerito dicitur homo creaturarum omnium 
officina, quoniam in ipso universalis creatura continetur. Intelligit quidem 
ut angelus, ratiocinatur ut homo, sentit ut animal irrationale, vivit ut 


germen, corpore animaque subsistit, nullius creaturae expers.”” 
5 iii. 27, 703 BC. 


150 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


books, that he retained in theory as well as in dogmatic belief 
something of the metaphysical “individualism” of his Platonic 
predecessors, Hellenic or Christian. Whatever his doctrine 
may be, it is applied equally to the souls of animals. On 
purely philosophical grounds, he decides that these do not 
perish with their bodies. Incidentally he points out the 
difficulty of reconciling the absolute unlikeness assumed 
between man and brute with the evidences that have been 
collected of animal intelligence.” The main argument, how- 
ever, is from the relation of species to genus. The highest 
genus in which living things participate is the primordial life 
or soul. Nowif the species included under this perish in part, 
the whole loses its integrity. If, for example, the only species 
left were to be man, that would not be the preservation but the 
ruin of the genus. And if the genus is a substantial unity, how 
can it perish? By participation in this, then, the life or soul 
of every species must be supposed to remain after the destruction 
of the particular bodies it governs. Erigena recognises that the 
authority of eminent Fathers is against him: but he conjectures 
that they put forward in public the doctrine they taught, not 
because they were careless about the investigation of truth, but 
in order to deter the unwise among men from imitating 
irrational animals. With this aim, they represented them as 
viler than they are. And indeed, as not having the distinctive 
characteristics of man, the lower animals are not fit objects of 
human imitation, though they no less contain a reality that is 
imperishable. 

The fourth and fifth books, comprising nearly half the entire 
work, treat of ‘the return of all things into that nature 
which neither creates nor is created.”? The difficulty 
of this, the master says, is such that, in comparison with it, 
what has gone before may seem plain sailing in an open sea. 
Yet, in spite of all the syrtes and the hidden rocks that 
beset the passage, he ventures to promise, under divine 
guidance, safe arrival in port. The disciple is eager to con- 
tinue the voyage; declaring that reason experienced in this 
deep (vatio pevita hujus pontt) gains more delight from the 
exercise of virtue in the secret channels of the divine ocean 
than from the smooth and leisurely course that is insufficient 
for the disclosure of its strength. 

Modern readers too will find this second part more difficuit 


1 iii. 30. Ziv. 2, 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA I51 


and complex than the first ; and they will not fail to recognise 
the particular syrtes and hidden rocks that are the cause. 
In Erigena’s statement, however, there is no irony. We 
must not forget that, deeply as he sought to transform it, he 
accepted the account of man’s creation and fall and redemption 
given by the Christian creed as in some sense a divine 
revelation. Thus he takes for granted that a theory of reality 
can be conveyed by a rational interpretation of the faith. 
This makes the genuinely, if not completely, philosophical 
character of his theorising the more remarkable; as appears 
especially when it is cleared (so far as possible) of the 
Scriptural and patristic developments in which it is frequently 
immersed. 

A profound thought that presents itself detached from these 
is the idea of a “ dialectic” running through nature. The 
art which divides genera into species and resolves species 
into genera, is found to be no mere human contrivance, but to 
have been established in the nature of things. Thence it 
was discovered by the wise and turned to account for its use 
as an instrument of investigation.’ It hardly needs pointing 
out how on one side this suggests the Hegelian Dialectic; on 
the other, Mill’s “‘ Natural Kinds.” 

The principle laid down for the interpretation of Scripture 
is not in itself different from that of many orthodox 
Fathers and Doctors. There was general agreement that 
the sacred writings may yield the utmost variety of senses. * 
Whether the particular interpretation adopted was, in the 
opinion of ecclesiastical authority, legitimate, depended not 
on the method but on the result. If the most strained and 
violent allegorising yielded orthodox doctrine, no fundamental 
objection was raised. Criticism, in our sense, was as com- 
pletely absent as in the ascription of documents to apostolic 
authors by the early Church. And often, so far as I am 
aware, nothing would be said against Erigena’s procedure. A 
case in point may, I suppose, be found in his development 
of the Pauline pneumatology in the sense of the Neo-Platonic 
antithesis between body and immaterial soul and mind, and 
the reading of this into the double account of creation in 


liv. 4. 


2iv. 5, 749 C: ‘‘ Est enim multiplex et infinitus divinorum eloquiorum 
intellectus. Siquidem in penna pavonis una eademque mirabilis ac pulchra 
innumerabilium colorum varietas conspicitur in uno eodemque loco 
ejusdem pennae portiunculae.” 


152 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


the Book of Genesis. Here modern criticism detects two 
documents, in one of which man was described as created 
with the animals but last of the series, in the other as 
separately created before them. Erigena sees quite plainly 
the facts that are the basis of the modern theory; but regard- 
ing the whole as revealed, finds in the double account an 
indication in what manner man is an animal and a spirit, and 
both at once. 

The heterodoxy comes in when he approaches his theory of 
the restitution of all things. To this the fourth book is mainly 
preliminary, giving an interpretation of the Creation and Fall ; 
but soon we perceive his preoccupation with the theory already 
in part set forth in the De Praedestinatione, that no real nature 
is to be finally lost.’ As this theory logically requires, every 
reality, of whatever kind, is held to be prefigured in the 
creation. The conclusion is here already involved: all that 
exists being predetermined, the process must end in the 
complete preservation of all reality in its perfection for ever. 
There is, for Erigena, a beginning of process in time; but 
there is no historical fall of man. Both the devil and man, 
as he puts it, fell without temporal interval.2 There was 
no primeval perfection of human nature in a local paradise, 
but only in the archetypal idea. There was no actual or 
appreciable time during which man lived without sin.’ 
His “fall” consisted in descent from the state of an idea, 
prefigured in the divine mind, to the conditions of birth. 

Even man’s body, so far as it is truly body, ‘subsists in its 
reasons.” It was not sin that made an animal of man, 
but nature.’ As has been said, God created every creature, 
both visible and invisible, in man. The reality or substance of 
the human mind is not other than its notion in the divine 
mind.® And, as the internal notion of things in the human 
mind is the substance of those things of which it is the notion, 
so the notion by which man knows himself is his substance. 7 


tiv. 5,760 C; ‘* Non enim divinae justitiae est visum, ex eo, quod fecit, 
quidquam perire, praesertim cum non ipsa natura  peccaverit, sed 
perversa voluntas, quae contra naturam rationabilem irrationabiliter 
movetur.” 
2iv. 20. 3iv. 15 ff. 4iv. 5, 759 B. Siv. 7, 763 A, 


Siv. 7,768 B: ‘‘ Possumus ergo hominem definire sic : Homo est notio 
quaedam intellectualis in mente divina aeternaliter facta.” 


Tv. 9,770 A. 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 153 


The notion of man in the divine mind, and the notion which 
he has of himself, though both called “ substances,” are not 
to be understood as two, but as one substance viewed ina 
twofold manner.* The existence of the human mind, and 
its self-knowledge, are coincident. And the knowledge it 
has, even if only of its own ignorance, suffices to prove the 
existence of the self. In a remarkable passage, Erigena, after 
Augustine, gives vigorous personal expression to that notion 
of “consciousness” which had gradually become clear to the 
ancient schools, and which was afterwards to be made by 
Descartes the methodical beginning of a new movement.” 

The self-knowledge of man in the primordial causes before 
time is general, not of any particular human mind. Human 
nature is there a unity without distinction of individuals. The 
self-knowledge of the particular human mind is a knowledge 
of itself in relation to time and place, and does not exist 
before these. 

Human and even animal sense, Erigena says with Augustine, 
is superior to the greatest splendour of the visible world 
regarded as devoid of life.* As we have seen, however, he 
does not in his own theory so regard it. The antithesis here 
is between sense and body in abstraction. The position to 


liv, 7, 770-1: ‘Disc. Duas igitur substantias hominis intelligere 
debemus unam quidem in primordialibus causis generalem, alteram in 
earum effectibus specialem. Mac. Duas non dixerim, sed unam dupliciter 
intellectam. liter enim humana substantia per conditionem in in- 
tellectualibus perspicitur causis, aliter per generationem in effectibus.”’ 


2iv. 9, 776 B: ‘* Scio enim me esse, nec tamen me praecedit scientia 
mei, quia non aliud sum, et aliud scientia, qua me scio; et si nescirem 
me esse, non nescirem ignorare me esse: ac per hoc, sive scivero, sive 
nescivero me esse, scientia non carebo; mihi enim remanebit scire 
ignorantiam meam. Et si omne, quod potest scire se ipsum nescire, non 
potest ignorare se ipsum esse ; nam si penitus non esset, non sciret seipsum 
nescire : conficitur omnino esse omne, quod scit se esse, vel scit se nescire se 
esse.” 


3iv. 9, 776-7: ‘‘ Nam in illa primordiali et generali totius humanae 
naturae conditione nemo seipsum specialiter cognoscit, neque propriam 
notitiam sui habere incipit ; una en‘m et generalis cognitio omnium est ibi, 
solique Deo cognita. Illic namque omnes homines unus sunt, ille profecto 
ad imaginem Dei factus, in quo omnes creati sunt.” 


4iv. 10, 784 D: ‘‘ Nam si melior est anima vermiculi, ut sanctus Pater 
Augustinus edocet, guam corpus solare totum mundum illustrans ; vita 
siquidem extrema, qualiscunque sit, primo corpori pretiosissimoque 
dignitate essentiae praeponitur: quid mirum, si omnia totius mundi cor- 
pora humano sensui postponantur.” 


154 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


be enforced is that the whole soul, and not merely its higher 
part, called spirit or mind or intellect, was made in the image 
of God. This follows from its being all in the whole and all 
in every part, not only of the body but of itself. For (as had 
been shown in the ancient psychology) no mental “ faculty” is 
isolated ; in each the whole soul expresses itself. ‘* But in 
two modes above all we know the human soul made in the 
image of God: first, because, as God is diffused through all 
the things that are, and can be comprehended by none of 
them, so the soul penetrates the whole instrument of its body, 
yet may not be enclosed by it ; in the second place, because, 
as of God is predicated only being, but in no manner is it 
defined what he is, so the human soul is only understood to be, 
but what it is neither itself nor other creature understands.” 

The material and external body, due to sin, is as a kind of 
vestment of the internal and “ natural,” identified by Erigena 
with the “‘spiritual,” body. ‘ For it is moved through times 
and ages, suffering increase and loss of itself, while that 
remains ever immutably in its internal state.” Corporeal 
individuality is treated as one of the secondary things befal- 
ling man “from the qualities of corruptible seeds.”* And yet 
of this too there is something that remains. When the cor- 
ruptible body is dissolved, a certain form of it endures in the 
soul, and preserves a relation to the material elements into 
which the body has been decomposed.* In the creation, the 
consequences of sin were provided for before it happened.’ 
The bad will precedes the act: hence man was never without 
sin, as he never subsisted without mutable will. For even the 
irrational mutability itself of free-will, because it is the cause 
of evil, is necessarily a kind of evil.® 

Thus in the original ‘“ paradise”—interpreted as meaning, 
not a place, but ideal human nature created as a whole— 
everything was prefigured. By the man placed in paradise 
was meant intellect (oss); by the woman, sense (aic@nos).” 


liv, 13, 788 A. 2 iv. 12, 802 A. 

3 iv. 12, 801 CD: ‘ Universaliter autem in omnibus corporibus humanis 
una eademque forma communis omnibus intelligitur, et semper in omnibus 
incommutabiliter stat. Nam innumerabiles differentiae, quae eidem formae 
accidunt, non ex ratione primae conditionis, sed ex qualitatibus corrup 1- 
bilium seminum nascuntur.” 

Ses, OTe, 5a 1 

Siv. 14, 808 C: ‘*Nam et ipsa irrationabilis mutabilitas liberae volun- 
tatis, quia causa mali est, nonnullum malum esse necesse est.” 

7 iv, 16, 815 D. 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 155 


This interpretation is adopted from Ambrose; who, as 
Erigena thinks, follows Origen, though he does not cite him 
by name. In the allegory is to be understood sometimes 
“internal,” sometimes “external,” sense. External sense, 
however, is not a part of the primal human nature, but is 
superinduced. Evil (as Erigena uniformly teaches) has no 
existence in itself, but is found only where falsity has its seat ; 
and the recipient of error is no other than the external sense, 
by which the parts of human nature properly so called are 
deceived. This is indicated by the “tree of knowledge,” 
which is a mixed thing. So far as it is good, it comes from 
God: so far as it is evil, it is in reality nothing, and can be 
referred to no cause. 

The difference between the good and evil in the mixture 
may be seen by considering, for example, a golden vase 
adorned with gems, viewed by one who is wise and by an 
avaricious man. The former will find the nature of the 
phantasy all good, referring the beauty of the vase simply to 
the praise of the creator, and will feel no temptation of personal 
desire ; the latter will be inflamed with cupidity, ‘‘the roct of 
all evil.”? The meaning of the forbidden fruit is that intellect 
and sense (figured as the man and the woman) are prohibited 
from the undiscriminating appetite for good and evil, infixed 
in imperfect souls from the delight in the beauty of material 
things.* Before the visible creature is delighted in, the praise 
ought to be referred to the Creator. When man through 
pride disregarded this due order, when he placed the love and 
knowledge of the Creator after the external beauty of the 
material creature, he took the way to perdition.‘ 

The theory derived by Erigena from Maximus, and here 
again introduced,”® that if man had not fallen he would have 
been multiplied like the angels, without the union of the sexes, 
is declared by the Catholic editor to be theologically heterodox. 


liv. 16, 826 B: ‘Nulla enim alia pars humanae naturae falsitatis 
errorem recipit praeter sensum exteriorem, siquidem per ipsum et interior 
sensus, et ratio, ipse etiam intellectus, saepissime fallitur.” 


2 iv. 16. 


3iv. 18, For all that, Erigena can recognise that the beginning of 
knowledze is in sensible experience. Cf. iv. 25, 855 B: ‘‘omne studixm 
sapientiae, omnisque mentis conceptio, puraque veritatis cognitio a sensi- 
bus corporis auspicium sumunt, ab inferioribus ad superiora, et ab exteriozi- 
bus ad interiora ratione gradatim ascendente.” 


4 iv, 22. F iv, 23 


156 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


Philosophically the interesting point is, whether the archetypal 
unity of the human race, as Erigena understands it, excludes 
real individuality. Now the reference to multiplication 
(whatever the theory may mean for a theologian) evidently 
decides against this view. Since the species, even if retaining 
its archetypal perfection, is to be thought as multiplying itself, 
it must have implicitly contained the individuals, ideally pre- 
figured. 

The individualism which, in the last resort, has not been 
expelled from Erigena’s system by his stress on the primal 
reality of genus and species, becomes most marked in the 
fifth book. Here, after the preliminaries of the fourth book, a 
full and positive theory is expounded of the return of all 
things to their principle, which is also their end. In what is 
said in Genesis of the ‘tree of life,” the return of human 
nature to its original state is found to be indicated.* This 
return of man (in whose nature all creatures are included) is to 
be for ever.” Things visible and invisible, in spite of their 
apparent departure, always indeed remain in their original 
unity. When they have finally returned and are one in the 
divine nature, “as now and ever they are one in their 
causes,” no nature further will be produced: whence the 
divine nature into which they return is rightly said not to 
create ; as it is said not to be created because it is the cause 
which has no principle beyond.® 

Arguments for the return are first drawn from sensible 
things. The rhythm alike of astronomical and of vital motion 
furnishes an analogy with which a total movement of the whole 
from beginning to end appears to be in agreement. The 
words principium and finis, of course, make it easy to identify 
on the one hand the temporal beginning with that which is 
held to be the ever-present cause or principle of all movement, 
and on the other hand the final cause or object of desire with 
a temporal end in which things attain rest. The metaphysical 
principle being conceived as identical with the end, the notion 
is further suggested of a corresponding identity between the 
primal and the ultimate state of the universe. Yet, in this 


Le 2 


2v. 2, 862 D: ‘‘nunquam ad egestatem temporalium rerum, quae 
omnino cum mundo peribunt, reversurus, totus in Deum transiturus, et 
unum in illo futurus.” 


Oi. 19.27. 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 157 


book also, the whole is declared to be always perfect.1 For 
Erigena no less than for Proclus, the “ov? coexists with the 
mpdodos and the émwo7pogy (though Erigena does not know 
these particular terms). And the analogy of visible things is 
not consistently carried through. For we have no knowledge 
of any actual cycle that closes with a final rest of the visible 
agents. As Bruno said after the Ionians, the end of one pro- 
cess is the beginning of another. Thus, if the analogy of the 
parts were applicable to the whole, a repeated rhythm would 
be demanded, not a single world-process. But the real ground 
of the theory isa dogma. Erigena is seeking for confirmations, 
and not simply ‘following the argument.” We can guess 
what his system might have been earlier or later ; but, as it is, 
he accepts a datum not purely philosophical, and not scientific 
even as science was understood. 

The true tendency of his speculation may be seen in what 
he brings forward to illustrate recurrence in the “ intelligible” 
order that is the object of the “liberal arts.” The divisions 
of Dialectic, he points out, start from ovcla and are brought 
back to it through the same stages. Arithmetic begins with 
the monad and resolves all numbers again into this. 
Geometry proceeds similarly in relation to the point; Music in 
relation to the single note; Astronomy in relation to the in- 
divisible unit by which it measures spaces of time. In 
Grammar and Rhetoric, the remaining two of the seven liberal 
disciplines, he goes on to say, examples have not been sought ; 
because, on the one side, they are attached to Dialectic as 
subordinate members; and because, on the other side, they 
do not treat of the nature of things, but rather of human rules 
of custom, or of special causes and persons. Not that they 
entirely want principles of their own: for Grammar may be 
said to begin and end with the letter, Rhetoric with the 
“hypothesis,” or determined question which is beyond con- 
troversy for the disputants.” 

In all this, clearly, there is no reference to an order in 
time. And the same is true of what follows concerning human 
nature. This, says Erigena,® through all its corruption has in 
no wise lost the integrity of its essence, by which it is in union 


ly, 35, 954 C: ‘* Aliud est enim considerare singulas universitatis partes, 
aliud totum. MHinc conficitur, ut, quod in parte contrarium esse putatur, 
in toto non solum non contrarium, verum etiam pulchritudinis augmentum 
reperitur.” 
By, 4, 3 ¥. 6. 


158 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


with God; nor can it lose it. His view here closely resembles 
that of Plotinus regarding the ‘pure soul,” which remains 
exempt from all sin and suffering, while the “composite 
nature,” produced by the association of soul and body, pays 
the penalty of what has been done amiss. Our nature, 
Erigena says in the same spirit, has not been lost or changed, 
but discoloured with the deformity of vices.’ From this “ fall,” 
however, it is to return by stages. 

Without attempting wholly to extricate the philosophy from 
the mythology, we may proceed to the development of the 
theory as it stands. 

The essence of sensible things will remain perpetually ; 
because it was made in the divine wisdom beyond all times 
and places and all mutability; but what is generated at times 
and places will perish, after an interval determined by the 
Maker of all. To this end of preservation in their “ reasons ” 
from which they set out—not in their circumstances of place 
and time—all men aspire, and it cannot be supposed that they 
will rest till they have attained it. The whole of human 
nature will be finally liberated from death and misery, though 
it will not be equally blessed in all.” 

The stages of reversion are five: (1) When the body is 
resolved into the four elements from which it was composed, 
and the soul thus liberated ; (2) When each receives back his 
own body at the resurrection; (3) When the body shall be 
changed into spirit; (4) When the spirit, or more expressly, 
the whole nature of man, shall return into its primordial 
causes, which are ever and immutably in God; (5) When 
nature itself with its causes shall be moved (1.¢., transformed 
into God, as air illuminated is transformed into light.® 

This transformation of man and of all things into God does 
not mean that their finite substance is to perish, but that they 
are to be carried over by degrees into a fuller existence. The 


I 'y,-6,'873 A: 

2 y. 3, 868 B: ‘‘Hoc autem dicimus, non quod natura in omnibus 
equaliter futura sit beata, sed quod in omnibus morte et miseria futura sit 
libera. Esse enim et vivere et aeternaliter esse commune erit omnibus et 
bonis et malis; bene autem et beate esse solis actione et scientia perfectis 
proprium et speciale erit.” 

Sy, 8. 

4v. 8, 876 B: **Quomodo enim potest perire, quod in melius probatur 
redire? Mutatio itaque humanae naturae in Deum non substantiae in- 
teritus aestimanda est, sed in pristinum statum, quem praevaricando per- 
diderat, mirabilis atque ineffabilis reversio.” 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 159 


end is not a confusion of substances, but a union in which 
each retains its identity." Examples of such union without 
confusion are found in the different individuals of a species, 
the species of a genus, the genera of the same essence (otcla), 
the numbers implicit in the monad, the lines implicit in the 
point.” It is illustrated in simultaneous vision of the same 
object by many persons; there being no confusion of the 
perceptions, though all refer to one thing.® So also different 
musical sounds do not lose their particular qualities when com- 
bined in a single harmony. And if, as has been said, the 
qualities of visible things are in reality incorporeal, and terrene 
bodies are formed by a heaping up of these incorporeal 
qualities, what difficulty is there in the final resolution and 
return of all that has been thus put together into the incor- 
poreal, which is the real ? 

The pupil here raises the question, whether all things do 
not, throughout the processes of generation and corruption, 
remain permanently in their causes; the going forth to the 
procreation of visible things, and the return, being only an 
affair of places and times and accidents. Is not substance 
always in reality free from these, as finally it will become free 
from their appearance? Yes, answers the master. All that 
begins in. time by generation must have an end; but this does 
not affect the incorporeal and intelligible grounds of corporeal 
and sensible things.® 

The extension of bodies will perish ; and so also will time, 
with motion, of which it is the measure. Before and after the 
world, there is neither place, in this sense, nor time, but only 
eternity. Place understood as mental definition, on the other 
hand, is not among the things that perish. Although, when 
the world has returned to its source, places and times no 


ly. 8, 879 A: ‘*Non enim vera ratio sinit, superiora inferioribus vel 
contineri, vel attrahi, vel consumi. Inferiora vero superioribus naturaliter 
attrahuntur, et absorbentur, non ut non sint, sed ut in eis plus salventur, et 
subsistant, et unum sint.” Cf. 880 A: ‘‘ Naturarum igitur manebit pro- 
prietas, et earum erit unitas, nec proprietas auferet naturarum adunationem, 
nec adunatio naturarum proprietatem.” 


29, 10. 
we, 32 
oy, 52. 
5 y, 14. 
Sy, 18. 


160 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


longer exist, there remain the “‘simple and unmixed reasons 
of places and times.” * 

What is dwelt on in the end is the preservation rather than 
the absorption of differences.” The “ effects ”—namely, visible 
things—are to perish only by returning to their causes, and 
not by becoming simply non-existent.* The “annihilation ” 
of local and temporal forms, which are mere appearance, 
means the restoration of the things manifested under them 
to their true reality. In their causes and reasons, “all 
animals must be said to be more animals than in the corporeal 
and sensible effects themselves. For where they subsist, there 
they are truly animals. Similarly it is to be understood 
regarding all sensible things, whether celestial or terrene. 
Since the things that are varied in places and times and fall 
under the bodily senses, are all of them not to be under- 
stood as the substantial and truly existing things themselves, 
but as certain transitory images and echoes of these.”* This 
is illustrated by the transmutation of the passions into the 
virtues of the soul, and their preservation at this higher stage. 
Why then, Erigena asks, may not irrationality itself be 
transmuted (in the reunion of the whole) into the height of 
rationality ?° 

He thence goes on to deny the perpetuity of evil as an 
object of punishment. At the consummation of things, all 
evil, whether in the human race or in the demons, will be 


ly, 23,906 AB: ‘‘Mundus quippe peribit, nullaque ipsius pars 
remanebit: ac per hoc neque totum. Transibit enim in suas causas, ex 
quibus processit, in quibus neque loca sunt, neque tempora, sed locorum 
temporumque simplices sinceraeque rationes, in quibus omnia unum sunt 
neque ullis accidentibus discernuntur. Omnia enim simplicia, omni com- 
positione substantiarum accidentiumque carentia, et ut sic dicam, unitas 
simplex, et multiplex adunatio omnium creaturarum in suis rationibus et 
causis, ipsarum autem causarum et rationum in Verbo Dei unigenito, in 
quo et facta sunt et subsistunt omnia.” 


2y. 21. ‘Plane perspicio,” the disciple comments, ‘‘ non aliud esse 


mundo perire, quam in causas suas redire, et in melius mutari.” 


3y, 25, 913 B: ‘‘ per inhumanationem Filii Dei omnis creatura in caelo 
et in terra salva facta est. Omnem vero creaturam dico corpus, et vitalem 
motum, et sensum, et super haec rationem et intellectum.” 


4v. 25, 913-14. 

5y, 25, 916 BC: ‘‘Si ergo passiones, quas rationabilis natura ex 
irrationabili in seipsam deduxerat, in naturales animae possunt mutari 
virtutes, cur incredibile sit, ipsam irrationabilitatem in altitudinem 
rationabilitatis transmutari ?” 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 161 


abolished. The heterodoxy of this, the Catholic editor 
remarks, scarcely needs pointing out.* Erigena, while trying, as 
in the De Praedestinatione, to educe it from Augustine’s 
borrowed doctrine that evil is no true being, but a negation of 
being, appeals more especially to “the blessed Origen,” * 
whose treatise 7p! “Apxév he cites at considerable length. * 
Not the substance, but only the hostile will, of the enemies of 
the good, whether men or demons, is to be destroyed. The 
evil of punishment, fixed and retained for ever at the end of 
the whole process, the teacher argues, would mar the perfection 
of the “last things.” The conception of hell itself, so long 
and so far as it continues to exist, he spiritualises by treating 
it as not a place, but the vain remorse of an evil conscience, 
or the state of the bad will deprived of the means of doing 
evil.‘ 

This interpretation the pupil accepts; but he raises the 
difficulty, in what subject is the punishment. If all 
“substance,” as created by God, is impassible and incor- 
ruptible, it cannot be this that is punished: neither can the 
punishment be that of a mere ‘“‘accident,” without subject. 
A third position, it is shown, remains; namely, that “ vice, 
which is not, is punished, yet in something which is, and is 
impassible, since it is not permitted to suffer pains.”® The 
impassible subject of the pains imposed on its accidents, 
Erigena speaks of as “humanity”; thus again suggesting the 
peculiar form of Realism held afterwards by Arabian 
philosophers. This general and all-inclusive human nature he 
compares to the solar light, uncontaminated by contact with 
impurities ;® and to the element of air, vitalising all breathing 
things, and in its own substance unaffected by mixture with 
gross exhalations from the lower world.’ 

If we were to take certain passages by themselves, it might 
be thought that everlasting punishment in some form was 
maintained. The ambiguity comes from the necessity of 


1a, quae Joannes Scotus jam de abolitione mali deque poenis ac 
suppliciis impiorum, sive hominum, sive demonum, cet. disputat, veritati 
catholicae omnino repugnare, vix est, quod moneamus.” (p. 918, note a.) 


2y, 27, 922 C. _ 3¥v, 27, 929-30. 4¥v. 20. 

Sy. 30, 940 D. Cf. 31, 943 C: ‘*Ipsa siquidem natura, sicut libera 
est, penitusque absoluta ab omni peccato, ita universaliter libera et 
absoluta est 2b omni poena peccati.” 

Sy, 31, 942 D. 7¥, 31, 947-8. 
+t 


162 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


using the consecrated theological language. Erigena, I take 
it, meant his explanation of what ‘the letter” calls eternal 
torments to refer only to what goes on while the world is in 
process. The ultimate cessation of hell is plainly implied. 4 
Those who hold the common opinions, he describes as 
“‘transfusing the gifts of nature and of grace into the cruelty 
of vengeance.”” What is spoken of as divine infliction of 
penalties is a kind of “spiritual medicine” to bring back the 
creature, weary of mutable things, to the immutable forms of 
true reality.® And, he adds, repeating the doctrine already 
set forth, the perverse movements of the will, which are 
punished, are neither from God nor from created nature, but 
are ‘‘incausal”: when they are sought out by themselves, 
nothing is found in them but privation and defect of the 
lawful and natural will. 

As there is no separate place of punishment, so there is no 
separate place of reward. ‘The imagination of paradise as a 
circumscribed portion of a “‘ new heaven and new earth” seems 
to Erigena so gross that on meeting with it in ‘‘ books of the 
holy Fathers” he is stupefied. Those “ most spiritual men,” 
he thinks, can only have thus expressed themselves for the 
edification of such as are ‘given up to terrene and carnal 
thoughts and nourished on the rudiments of simple faith.” ° 
Then he restates his own view that time and local situation 
are to cease entirely when the universe and all individual 
things return into their “reasons.” In the final reversion of all 
things to their source, not even an ‘‘ethereal” body will be 
left, but the body itself will pass into spirit in its sense of 
intellect. While this return is definitely educed from the 
“ecclesiastical doctrine” and from Scripture,’ it is not 
identified with the Day of Judgment; which is treated in a 


*v. 35, 953 B: ‘* Non enim conveniret immortalis Creatoris bonitati, 
imaginem sui aeterna morte detineri.” 
?v. 37, 985 A. ®v. 35, 959 B. 


_ 4Cf. v. 35, 960 A: ‘Ac per hoc verissime de divina praedicatur 
justitia, quod in nulla creatura, quam fecit, puniri permittit, quod fecit ; 
punit autem quod non fecit.”’ 


> v. 37, 986 C. 


Sy, 375 987 B. The Greek Fathers maintain ‘‘ non mutationem corporis 
terreni in caeleste corpus, sed omnino transitum in ipsum purum spiritum, 
non in illum, qui aether, sed in illum, qui intellectus vocitatur.” 


7Ch..v. 19; 


JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 163 


rationalising manner as meaning essentially, not a catastrophic 
appearance of the Lord in the clouds, but the result of its 
mortal life for each individual soul.! 

Though all souls are to return to God, not all are to be 
“deified.” Deification is a gift not of nature but of grace. 
As is said in dependence on Dionysius the Areopagite: “It 
is common to all the things that have been made, to return, as 
by a kind of perishing, into their causes, which subsist in God ; 
it is the property of the intellectual and rational substance to 
be made one with God by virtue of contemplation, and to be 
made God through grace.”” The gift of deification is reserved 
for some men and some angels.* This is indicated by the 
parable of the wise and the foolish virgins. The foolish 
represent that portion of mankind which desires only natural 
goods: by the wise are signified they whose thoughts are 
directed to the higher perfection to be attained through grace.‘ 
It is not in the least denied that natural goods ave goods.° 
Accordingly, those that seek them are in the end to be 
restored to paradise in the general sense, that is, to the 
natural integrity of human nature; though only those that aim 
higher are, in the more special sense, to “eat of the tree of 
life,” or to be deified with the saints.° To any who may think 
this difference in the distribution of gifts inequitable, Erigena 
replies that a universe without variety and degrees would have 
no beauty. There are distinctions among the orders of angels ; 
and, if man had not fallen, there would no less have been 
various orders of men. 

Thus election and damnation are finally turned into the 
harmonious mixture of “aristocratic” and “‘ democratic ” justice 
in the universe. How little such a development was capable 
of overcoming the forms of the creed, the history of the later 
Middle Ages sufficiently proves. And of course the Gospel 


ly, 38, 997 B. 2y, 21, 898 C. 


3v. 23, 904 AB. Cf. 907 A: ‘ipsam deificationem, quae solis 
purgatissimis intellectibus donabitur.” 


4v. 38,1014 BC. 


> Cf. v. 36, 936 AB. From the necessity of ‘‘ phantasy” for knowledge, 
it is argued that this, like everything that springs from natural causes, is a 
good. ‘*Disc. Phantasia igitur aliquod bonum est, quoniam naturalium 
rerum imaginatio est. Mac. [Illud negare non possum: omne siquidem, 
quod ex naturalibus causis oritur, bonum esse non denegatur.” 


Sy. 38, 1015 AB. 


764 JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 


itself suggests no such softened interpretation of the ‘‘ Gehenna” 
and “‘outer darkness” of the Parables. The Eastern despot 
or slaveholder, with his ‘‘tormentors” always at hand, could 
not be turned into the ideal ruler of the philosophic “ City of 
Zeus,” which Erigena would fain have restored. His own 
hope, as we may infer from the last sentence of the brief 
recapitulation that follows only too many pages of the custom- 
ary allegorising, was in the perhaps’ remote future. 
‘‘Unusquisque in suo sensu abundet, donec veniat illa lux, 
quae de luce falso philosophantium facit tenebras, et tenebras 
recte cognoscentium convertit in lucem.” What he might not 
have understood is that liberation of the light he had already 
attained could only come through dissolution of the whole 
structure and system within which it had been his destiny to 
work. 


ANIMISM, RELIGION AND 
PHILOSOPHY 


——$—$—$— — 


For a growing science like anthropology, there appears to be 
some advantage in attempting from time to time a kind of 
philosophical schematism. Such attempts may suggest points 
for research; and, as they are not likely to be taken for more 
than they are worth, they can in any case dono harm. The 
present attempt, of course, starts from previous discussions; but, 
to avoid complication, I shall try to state the positions in such 
a way that they may be understood by themselves. 

The most general thesis is this: that the thoughts of man- 
kind about the causes behind or immanent in the visible order 
of things go through three stages ; which may be characterised 
distinctively as the animistic, the religious, and _ the 
philosophical. When man, from a group of social animals, 
not yet thinking or speaking, became truly man through 
the evolution of speech and _ thought, there arose 
many speculations. A fundamental one was that which 
is known as the “ghost-theory.” The problem presented 
itself: how to explain the alternations of consciousness and 
unconsciousness, waking and sleeping, life and death. The 
primeval solution was to suppose a more or less permanent 
entity, capable of going away to other places and again 
returning; the presence of which was the cause of the 
manifestations summed up as “life.” This entity was figured, 
according to analogies suggested by reflexions, shadows, dreams 
and so forth, as a second “self,” in appearance like a material 
organism, but thinner of substance. The self, more or less 
permanent though not necessarily immortal, having thus 
assumed a figured and as it were objective form, could be used 
as a general idea to interpret not only human and animal life 


166 ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 


but the changes in inorganic things. Independently of this 
‘“‘shost-theory,” life may already have been attributed to 
moving objects; but not before the ghost-theory was evolved 
could the general mode of explanation known as “animism” 
shape itself out. Some kind of figured image was a necessary 
adjunct to early thinking about causes. Hence the importance 
of the ghost-soul as distinguished from the vague notion of a 
force that was also life. To anything that, in the process of 
abstracting from the whole mass of phenomena, came to be 
looked upon for any reason of interest or convenience or 
curiosity, as a separate ‘‘ object,” a ghost-soul of its own could 
be ascribed. ‘This was regarded at once as the bond that 
gave it permanence and as the source of action and change. 
An ascending process of “integration” accompanied the 
gradual discrimination or “ differentiation” of phenomena; so 
that vague or more definite cosmic powers came to be 
conceived as permanent existences with ghost-souls of their 
own. ‘These, being thought of on the analogy of the self, 
might be figured as becoming separately visible in human 
shape. Or, as a deviation from the type of.the “ magnified and 
non-natural man,” they might be imagined as presenting them- 
selves either in the forms of particular kinds of animals or in 
compounded and monstrous forms. Meanwhile human life 
went on complicating itself. Classes were distinguished, and 
societies came to consist of rulers and ruled. Customary law 
and morals grew up. All this structure was transferred by 
analogy to the ghostly or ‘“‘spiritual” world. A ‘‘ supernatural ” 
hierarchy was conceived, which comprised at once human souls 
separated by death from their bodies, and the lesser and 
greater invisible powers in or behind nature. These last are 
the “gods” and “demons,” with whom the souls of individual 
men are associated, usually at an inferior level. Since man 
feels his dependence on the external order of things in which 
he is involved, he tends to put all that concerns him under the 
protection of the beings he conceives as ruling it. He begins 
to fear or love them because he regards them as personal wills 
that can be affected by the things he does or leaves undone. 
Thus arise ‘cults,’ consisting of prayer, sacrifice and 
sacrament. Prayer, anthropologically defined, is entreaty to 
a quasi-human being; sacrifice is primarily a gift; sacrament 
is participation in a banquet. Ghosts of ancestors, with 
demons and gods, may have part in the devotion addressed to 
the invisible powers; but this devotion becomes most dis- 


ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 167 


tinctively entitled to the name of “religion” when it is 
systematised in relation to certain great gods. The special 
class of the “ priesthood,” scarcely needed when animism is in 
its first anarchic phase, assumes importance as the invisible 
hierarchy is specialised and brought under the government of 
a single head. This class tends to claim more and more 
of human life for the powers it represents. Aided by the 
conscious weakness and ignorance of the many, it may succeed, 
by assuming knowledge of the unknown, in establishing its 
supremacy on earth. The normal result of this is an 
elaborate and at last petrified system of sacred rites, carrying 
with it a fixed order of all that began as spontaneous 
expression of human needs and aspirations. If, however, the 
movement does not go too far; if ‘‘ religion” grows sufficiently 
to substitute a kind of cosmic or centralised or generalised 
outlook for mere individualist ‘‘ animism,” but does not gain 
full control; then there appears a third stage. Thinkers arise 
who question the customary views embodied in the social and 
spiritual tradition. Thus the “ philosophic” stage is reached. 
In common with religion, philosophy aspires to unity ; but it 
tends to dissolve the unity based on old custom. ‘Free 
thought,” in a smaller or larger class, is the condition of its 
existence. When it becomes practical, it aims in its own way 
at the direction of human life. Sometimes it has been 
tempted to take short cuts, and to elaborate schemes of 
philosophic oligarchy. Normally, however, it perceives in the 
long run that the direction must come, not from the attainment 
of power by the representatives of a particular doctrine, but 
through a consensus arrived at by widening the atmosphere of 
discussion to which the life of the philosopher owes its birth. 
What is called “magic” seems to be best defined as the 
practical instrument of the animistic conception of things. 
The “ medicine-man,” or early professional wonder-worker, in 
accordance with the theory of the time, supposes things to be 
capable of sympathetically affecting one another through their 
immanent souls. His distinction from other men consists in 
his ability, partly natural and partly acquired, to devise 
particular ways and means of influence. Side by side with 
magic, there grows up what comes to be known later as positive 
“science.” For certain groups of phenomena, an order of a 
more impersonal kind impresses itself on observers. One 
generalisation is added to another; and, as some of these 
generalisations turn out useful in practice, the search for them 


168 ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 


becomes systematised. Both magic and the rudiments of 
science run on through the distinctively religious stage. Either 
or both, as in ancient Egypt and Chaldzea, may be specially 
cultivated by the priestly class.) Where a strong hierarchy 
exists, cultivation of science, or the knowledge of impersonal 
“laws of nature,” in subordination to utility, has little tendency 
to bring on a new phase of thought. Its accumulation, 
however, as soon as the results are viewed by minds that have 
arrived at reflection within a less fixed social structure, con- 
tributes powerfully to aid the rise of philosophy, or disinterested 
and individual speculation on the causes and principles of 
things as parts of the whole. In the end, and in an ideal order, 
the proper place of science would seem to be an instrumental 
one in relation to philosophy, similar to that which is filled by 
magic in relation to primeval animism. In periods when men 
lose the sense of unity, it temporarily falls into subserviency to 
the commonest material ends blindly pursued by the greatest 
mass or by the most powerful anarchs. 

A form assumed by religion either in rivalry with philosophy 
or a little before philosophy appears, is that of “divine revela- 
tion.” Teachers known as “prophets” arise, who proclaim 
a reform of the existing priestly religion in the name of a 
communication to them from the gods. Sometimes the great 
god of the tribe or race is declared to be the revealer. Some- 
times a deity who has passed or is passing into obscurity is 
announced as a new or hitherto unknown god. The prophet 
may be a real person who spoke or wrote; or he may be an 
ideal figure, in whose name teachings are put forth by a group. 
Revealed religion belongs to a stage of some ethical reflective- 
ness ; but of less reflectiveness, and, more especially, of less 
disinterested questioning, than philosophy; which appeals not 
to the commands of a god, but to the rational insight of hearers. 
In its actual development, revelation can become as hierarchical 
as the older priestly religions which have already systematised 
the popular cults and the mythical fancies arising out of them. 
In its most characteristic form, it transcends the bounds of 
nationality, becomes aggressively intolerant of other religions, 
and appeals to “faith” against the presumptuous doubts of 
“the world.” Coming, as it does, when the spontaneous 
formation of cults and myths is already on the wane, it is apt 
to find philosophy crossing its path. And, even apart from 
this, it finds a latent scepticism tending to invalidate its claims. 
Thus even a period so generally credulous and so dominated 


ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 169 


by a systematised form of revealed religion as the European 
Middle Age, expressed what was the secret thought of many in 
the legend of the ‘‘ Three Impostors.” An impious book, it 
was said, had been written, in which this title was applied to 
the founders of the three great religions which, in Europe and 
Western Asia, claimed supreme authority over a peculiar race 
or over all mankind. 

Revealed religion, confronted by philosophy, shapes out the 
intellectual system known among Jews, Christians and 
Mohammedans as ‘‘theology.” This is a doctrine taught as 
authoritative by the hierarchy, and constructed by the 
scientific elaboration of myths and legends accepted as data 
not to be questioned. ‘The typical expression of the system 
is the medieval conception of philosophy as the ‘ancilla 
theologize.” 

Even when philosophy has separated itself from the 
mythologies that accompany or grow out of religious cults, it 
continues to have points of reference to the phases that pre- 
ceded it. Accordingly, philosophers have been warned by 
anthropologists that they must carefully test their instruments 
of thought. Not only “animism,” but language and arithmetic 
are products of savage or barbaric intelligence, and were not 
framed for the speculative purposes to which they are afterwards 
put. How does this affect the validity of philosophy itself? 
Are the systems of individual thinkers likely to show nearer 
approaches to truth than modes of thought which have 
pervaded whole societies, and from which no one born into 
those societies can escape if he would? 

Let us test what are still the rival types of philosophy first 
in relation to animism. 

It may be maintained that when mythological explanations 
from gods having the character of ghosts are once transcended, 
two types of independent philosophy arise in succession by a 
purely speculative process. In its first disinterested effort, 
human thought fixes on some objective ground of things, and 
tries to explain all else, including itself, from this. Thus 
arises the phase of “naturalism.” Then, stirred up to further 
reflection by the unsolved problems leit, thought turns back 
upon itself and finds that it has within a ground of reality 
at least co-ordinate with that which is without. Later, some 
thinkers go on to argue that the apparent objective ground is 
a derivative of a principle like that which the mind discovers 
in itself. Yet, though this process seems purely speculative, 


170 ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 


the question may be raised whether in either phase real 
independence has been gained. Dr. Tylor, in Primitive 
Culture, has drawn attention to the resemblance between the 
theories on the origin of mental images put forward by some 
of the “naturalistic” thinkers, and the early animistic fancies 
about ghostly but still material semblances thrown off by ob- 
jects. And something apparently like the Platonic “ideas,” 
from which in Europe the other group of philosophies has been 
developed, is also to be found among barbaric tribes. Indeed, 
in the notion of archetypal animals, from which the individual 
members of the species are copied, some primeval tribes might 
seem to have anticipated theories worked out by modern com- 
parative anatomists of ‘‘idealistic” lineage. Further, the 
whole doctrine of the idealists in general may seem open to 
the charge that its point of origin is merely the “ ghost,” to 
which it returns by reaction from the naturalistic theories, 
whether mechanical or “hylozoist.” Hylozoism, again, has 
its point of origin in the primitive fancy that there is a kind of 
“life” in moving things. 

There is no need to say much on the criticism of naturalism 
from this point of view. It will be readily admitted that later 
doctrines of a naturalistic kind have provided themselves or 
have been provided with a verifiable experimental basis in 
physics and physiology which puts them out of reach of attack 
on the ground of their anthropological origins. If they are to 
be attacked on the ground of origin at all, criticism must start 
from an investigation of processes of perception which existed 
before man became man. _ The origin of the idea of material 
substance having been psychologically traced, any one who 
wishes to use it as an ultimate basis may reasonably be asked 
to give grounds for holding that, while the idea has come to 
exist through a mental process not by itself guaranteeing reality, 
it is still intellectually trustworthy. The answer would only be 
furnished by a philosophical system that had some rational 
account to give of mind also. In the meantime, the bare fact 
that primitive men persisted in what was no doubt the naive 
animal belief that there is something of the nature of ‘‘ material 
substance” outside, does not tell against ancient or modern 
physical ontologies, whether these work with continuous and 
transformable elements, or with atoms and void, or with atoms 
and ether. 

Is the idealist in worse case? Is his system, from the 
anthropological point of view, reactionary? On the whole, it 


ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY yt 


does not seem so. The resemblances to primitive fancies are 
not greater, and the points of contact are not more important, 
than those that can be shown for naturalism. Plato’s realised 
“ideas,” as principles of explanation, have a purely philoso- 
phical pedigree. Historically they are traceable to the pro- 
foundly scientific investigation of Socrates into concepts or 
general notions. General definitions of terms being fixed, while 
the particulars brought under them vary, it seemed to Plato 
that real forms, somehow of mental nature, corresponding to 
that which is general in language, might constitute a permanent 
_ system which was the reality behind the flux of the visible 
world. And this problem of mediation between flux and 
permanence was determined for him by the fully articulate 
“naturalistic” philosophies (as they are now considered) of 
Heraclitus and Parmenides. If, in speaking of the soul, his 
language and thought are to some extent coloured by the 
“‘ghost-theory,” his successors were able to free themselves as 
completely from this as the modern successors of Democritus 
and Epicurus have freed themselves from the theory that mental 
images are thin films of existing or no longer existing persons 
or things. It may be said equally of Plotinus and of Berkeley, 
that if they had not adopted the word “soul” or “ spirit,” they 
would have been obliged to invent a term or terms to indicate 
something undeniably having reality, and yet totally unex- 
plained in the seeming accounts given of it by contemporary 
“‘mechanical philosophers.” Was not Plato’s own reference to 
a reality ‘‘ beyond being” an attempt—not yet quite successful 
—to express pure subjectivity in its opposition to “ being” 
viewed as objective? The “ideas,” though he regarded them 
as mental, he had not been able to clear of a kind of objective 
character involving their separability from all actual minds. 

Thus the rival philosophies are left to arguments from science 
and reason. They cannot invalidate one another on grounds 
of history or “‘pre-history.” Substantially, the origins both of 
naturalism and of idealism are rational. 

What then is their relation to the historical religions? Or 
is there some difference in this respect between the two types ? 

The general answer is that naturalistic philosophy had put 
forth its declaration of independence by the end of the sixth 
century B.C.; and that, with some modifications, the same 
attitude was continued by idealism. For all popular gods are 
“personal.” That is to say, they are conceived as individual 
wills capable of relation to other individual wills. They can 


172 ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 


enter into communion with their worshippers; can contract 
with them or share a banquet; and can have their purposes 
changed by means of which the typical modes are prayer and 
sacrifice. Now above all these lords of the world, if not 
actually as excluding them, the Ionian and Eleatic philosophies 
placed the universe or its essence. That essence may be 
defined as rational law or as pure being. Equally, it is inacces- 
sible to the means of approach used in the popular cults. God, 
said Xenophanes, is neither in body nor in thought like mortal 
man. And even tried by a human standard, the deeds com- 
monly attributed to the gods are most shameful. To offer blood- 
sacrifice in expiation of guilt, said Heraclitus, is as if one were 
to wash out mud with mud. __If the gods are perfectly wise 
and benevolent, said Socrates, is it not better for ignorant beings 
who do not know their own good, to ask only for good things 
in general, and not to make particular requests to the gods? 
And by Plato the modes of feeling characteristic of the ‘‘ natural 
religion ” of all mankind were regarded as the most impious of 
all. To treat the gods as accessible to prayers and gifts is to 
hold that they can be bribed. Gods of whom things are 
related that do not conform to the “ idea of the good” can have 
no place ina city ruled by philosophers. Later, perhaps the 
most primitive of distinctively religious ideas, that of sacrament, 
is treated in a dialogue of Cicero as if it had long since been 
denuded of all its meaning. No one can be so foolish as to 
believe that what he is eating or drinking is a god. 

This is one side of the case. On the other side, it must be 
allowed that often philosophers have tried to enter into alliance 
with religion, and have accused their philosophic antagonists 
of being irreligious. | These again have sometimes retorted by 
accusing the “religious” philosophers of forming reactionary 
alliances. And all schools alike have been at times eager to 
show that, when everything else is gone, philosophy itself is a 
religion. 

Shall we agree with this contention? If philosophy, in both 
its phases, has reached, as it undoubtedly has for some thinkers, 
a position not only beyond mere animism but beyond the 
historical religions, are we to say that it is still a kind of 
“religion?” And can any one school, if it chooses, make this 
very general claim on better grounds than its rivals ? 

On behalf of idealism, it might be urged that, since its 
ultimately real world corresponds with that to which primitive 
men assigned their ghosts and gods, this is the permanently 


ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 173 


o 


religious view ; that animism, religion, and idealistic philosophy 
or ‘‘ spiritualism,” are successive resultants of the same impulse 
in conflict with a more or less developed materialism. On the 
other hand, the term religion seems to convey especially the 
notion of a stringent coercive power. Whether the tie is 
primarily conceived to bind (veligare) the worshipper or the 
god, does not affect the general argument. The important 
thing is, that there is system and necessity. Now the feeling 
of this binding unity, on the intellectual side, has been most 
strongly impressed by the objective order of nature, whereas 
the centre of interest to the animist or spiritualist is a self or 
selves. And the many selves could scarcely have become 
aware that they were in a system at all unless they had inferred 
in one another resembling ideas which they took to be derived 
from a single objective world common to them all. So far, 
therefore, as idealism and naturalism are concerned, the claims 
balance. 

From other points of view, the idea of a bond, and the 
feeling of dependence implied in religion, have been so used 
as to connect it especially with the social order and with 
ethics. Here is the source of the Positivist Religion of 
Humanity, and of Matthew Arnold’s definition of religion as 
‘morality touched with emotion.” And these, whatever may 
be said by the representatives of the historic religions, are not 
simply individual fancies ; as may be shown. 

The Positivist conception has the character of a genuine 
deification. For religion, as actually existent, has not always, 
in its intenser forms, directed itself to the whole or to its cause 
or principle, but has often especially adored powers great 
though not universal. ‘‘ Ancestor-worship,” indeed, seems to 
be a portion of early not yet organised animism taken up 
afterwards into systematised religion as a subordinate part. 
The nations in whom it continues to predominate are not 
regarded by us as distinctively religious in temperament. 
And the individual human beings that are the objects of a cult 
never seem to rise to a very high stage of deification. Yet 
Man as well as Nature can contribute to the pantheon by a 
generalising process. When among the powers worshipped 
as great gods there are found ancestors of tribes or races, 
these seem to be imaginary representatives of the whole 
people,—like “Hellen” or ‘“Israel,’—not actual persons 
even vaguely remembered. In their own way, they have the 
generality and remoteness belonging to cosmic powers like the 


174 ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 


sky or the sun. Sometimes they become reduced to the 
status of ‘‘eponymous ancestors” and nothing more: some- 
times they retain a higher rank as permanent tribal gods. No 
general rule can be laid down as to their origin-and phases of 
transformation. But, evidently, in view of these instances, 
humanity can claim by analogy to be regarded as a ‘great 
being ” of divine order, though not as the God of the universe. 
In the worship of Humanity there would be no reversion to 
mere ancestor-worship. And in regarding any conceived 
universal God as too high to be the object of a cult, the 
Positivists, as they themselves also contend, do not represent 
a deviation from normal religious instinct. If they desired 
extraneous philosophical support, they might find it in the 
‘“‘ general human intellect” of the Averroists ; which was held 
to be immortal in contrast with the fluctuating individualities 
that are its temporary expression. 

The view that religion is “ morality touched with emotion” 
can claim, if not such decided affinities with organised religions, 
yet at any rate a long philosophic ancestry. Spinoza in the 
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Pomponazzi and Bruno and 
others during the period of the Renaissance, and before them 
a whole series of medieval thinkers, nominally Christian or 
Mohammedan as the case might be, were willing to regard 
religion (or ‘‘theology,” as they said) in this light. The 
philosopher rose to intellectual contemplation or to mystic 
absorption in the divine. His virtue was disinterested. For 
the multitude, the moral virtues under the sanction of hopes 
and fears were the highest attainable. The “religions” were 
to be judged by their power of directing the emotions of men 
in general to practical conduct. All were good provided they 
did this ; if at the same time they did not assume an intolerant 
attitude to knowledge, but respected the free thought of the 
few. 

Again, though not in the same way, Kant thought that 
which is permanent in religion to be ethics in one aspect. 
His conception agrees on the whole with that of the later 
Stoics: and in Bruno, a thinker of very different temperament, 
there are occasional suggestions of a similar view. For Kant 
regarded religion, in this sense, not as an imperfect thing but 
as the highest in man; and Bruno, in theory, placed the Stoic 
calm, at once ethical and religious, above the enthusiastic 
effort towards contemplative vision and ecstasy. 

There is moreover an affinity between the ordinary type of 


ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 175 


the “good man” and the “ religious man.” The moral virtues 
have to be practised from custom and training before they can 
be practised from insight ; and a favourable condition for the 
observance of some of them is impressibility by all that is 
received and believed in the surrounding society. Fear of all 
deviations from the fixed order of a ritual is likely to be ac- 
companied by awe of an established moral code in its social 
character. Now the man who cherishes fear of the super- 
natural sanction appealed to by his own community (the 
edceBhs), or who loves the familiar rites, or desires more 
minutely specified ones (the ¢Ao#r7s), is looked upon as 
pre-eminently pious or religious. And it is usually expected 
that such a man will, in consequence, be morally good from 
the point of view of the social code. If he is not, it is thought 
anomalous. 

On the other hand, the “ mystic” is often thought to be a 
distinctively religious type. But the mystic is essentially one 
who, though practising the moral virtues, has gone beyond 
them and is seeking to relate himself to the unity in or above 
the whole, and no longer to the humanised gods that deal in 
rewards and punishments. From the position he has attained, 
he rejects for himself all special rites, and even somewhat looks 
down upon the practical virtues. It may often be said that he 
is in effect escaping from what is historic in religion to philo- 
sophy. And yet this philosophy itself, even when dissociated 
from every positive cult, is often called “ religious.” In the 
philosophy that springs out of science, an analogue of mystic- 
ism is “cosmic emotion ;” and for this too a religious char- 
acter has been claimed. 

Thus the result of theexamination isambiguous. Philosophy 
has transcended the historic religions: and yet there are 
assignable grounds why it may call itself “religious” if it 
chooses. There would of course be extreme rashness in any 
attempt to forecast the future of religion as the word has 
hitherto been understood. Its most imposing and most 
terrible manifestations appeared after war had been definitely 
declared by the philosophers on its underlying ideas in the 
name of the true and the just. Yet this must be insisted on: 
that philosophy is no mere transition between one dominant 
religion and another, but contains in itself the promise of a 
higher and more permanent order than the august structures of 
the historic faiths. We may speculate about possible “ religions 
of the future ;” but in face of them as in face of the religions 


176 ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 


of the past, it would be the right and duty of philosophy 
to maintain its independence. For the ultimate end is not 
the elaboration of a new ritual, conformable to new ideas, but 
the prevalence of philosophy, which has no need of ritual, 
as the guide of humanity. 

If this conclusion seems too austere, we must recall to ieee 
that philosophy is not the whole of the culture which is 
substituting itself for that of the historic religions. When the 
whole is considered, it will be seen that there is gain and no 
loss. Even philosophy by itself, compared with the 
speculative element in religions, is more varied as well as 
more disinterested. Contrast the narrowly practical, credulous 
yet essentially incurious, minds of the Christian Fathers with 
those of their philosophic contemporaries even when least 
original. If we bring artistic culture into the account, the 
case is still stronger. As traditional religion ceases to 
dominate men’s spirits, art, in all its forms, passes into a 
higher phase. In spite of the opposition that is often sup- 
posed to exist, it developes along with ethics; though the two 
developments may not often simultaneously reach their height 
in the same society. For reflective ethics appears when the 
efficacy of traditional rites is questioned ; when prophets 
begin to set justice and mercy against sacrifice. So also the 
stiff “‘hieratic” forms of typically religious art give way to 
forms in which the esthetic sense attains freedom of 
expression. Really great art, even of a religious kind, 
scarcely appears while the faith which it serves is yet unopposed 
from without and unvexed by internal scepticism. An out- 
burst of it seems usually to coincide with the incipient 
decadence of belief. Thus the other expressions of human 
activity, and not merely speculation, go on to a newer order 
as the “close knots of religions” are undone. Or, if we like 
to put itin Hegelian phrase, historic religion, with all that it has 
tried to express, is ‘taken up” into the next period of man’s 
spiritual evolution ; and thus in the end nothing is lost. 

The strength of the old structures must be admitted. For 
preserving archaisms there is no power comparable to religion. 
Under favouring conditions, there seems no limit to the 
length of time a sacerdotal hierarchy, in alliance with politicai 
absolutism, can last on in a petrified form. Yet, when the 
conditions are unfavourable to survival, a possible life of 
millennia may be reduced to an actual one of centuries. Why 
did not the new Persian theocracy of the Sassanidz last as 


ANIMISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY 177 


long as the old institutions of Egypt or Babylon? Merely 
because it could not escape early collision with the aggressive 
fanaticism which sprang from the new and less complex creed 
of Mohammed. A similar doom may be in store for the 
Russian theocracy. For circumstances begin to be even more 
hostile. On one side a foe has arisen with superior military 
organisation. On the other side a subversive propaganda is 
ever going on. And this starts, not (as in the case of the 
Roman Empire confronted with Christianity) from the lower 
civilisation of the East, absolutist and theocratic, but from 
polities which, whether fully conscious of it or not, are the 
heirs of the ancient republican state. 

How long the transformation will take, there as elsewhere, 
and whether there will again be great reversals, it is useless to 
discuss. The whole matter has been summed up by 
Giordano Bruno, in a passage of which the primary idea is 
better known than the remarkable qualifications with which it 
is stated. ‘‘We are older and have a longer age behind us 
than our predecessors. But that some of those who came 
later have been no wiser, and that in general the multitude of 
those now living have no more wit, than the men of former 
times, is because they have not lived with the years of others, 
but are dead to others’ experience as to their own. Moreover, 
since there is perpetual vicissitude of opinions as of all else, 
to have regard to philosophies simply as ancient, or again 
as modern, is the same as trying to decide which came first, 
day or night. The thing we ought to consider is, whether 
our own thought or the thought of our adversaries is that 
which puts a term to the night or to the day.” 


Cena delle Ceneri, Dialogo I.—I have abbreviated the passagé in 
translation. 


12 


A COMPENDIOUS CLASSIFICA- 
TION OF THE SGIENEES 


—<——— 


It is generally allowed that in his Classification of the Sciences 
Comte furnished a valuable clue to a systematic order in the 
objective study of nature. Metaphysicians and psychologists 
find his scheme at fault in its imperfect recognition of the 
place of subjective studies. Still, it may be noted that he 
himself, in his later speculations, did something to remedy 
this defect. After Sociology, which he at first regarded as the 
supreme science, he placed a Science of Morality. Further, 
in his Synthése Subjective, he began to set forth a statement 
of fundamental principles underlying all the positive sciences ; 
and, beyond them all, a view of the cosmos as animated and 
as related to ends. This indeed was put forward as poetry or 
religion, and not as demonstrated truth; but it is plainly an 
approximation to a more “ metaphysical” view than that which 
he had hitherto taken. What I propose is to carry out this 
completion systematically, with due recognition of the validity 
of subjective principles which Comte himself would have 
repudiated, but which, as is acknowledged equally by the 
successors of Kant and of Mill, are indispensable for a full 
account of knowledge. 

In Comte’s final scheme the positive sciences follow one 
another in the order :—Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, 
Chemistry, Biology, Sociology, Morality. This list itself, to 
begin with, needs correction. Astronomy, as Mr. Spencer 
has shown to the satisfaction even of some adherents of 
Comte, does not properly belong to the series of fundamental 
or abstract sciences as he conceived them. It is a concrete 
science in the sense in which Geology is a concrete science. 


CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 179 


Under Biology, Comte himself made a special division for 
Cerebral Physiology ; this being his equivalent for Psychology. 
When Psychology is recognised by name, it is clearly entitled 
to a separate place. Lastly, it may be observed that Comte’s 
Moral Science is not philosophical ethics, but is the science 
of the individual human mind viewed as posterior to life in 
society. Thus it is really a higher Psychology; namely, that 
of man as possessing the attributes which distinguish him 
from brutes. 

When from the correction of the list we proceed to its 
completion, we find that before Mathematics must come Logic 
(Formal and Material) viewed as a philosophical science. 















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After the higher branch of Psychology comes Metaphysics 
(as Theory of Knowledge and as Ontology). We are now 
presented with the result that, to figure the amended classi- 
fication, Comte’s linear series, provisionally conceived as in a 
straight line, must be bent into a circle. For a series 


180 CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 


beginning with Formal Logic and ending with Metaphysics is 
subjective at both extremes. Moreover, in the speculative 
though not in the didactic order, Metaphysics as Theory of 
Knowledge precedes Logic: This is represented in the 
accompanying diagram. ‘The additional points there figured 
will be explained in the sequel. 

The problem now before us is to show how the determina- 
tions of this series are consequent one on another. Beginning 
with Formal Logic, we may simply posit, as first principles of 
the science, the Laws of Thought, which, though disclosed by 
metaphysical investigation, can be stated with perfect intelligi- 
bility to those who have not gone through the dialectical pro- 
cess that establishes them. For scientific purposes, it is 
sufficient that they should be found to be applicable tests of 
formally valid thought. Nor is the metaphysical problem 
ever raised by their breaking down. It arises from the 
theoretical need felt of completing the circle. -The circle 
becomes formally complete when the Theory of Knowledge 
restores to us with confirmation the principles on which we 
have hitherto implicitly or explicitly proceeded. Historically, 
it may be noted, Aristotle arrived at the Laws of Contradiction 
and of Excluded Middle in his Metaphysics. 

These and the Law of Identity I hold to be laws of thought, 
not of things. To take specially the Law of Contradiction, 
which, according to Aristotle’s exact way of putting it, asserts 
that A cannot be not-A at the same time and in the same 
relation. The law tells us that thought, if it would be formally 
valid, must not contradict itself; but it does not enable us to 
assert a single materially new proposition. Given a subjective 
world of concepts, we can maintain order among them by this 
and the other laws ; but we cannot make any assertion that is 
not implied in what we have already said. Thus, unless we 
have, beyond the laws of thought, some general proposition or 
propositions about experience, we can have no science of 
nature. ‘The laws of thought by themselves do not allow us to 
deny, a priovi, that what objectively exists is a Heraclitean 
flux without the reason which Heraclitus supposed to underlie 
it, and without the equivalence of measure which he held to be 
the rule of its transformations. Let us imagine ourselves 
endowed with the laws of thought and presented with such a 
flux. The Law of Contradiction is evidently of no avail if 
nothing remains itself for more than a moment and if there is 
no constant relation of it to anything else. It is true that we 


CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 181 


are still obliged to treat the momentary existence of A as in- 
consistent with its non-existence at that moment; but, if that 
is all, there can be no system of experiential knowledge. The 
formal law does not entitle us to deny the complete absence of 
perdurability or uniformity. Thus, on the one side, it is 
valid for thought whatever our experience may be; and, on the 
other side, we cannot by means of it anticipate experience to 
the smallest extent. For real availability, it is absolutely 
dependent on there being an order of which by itself it con- 
tains no assertion. 

In passing from Formal to Material Logic, we come first to 
the general principles of mathematical knowledge. Since 
Kant’s investigation of these, it is allowed that they are ‘‘ syn- 
thetic” and not merely “analytic.” That is to say, there are 
involved in mathematical demonstration propositions which 
are neither an affair of hypothetical definition nor can be educed 
from definitions by means of the formal laws of thought. 
To take Kant’s own examples. The geometrical axiom that 
“two straight lines cannot enclose a space” is not a truth that 
can be evolved by mere comparison of the concepts of the 
straight line and of space. Similarly with an arithmetical pro- 
position such as 7+5=12: no mere comparison of the con- 
cepts of the separate numbers can give the resulting number. 
In both cases, what is required is a construction in intuition 
or in the corresponding imagination,—a process of mental 
drawing, or of numbering things or events in time. And the 
peculiarity of mathematical principles is that, upon such con- 
struction, recognition of the necessary truth of the proposition 
is the outcome of a single act of comparison. Thus they are 
not generalisations from experience. 

This last position of Kant has been contested from the 
experiential side. What remains incontestable is that, 
besides the principles of Formal Logic, mathematical science 
requires first principles peculiar to itself. The positions of 
Locke, of Leibniz, and of Hume in the Inquiry, are abandoned 
on this point. Kant’s view as regards the peculiarity of 
mathematical reasoning, it may be observed, had been in part 
anticipated in the Platonic school. Plato himself had marked 
off Mathematics from what he called Dialectic—which was at 
once Metaphysics and Logic—on the one side, and from such 
an adumbration of Physics as was then possible on the other. 
Aristotle divided Metaphysics proper from Logic; and by 
Plato’s successors, with the aid of the later Peripatetics, 


182 CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 


something was done to make clearer the precise character to 
be ascribed to mathematical truth. An intermediate position 
was assigned to it between laws valid for pure thinking, which 
are prior, and “laws of nature ” emerging from observation or 
experiment, which are posterior. ‘These distinctions were to 
some extent obscured in the early modern period, but may 
now be considered as restored, though it cannot be said that 
definitive conclusions have yet been reached. It is hence- 
forth clear, however, that the character of the special logic 
which belongs to Mathematics can only be determined by an 
investigation like that of Kant’s Transcendental Aésthetic. 
Such an investigation is necessarily metaphysical. Psycho- 
logical theories of the origin of space as a mental form can at 
most furnish hints towards fixing the problem. Whatever the 
final result may be, Kant has determined the method of the 
inquiry. 

For the classification of the sciences, it is sufficient to note 
that mathematical truth, though ‘ material” and no longer 
purely “formal,” does not yet suffice to determine anything 
whatever about the order of nature. This was fully recog- 
nised by Kant, who saw that before even ‘‘ synthetic ” proposi- 
tions regarding space and number can be applied to pheno- 
mena, certain other general maxims, beyond both these and 
the laws of thought, are needed. The case may be illustrated 
as when we were discussing the applicability of the Law of 
Contradiction. Let us suppose ourselves to have the power 
of counting, and of drawing figures in an imaginary space. 
Then, if we can provide our constructions with names, and 
can somehow communicate with similar intelligences, we may 
work out a system of pure arithmetical and geometrical truth. 
But suppose that, so far as external nature is concerned, we 
are confronted with an absolute and lawless flux. Then we 
can do nothing whatever with our mathematical system. It is 
of no use to us that the results of counting and of drawing 
follow with necessity, if numerable things alter their number 
from moment to moment and figured things change their 
shapes at random. For abstract geometrical truth indeed it 
is not required that perfect triangles and perfect circles should 
exist In nature; but, for applicability of deductions about 
those geometrical figures, things marked out with figures that 
approximate to them must retain their shapes long enough for 
the deductions to be also approximately applicable during a 
time that is not merely infinitesimal. 


CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 183 


To give us the least rudiment of physical or natural science, 
we evidently require some recognisable perdurability or con- 
stancy in things. This requirement is now expressed as the 
Uniformity of Nature. In antiquity it found expression partly 
in very slight outlines of a logic of Induction, but most 
expressly in axioms of which the general form was that nothing 
is produced from nothing and that nothing can return to 
nothing. This conception goes back to the beginnings of the 
Ionian physics. For the history of modern science, its most 
important ancient phase was Atomism. The physics of 
Democritus and Epicurus, ready to the hand of scientific 
philosophers at the opening of the modern era, grew into the 
corpuscular Mechanics of the seventeenth century. Taken up 
again by Dalton from Newton, it received its most accurate 
and verifiable expression in the atomic theory of modern 
Chemistry. Meanwhile, with Descartes and the Cartesian 
school, there had come into clear view for the first time the 
idea of formulating a law of indestructibility of motion, as it 
was then put. For “motion” or momentum, Leibniz sub- 
stituted vis viva or “force.” At length, in the nineteenth 
century, the anticipated law was accurately formulated as the 
law of the Conservation of Energy. That Matter and Energy 
are alike perdurable through all change is not, however, 
sufficient for scientific uniformity. A law of sequence among 
the changes themselves is also needed. This has been ex- 
pressed as the Law of Causation, and, in this expression, has 
been made a fundamental principle of Inductive Logic. In 
the modern development of the Logic of Induction, the great 
names are those of Bacon, Hume, Comte and Mill. Since 
Mill, we have a logic of the investigation of nature comparable, 
in its systematic character, with the formal logic of Aristotle. 

In their investigation of the subjective grounds of the 
principle of Uniformity, Hume and Mill applied themselves 
more specially to the philosophical or metaphysical problem. 
To Bacon must be ascribed distinctively the idea of methodical 
induction, in contrast with “induction by simple enumera- 
tion,” and to Comte the idea of a scientifically certain or 
positive ‘‘law” of phenomena. On the metaphysical question 
there is now perhaps more agreement among philosophers 
than appears. Experientialists do not uphold Mill’s view 
that the Uniformity of Nature is itself established by an 
induction from particulars; and the successors of Kant on 
their side do not think that experience can be constituted by 


184 CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 


mental forms or ‘‘ categories” applied to a chaos of given 
sensations. Kant’s position as against Hume being conceded 
to this extent, that experience has its formal elements which 
are as real as the matter of perception, Kantians or 
Hegelians hardly contend for more. The categories, they 
themselves allow, are immanent in experience, and do not 
need to be imposed on it from without. Indeed the notion 
that Hume was a pure sceptic without serious belief in 
scientific truth, or that Kant held nature to be a chaos put 
in order by the individual human mind, would be allowed to 
be too ‘‘schematic,” and not agreeable to the deeper drift of 
the thinkers themselves. Were “the given” a chaos, no sub- 
jective forms, call them “ necessary” or not, could set it in 
order. Nor does it seem reasonable on the other hand that, 
if there are no intelligible laws to which it is really conform- 
able, the modes of formulating it suggested from time to 
time by some of its casual conjunctions should agree so well 
with the rest. To maintain that there is now an approach 
to unanimity on these points may seem paradoxical. But, 
in the end, what historical reason is there for expecting that 
the opposition between a priovi and a posteviovt methods, or 
between Rationalism and Experientialism, will be the one 
permanent line of cleavage between philosophic schools ? 
After the logic of the sciences come the positive sciences 
as such. ‘The first question that arises with respect to these 
concerns the position of Mechanics. Shall we, with Comte, 
place at the end of the mathematical sciences Rational 
Mechanics? Or shall we separate Mechanics as a whole from 
Mathematics, and make it the fundamental department of 
Physics? It seems to me that the incontestable portion of 
Kant’s mathematical doctrine necessitates the second position. 
With Mechanics comes in the conception of ‘‘ mass,” which 
cannot be educed from space as a pure form of intuition, but 
has direct reference to data of sense supplied by the feelings 
of pressure and touch. Yet Comte’s view was not altogether 
ungrounded. The higher branches of mathematics, such as 
those that deal with infinitesimals and with imaginary 
quantities, have been elaborated, as Prof. Bain has pointed 
out, in close connexion with physical investigations, and 
often for the sake of solving definite physical problems. 
Everything except their primary assumptions may have been 
evolved by pure mathematical construction and formal 
reasoning; but, if the assumptions themselves are not 


CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 135 


congruous with the physical order of nature, the theories 
as a whole remain mere curiosities, and can scarcely be 
regarded as in any proper sense “true.” The reason for 
including them in Mathematics while excluding Rational 
Mechanics seems, however, to be this. In Rational Me- 
chanics the idea of a moving mass is fundamental. In 
Mathematics, whatever may be the manner in which any 
of its peculiar assumptions are finally selected as worthy to 
form the ground of a special theory, they can be treated 
actually as determinations of space and number without 
direct reference to mass. This is of course the normal 
relation of a simpler to a more complex science. The fact 
that the more complex science furnishes it with some of its 
problems does not destroy its logical priority. 

Under Mechanics come the Laws of Motion and the 
Theory of Gravitation. The latter theory was first definitely 
attained as the result of investigations in the concrete science 
of Astronomy. This, again, illustrates the relation just re- 
ferred to. Gravity belongs to General Physics in so far as 
its theory, once attained, can be stated and worked out with 
reference to hypothetical masses, and without taking account 
of the actual masses and distances, empirically ascertained, 
of particular bodies in the universe. This distinction, in- 
sisted on by Mr. Spencer, was adumbrated in ancient schemes, 
Peripatetic or Platonic, by the division of the rational theory 
of the Sphere from Astronomy regarded as a partially em- 
pirical science; though the ancient distinction agreed more 
nearly with Comte’s view in so far as the doctrine of the 
Sphere was assigned to Mathematics. 

The divisions of Special Physics are in part determined 
by the particular senses receptive of the phenomena grouped 
together. Light, heat and sound refer unambiguously to 
the senses of sight, temperature and hearing. These senses 
are not, indeed, allowed a share in the scientific explanation, 
which is referred to the so-called “ primary qualities of matter,” 
appreciated by the senses of touch and pressure; but without 
them the phenomena could not for us have been grouped 
together at all. Several senses being given, however, com- 
bined observations enable us to mark off other groups of 
phenomena which do not, as such, appear to a particular 
sense. Metaphor apart, we have no sensations of attraction 
or repulsion. Hence gravitation could not be directly observed, 
but had to be inferred from its effects in the form of pressure 


186 CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 


or motion. Electrical and magnetic phenomena have had to 
be indirectly appreciated in more various ways. Their 
common features once known, they could be made the subject 
of a branch of Special Physics, referred, like the others, to 
Mechanics or General Physics as fundamental. The reason 
why Mechanics is thus fundamental seems to consist essentially 
in the more permanently numerable and measurable character 
of the phenomena of perception that are its material. 

Of Chemistry we may say generally that it deals with the 
compositions and decompositions of kinds of matter; whereas 
molecular Physics deals with states of aggregation of particles 
conceived as all alike. The complex way, however, in which 
Chemistry furnishes problems to Physics makes the borders 
of the two sciences difficult to define. For the perception 
of the qualitative changes going with changes of composition, 
it is worthy of note that the senses of taste and smell are 
of account along with the others. As is of course the case 
also in the special branches of Physics, no demonstration 
that modified arrangements of simple particles accompany 
the qualitatively different phenomena can annul their actual 
differences of quality. Hence, even if matter as it must be 
for Mechanics were found to be everywhere ultimately 
homogeneous, this would not efface the division between 
Chemistry and Physics. 

With Comte we must add to the list of objective sciences 
that are fundamental and abstract the science of Life. For 
vital phenomena are distinguishable from chemical as these 
from physical phenomena by presenting a new problem of 
general form, and not merely particular empirical aggregations 
to be explained by combining and applying the orders of 
scientific truth already determined. The general problem of 
Biology is fixed by the nature of living organisms, which, 
as such, manifest what can only in fact be described as an 
“immanent end.” The parts of an organism act together 
in such a way that the union of their functions maintains, 
against resistances that do not overpass certain limits, the 
continuous existence of an individualised whole. This con- 
sensus of functions clearly presents a higher problem than 
those of Chemistry and Physics, inasmuch as we get no hint 
from any special sense or combination of senses for the 
demarcation of it. The preceding sciences furnish the 
instruments for dealing with the problem of organic life 
in detail; but that problem itself does not admit of a state- 


CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 187 


ment wholly resolving it into problems of Physics and 
Chemistry. And theories of the Evolution of Life cannot, 
of course, explain how there come to be living forms at all 
in distinction from the other objects in nature; nor, on the 
positive side, how those forms are transmuted so as to become, 
when considered in relation to the general conception of an 
organism, more “organic.” What they really set forth is 
certain conditions depending on the existence of many kinds 
of organisms together in space and time. Those conditions 
being known, and the general teleological nature of an 
organism being given, the account of living forms on earth 
can be immensely simplified; but the distinctive problem is 
not removed in this way any more than it is by the detailed 
study of physico-chemical processes in the particular organism. 
Of late, as it would be easy to show, philosophical Biology 
has become more and not less convinced of the irreducibility 
of its problem. 

The transition from Biology to Psychology is marked by the 
introduction of anew method. To observation and experiment, 
the methods of the physical and natural sciences, there is 
added introspection. This peculiar method is the condition 
of there being a science of Psychology at all. It has indeed 
been ascertained that the physiological functions of the brain 
are in some way concomitants of what is known to us intro- 
spectively as mind; but no observation of those functions, 
and no experiments, would have revealed the existence of 
mind in special relation with organisms if mental phenomena 
had not been known to us through our having reflected on 
them. Hence the proper name of the new science is not 
Cerebral Physiology, but Psychology. 

By ‘Animal Psychology” in the diagram is not meant 
Comparative Psychology, or the study of the various mani- 
festations of mind in different species of animals. This isa 
“concrete science.” Fhe fundamental or abstract science 
in relation to it is constituted by the study of mental synthesis 
in general previous to the formation of the Concept. Without 
this kind of synthesis, the actual phenomena of the human 
mind would, of course, be inexplicable ; and, as it is common 
to man and at least the higher animals, the abstract science 
that deals with it may from that circumstance receive a 
name. Under this head may be studied the elements con- 
tributed to mind by the senses, and their grouping in ac- 
cordance with the laws of association first ascertained by 


188 CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 


analysis of the phenomena of memory. Here already we 
have elementary forms of Emotion and Will, and of Reason 
as intelligent adaptation of actions to practical ends. The 
higher, and properly human, form of intelligence appears 
only with conceptual Thought. 

To the Psychology of Man the transition is through 
Sociology, regarded as a fundamental and abstract science. 
Comparison of the various forms of human society is a con- 
crete science, like Comparative Psychology. The fundamental 
character of Sociology is proved by its introducing a new mode 
of relation, namely, the relation between organisms that live in 
community and become capable of intellectual converse. In 
the evolution of human society, we must suppose that the 
passage has taken place from vague interchange of feeling and 
co-operation for common ends, to mutual understanding of 
ideas and fixation of a system of signs by which thought can 
control action. From the uttered sound associated with an 
image has been evolved the word which stands for a concept. 

On Human Psychology the remark may suffice for the 
present that of course the power of conceptual thought modifies 
everything else. Perception, emotion and will are quite other 
in man than they would be in an animal with only ‘generic 
images” in the place of general ideas, and with only intelligent 
adaptation in the place of discursive thinking. The phases of 
the human mind called Emotion and Will point to Asthetic 
Philosophy and to Practical Philosophy (Ethics and Politics), 
as the phase of Thought points to Metaphysics. Here the last 
only, as having a more fundamentally theoretical character, 
comes directly into view. 

While Psychology, with its peculiar method, first shows us 
the outlet—or the inlet—to reality, it is Metaphysics that gives 
the direct theory of reality. From metaphysical analysis of 
knowledge in general there results the doctrine known as 
Idealism. All the “objects” of the positive sciences are 
resolved into appearances, related in forms which, like the 
elements related, are such only for Mind. So far as the 
material elements of knowledge are concerned, idealistic 
doctrine seems to owe most to English Experiential Philosophy. 
For the theory of relations or forms, it owes most to Kant and 
the “ Intellectualists.” The truth in both lines of thought may 
be summed up in the position that, as the relations between 
the elements of experience are just as real, so also they are just 
as ideal, as the elements. 


CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 189 


That Metaphysics must include Ontology as well as Theory 
of Knowledge is again becoming clear. Evidence of this is to 
be found in the frankly speculative attitude taken up by Mr. 
Bradley as the representative of one view, and by Mr. 
McTaggart as the representative of the other, on the question 
of the Immortality of the Soul, relegated by Kant with all other 
ontological questions to the Practical Reason. As an aid 
towards reclaiming the province of Ontology for Metaphysics, 
it may be worth while to attempt to contribute to the proof— 
independently, as I think, of what is sectional in any philo- 
sophic school—that the question, whether the individual soul 
is permanent, is accessible from the speculative side. 

Acceptance merely of Idealism and of the formal Laws of 
Thought would not, it seems to me, give us sufficient grounds 
for approaching it. We need some real proposition about 
mind. Now if all that is is ultimately mental, and if at the 
same time no permanence beyond the moment can be asserted 
of that which is, then the hypothetical position in which we 
should have been if furnished with formal truths, but confronted 
with a material chaos, becomes actual. There is no reason, 
however, to acquiesce in this result. As against it, we can 
explicitly state an axiom or postulate which certainly is not 
devoid of meaning: namely, that there is a whole of Mind 
and that that whole is perdurable. This seems, both in itself 
and from scientific analogy, the most reasonable position. It 
is already laid down in Plato’s Phedo, though in a form which, 
through its close union with direct examination of the arguments 
for the permanence of the individual soul, has given critics 
trouble to disentangle. Thus it is, historically, nearly as old 
as the axiom of the physical perdurability of Matter. The 
Conservation of Energy, with its apparently intermediate 
position between physics and metaphysics, was naturally much 
later to receive satisfactory statement. Appearing for long in 
the guise of propositions about the ambiguous entity called 
“force,” with its suggestion at once of inherence in matter 
and of subjective activity, it had to be defined as an altogether 
phenomenal truth, and thrown over to the objective side, 
before scientific clearness could be attained. Given the per- 
durability of Mind, as distinguished at once from the merely 
formal axiom of Identity, that A is A, and from the axioms, 
having reference to the object-world, that Matter and Energy 
persist In time, we can now state intelligibly the further ques- 
tions: Are individual minds or souls alternately segregated 


? 


190 CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 


from the whole of Mind and re-absorbed into it; there being 
thus emergence and cessation of ever new intrinsic differences ? 
Or do they represent permanent distinctions, through changes 
of phenomenal manifestation, within a total intellectual system ? 
To state the questions is not of course to answer them; but, 
once the general axiom of perdurability is admitted, they 
become accessible to the laws of thought. The criterion 
seems to be, Which supposition is most thinkable in accord- 
ance with the nature of mind P 

To return now to a topic just raised under the head of 
Psychology. The amended classification of the sciences here 
proposed seems to exclude Practical and A#sthetic Philosophy. 
Yet these too have a scientific or speculative aspect, as on the 
other hand Metaphysics and Logic, which are included, may 
be treated not only as speculative sciences but as disciplines 
regulative of thought. Again, no place has been found in the 
diagram for the concrete and applied sciences. The answer to 
these objections is that any arrangement in space must neces- 
sarily be inadequate to the true order of the sciences, both 
positive and philosophical; since all of them together have 
their existence in mind or the unextended. A diagram can 
only serve as an aid to mental conception: it does not directly 
show forth the real order. This is partly but not fully ad- 
mitted by Mr. Spencer in relation to his own scheme when he 
says that a true classification of the sciences ought to be figured 
in three dimensions, and not on a surface. For not only do 
his tables, as he himself notes, exclude subjective psychology, 
which he regards as co-extensive with all the objective sciences 
and antithetical to them; but, more than this, the use of a 
model in three dimensions would not enable him to bring it 
in. 

The present adaptation of Comte’s scheme to a more 
metaphysical doctrine—and indeed the original scheme itself 
—does not seem to be necessarily in rivalry with Mr. Spencer’s. 
When it is recognised that every diagrammatic representation 
must be inadequate, the two classifications may very well be 
taken as expressions of different points of view. For philo- 
sophical use, Comte’s point of view has this advantage. It 
brings out clearly that the sciences, in their ideal order, form 
a single organism of knowledge to which each is subservient. 
Mr. Spencer’s scheme, on its side, brings out what is also a 
perfectly real aspect of science ; namely, its tendency to branch 
into divergent specialties, which arrange themselves like groups 


CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES IQ 


of organisms at the termination of a process of biological 
evolution. This, however, is a less important aspect for the 
philosopher. And to keep it primarily in view seems less con- 
ducive to the reception of science into the system of general 
culture. 

When the sciences are thought of as organically related 
to a whole, the advantages of the circular arrangement are 
easy to see. For this by no means indicates a definitively 
closed system. On the contrary, it might have served as the 
least inadequate representation from the time when cosmic 
science or philosophy first began vaguely to differentiate into 
particular sciences. New sciences would thus be seen intro- 
ducing themselves in accordance with that process of “ intus- 
susception” by which a biological organism grows, and which 
Kant regarded as the true process of development for an architec- 
tonic system of knowledge. This, and not the direct historical 
succession of the sciences in agreement with their logical order, 
has been the real course of intellectual history. The supposi- 
tion that the logical order of the sciences and the historical 
order in which they become “ positive” are one and the same, 
is a defect in Comte’s classification as it stands ; though, as may 
now be seen, it is unessential to the use of it. There is no 
difficulty indeed in fixing arbitrarily the time when a science is 
positively constituted, and thus making the two orders seem to 
agree; but, if we view the facts impartially, the supposition 
that they do agree may be easily refuted. Chemistry, for 
example, is logically prior to Biology; yet it was later to be- 
come a coherent body of doctrine. And Psychology, even in 
its higher department, is an older science than Sociology ; 
which indeed is even now little more than inchoate, so that the 
definite place assigned to it in the series is still somewhat in 
advance of the facts. The sciences have not waited for one 
another, as Comte appears to have imagined, but have started 
up at intervals as occasion brought them into view ; the higher 
sciences contenting themselves, if the lower were not “ ready,” 
with a few approximations to their laws, or in the meantime 
taking leaps in the dark. And at every stage since Greek 
science began, there has been some kind of general philosophy 
in more or less friendly relation with the special sciences. 

Finally, it might be contended that something like the 
arrangement proposed has always been implicit in educated 
thought. To make out a case, it would only be necessary to 
point to the etymology of the word ‘‘ encyclopzedia.” 


TELEOLOGY AND The 
INDIVIDUAL 


Ovx Zoe &  Htors ereccodwwdns ofca éx THY davouévav , WoTEp MoXOnpa 
tpaywodla.—Arist Jet. xiv. 3, 1090 b 19. 


Kanv’s treatment of final causes in the Critique of Judgment 
is as classical for modern times as that of Aristotle for 
antiquity. Thus it is the inevitable starting-point for any new 
discussion of the topic. Complex as the third Critique is in 
itself, the general position that results from it can be stated in 
a few words. The human mind necessarily makes use of the 
conception of an end or “final cause” in its explanation or 
description of an organism ; but this conception has not full 
theoretical validity. Perhaps an “ intuitive intelligence” might 
be able to view nature as through and through mechanically 
determined. Apparent teleology, seen especially in organisms, 
runs out into zsthetic contemplation of nature; but for the 
speculative reason it has no “constitutive” value. Primarily, 
the bearing of the idea of end is practical. The mechanical 
principles, however, which have for nature the highest 
theoretical warrant, not only cannot now explain, but 
demonstratively will never be able to explain for any human 
mind, the simplest process that is distinctively vital. For the 
sciences of organic life, the conception of final cause will 
always be a necessity. 

Kant’s ‘“hard-and-fast” divisions are by his successors 
laid aside: and this is often supposed to tell in 
favour of some view subordinating everything to practice. 
If there is no rigorous demarcation between the “ practical” 
and the “speculative,” then, it is straightway assumed, we 
must declare every explanation to be ultimately practical, the 
mechanical just as much as the teleological explanation. 
But why not attempt a precisely opposite correction? If 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 193 


there are no such hard-and-fast lines, teleological explanations, 
though starting immediately from our knowledge of our own 
practical activity, must have a speculative character of their 
own, no less than mechanical ones. Their degree of 
theoretical validity remains to be determined. The rigid 
lines having gone, we can ask which “ category,” teleology or 
mechanism, comes nearer to the truth of reality, and what are 
their other superiorities or inferiorities. We have returned 
to something more like the position of Aristotle, by whom the 
teleological account of organisms was regarded as one form of 
theoretical science, and not as a kind of intruder, though an 
inevitable one, in the scientific domain. 

To appeal finally to the decision of theoretical reason, so 
far as this can be distinguished from other manifestations of 
reason, does not mean that we are to ignore systematically the 
problems suggested by esthetic or practical views. Such 
views may start questions to which the speculative reason can 
give some, though not a perfect, answer. Its answer, by the 
seeker of speculative truth, must be accepted in the last resort. 
In metaphysics we must not ask first, what alternatives are 
theoretically possible, and then decide, in the absence of any 
other test, for that which conforms to our aspirations. Rather 
we must ask, whether a view conformable to our aspirations 
can be consistently thought. If it can, we must still try to 
adjust our belief exactly to the evidence, and not choose it 
with a weighted volition that goes beyond. 

‘** Final cause,” then, presents itself to us, within a certain 
range, as a known fact. We have the thought of a modifica- 
tion to be produced in perceptible objects ; and the production 
of that modification takes place after we have thought of it, 
and somehow in consequence of our idea as a contributory 
cause. And such cases are not merely sporadic. ‘There isa 
whole class of events, called ‘‘ volitions,” of which this is the 
general description. One idea which, through intermediate 
mental and physical modifications, is at the origin of many 
actions, is the generalised idea of conserving the organism. 
The previous existence of this as a directing thought con- 
tributes, through what we call “‘ means,” to realise the “end ;” 
that is, to maintain the continued existence of the organic 
system called the body. The view can be further generalised. 
The working of the body, beneath our voluntary muscular 
actions, is made up of all sorts of physical and chemical 
processes: and these, we find, conspire in the absence of 


13 


194 TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


conscious direction to effect what would be our “end” if we 
had control over them. We can apply the same conception to 
animal organisms, without necessarily supposing them to 
possess conscious ends of a generalised kind at all. Further, 
we can apply it to plants, which we do not even suppose to be 
conscious in the ordinary meaning of the word, much less to 
have conscious ends. ‘That is to say: if we were in the place 
of the lower animal or the plant, and desired to preserve the 
existence of the system supposed to be our body, we should, 
if we could, with this end in view, combine the physical and 
chemical processes exactly as they are combined. Or if, 
standing outside, we had in our minds as an object of desire 
the preservation of such an organic system, and had control 
over its internal processes, we should control them precisely 
thus. This is summed up by saying that all living organisms, 
from the highest to the lowest—whatever else they may have 
—have an “ immanent end.” 

So far teleology seems to be quite scientific. It is merely 
a generalised statement of facts and events. But can we go 
deeper? Is this appearance an illusion? Must the ultimate 
explanation be found in a purely mechanical transmission of 
motion, capable of being stated according to laws which are 
not teleological ? 

Clearly this cannot be the ultimate explanation; and, 
whatever advance knowledge may make, can never become 
so. For explanations in terms of mechanism are merely 
phenomenal: whereas teleological explanations, though these 
too must not be assumed to be ultimate, take account of 
something known to us as more than phenomenally real— 
namely, a process of mind. Even where this cannot strictly 
be known, they suppose something vaguely in analogy with it. 
Thus, while they have nothing like the minuteness and accuracy 
of the mechanical explanations, they have more reality in a 
metaphysical sense. A mechanical process is ultimately, under 
analysis, nothing but an observed or inferred co-existence 
and sequence of appearances, having a certain constancy. 
Appearances generally are combinations of presented and 
represented sense-elements which we ‘ project,” as portions 
of our perceived “external world,” according to psychological 
law. We reduce this varied object to ‘‘mechanism” by 
abstraction ; that is to say, we bring it to a calculable form 
by taking away a considerable part even of what is actual or 
possible appearance to our own minds or to human minds in 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 195 


general. From this denuded “mechanical” world we can 
never get back by a rational procedure even to the whole of 
phenomena ; let alone to the mental reality which we observe 
in ourselves introspectively or infer to exist in others. 

The foregoing argument of course implies the idealistic 
contrast between the phenomena of the object-world, projected 
in the form of space, and the reality of the mind as known by 
introspection, for which objects are appearances. If it is said 
that, at any rate, the appearances indicate something that is 
not our own mind or the minds of other persons, the reply 
must be that in no such way as this can the ultimate character 
of mechanical explanations be defended. For these do not 
take us to any “ground” beneath mere relations of phenomena. 
And the phenomena themselves even are regarded not in their 
fulness, but in extreme abstraction. 

Let us, however, setting aside the idealistic criticism for a 
moment, consider the emergence of organic groups in accord- 
ance with Natural Selection. This is sometimes even by 
men of science called a ‘‘ mechanical” explanation, though it 
is really of a more concrete character, and cannot be translated 
in full into abstract mathematico-physical relations. In any 
case, it does not resolve the fundamental teleology of organisms, 
but assumes it. What it gets rid of scientifically is the so- 
called “external teleology,” which imagined organic forms to 
be explained by the assertion that a quasi-human artificer had 
adapted them to one another and to the conditions of life. 
Natural Selection gives a scientific explanation of the origin 
of species by showing how groups may come to be definitely 
marked off through elimination of the multitudes of individuals 
that cannot maintain themselves in competition with individuals 
better adapted to the given circumstances. But those that are 
eliminated are also, for the most part, quite capable of main- 
taining themselves and of leaving offspring if they had fewer 
competitors. Practically, all are expressions of an “ immanent 
teleology ;” but the varying individuals vary in efficiency as 
in other characters. Wonderful as was the anticipation by 
Empedocles of natural selection as a general idea, nothing has 
yet been found in organic nature corresponding to the endless 
production, which he supposed, of monstrous births, hardly 
any of which could live at all. If this had turned out to be 
the order of things, more might have been said for the view 
that apparent ‘‘end” or “final cause” is a merely casual result 
of something resembling mechanism. But the facts, as 


196 TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


observed, correspond rather to Aristotle’s view that the 
relatively few monstrous births produced indicate some material 
obstacle, which causes the essentially teleological effort that 
finds its expression in living things occasionally to miss the 
mark. Human volition very frequently fails to reach what it 
aimed at: and yet we do not say that there was no volition ; 
nor do we say, when it hits the mark, that there was in it no 
preconception of results. 

Darwin, of course, never rejected teleology in the sense 
defended. It merely did not come within his own biological 
province; belonging rather to that of the physiologist. Accord- 
ing to an utterance related in his Life, the argument for the 
reality of final causes sometimes appealed to him; though at 
other times he seemed to see nothing init. This is intelligible, 
since the great effect of his work was to explain in a different 
manner a whole order of things which the cultivators of natural 
history had been in the habit of explaining by teleology of an 
illegitimate kind. 

In its foundation, biology still remains the type of a teleo- 
logical science. This means that it is a mixed science; that 
although in its whole structure it is phenomenal and objective, 
it has nevertheless to use, implicitly or explicitly, as a directive 
idea, something given to it by an elementary psychological 
observation of the process in volition. In detail, physiology 
proceeds by tracing the physico-chemical changes that carry 
on the life of the organism ; but without the conception of the 
organism as an end to itself, kept in being by a set of 
‘functions ” working together for their own continuance, there 
would be no such scientific problem as that of “life.” An 
organism would be merely a portion of the object-world 
accidentally detached, like a piece of rock for example. To 
consider its perservation or non-preservation in any special way 
would be of no interest. 

Biology, once formed, reacts powerfully on psychology, which 
now acquires a much more determinate teleological basis than 
it would have had if limited to introspection. In fact, so far 
as the idea of end can be carried through in psychology itself, 
it owes most of its applicability to biology. To have insisted 
on the fundamental character of the “organic individual” in 
psychological science appears to me on reflection to be a 
definite achievement of recent psychologists. In England it 
may be assigned to Professors Ward and Stout. Some of their 
predecessors, as I think they admit, have recognised the 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 197 


“ conative” basis of the science ; but undoubtedly considerable 
development of it was needed to correct a form of “associa- 
tionism” which would have made teleology issue, as a last 
result, from laws of mental process intrinsically not teleological. 
This admitted, however, there is room still for a plea on behalf 
of the position that something is to be found in mind beyond 
teleology. There are processes, both of mere association and 
of thought, that have purely mental laws not reducible to 
relations of end and means. A higher teleology beyond the 
psycho-physiological may arise by which they become ends ; 
but ends in the primary meaning of practical interests are not 
their determinants from the beginning. Speculative interests, 
if we like to call them so, spring out of a non-teleological mode 
of mind. Not only pure thought, but mere reverie, may exist, 
as we say, “for its own sake,” and without having been brought 
to be by adaptation to a desired result. We have risen to the 
“ super-organic,” in a sense somewhat different from that of 
Spencer. 

By this association of ideas, which (as if to illustrate the 
thesis maintained) presented itself unsought, we may go on 
to the “ super-organic” in its meaning of sociology. Here we 
are brought again to a science which in one department—like 
biology in its physiological department—in the absence of the 
idea of end becomes mere chaos. It would not be quite true 
to say this of psychology; but it is true of historical science. 
Organic development, conceived as a series of relations to 
immanent ends, is here fundamental. The phenomena of 
decadence and reaction do not alter the case, any more than 
the phenomena of degeneration alter it in biology. This means 
that we have here again a “mixed” science, with interaction 
between conceptions belonging to the object and the subject. 
Our demarcations of the sciences must evidently not be taken 
in too rigorous a sense. 

The teleological idea, as here adopted, seems to be secure 
against the criticism contained in Prof. Adamson’s Development 
of Modern Philosophy (vol. ii. “ Principles of Psychology,” A. 
chap. iii.) That criticism is effective against the notion that 
any use can be made of the idea of a prefigured end towards 
which the whole process of things is moving; but the idea of 
end in its “immanent” sense, as applied to the development 
of the individual or of smaller or larger organic groups, appears 
to be admitted by Adamson himself, only with some advance 
in subtlety of statement. ) 


198 TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


Teleology, according to the view that has been taken, finds 
expression in the laws of every kind of organic system, from 
individual organism to species; and in man again from the 
organic individual through family and tribal groups to cities 
and nations, and lastly, in an incipient way, to the whole of 
humanity. Such groups are not mere aggregates, but can have 
an intelligible end stated for them by a spectator identifying 
himself in imagination with the group. This end is, at the 
lowest, self-conservation. As the scale is ascended, it becomes 
something more: ‘ power” (as Hobbes expressed it), or 
freedom, or positive happiness in practical or contemplative 
activity. Such ends arrive at self-consciousness only in the 
higher organic groups, and only in individuals among those 
groups. 

Can we go further and suppose a single teleological system 
in which all these systems are included so as to be adapted to 
one another? ‘This, as Kant showed, can only be done by 
speculating in terms of an ideal. In thus speculating we go 
beyond the region of positive science. Yet the whole of 
organic life on earth, with its whole environment, does some- 
how form part of one system, whether we call it teleological or 
not. And the accomplishment of ends by individuals and 
groups is dependent on the system with its mutual adaptations. 
As to the nature of this system, the general truth seems to 
have been first stated by Heraclitus, who declared that the 
condition of there being a cosmos was strife. The later Greek 
philosophic schools all adopted this view, putting it in their 
own manner. Plato’s recognition, in conformity with it, that 
evils can never be expelled from the world, was enforced by 
his successors with arguments of theirown. Evil, said Proclus, 
must always exist as a condition of the universal harmony, but 
it must always be kept under. It is scarcely necessary to point 
out the perfect agreement of the Darwinian “struggle for 
existence ” with this theodicy. 

The term “ theodicy,” adopted by Leibniz, correctly describes 
the thought of successive generations of Greek thinkers. From 
an early period, there had been a tendency to bring even what 
might seem merely physical under the head of “justice” and 
“injustice.” The general conclusion of reflective observers, 
viewing life as a whole, was that a kind of justice can be seen 
to run through it, but that this, according to human ideas, is 
very imperfect. Both in their positive and negative utterances, 
the Greeks are on this point in agreement with the most pene- 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 199 


trating of the Hebrews. Only among the Greeks, however, did 
poetic reflection lead on to a sustained philosophic effort after 
a solution. Plato, who first stated the problem in its generality, 
conceived it on the whole as Kant did later. The reign of 
absolute justice could not be seen if you looked for it directly 
as a mere observer. The method must be, to set up an ideal 
and then try whether you can think this as really governing 
all that happens in the world. The test is that you preserve 
self-consistency and consistency with the facts; following 
resolutely where reason leads. Plato’s conclusion was that, 
while actual life, if closely examined, works out far more 
favourably to the just man than might be thought by a super- 
ficial observer, yet a single individual life is not adequate to the 
full accomplishment of justice. To this end, there must be a 
permanent individual existence, for which the single life is only 
one of a series. Over this series absolute justice rules. 

By some thinkers the problem raised in the last place was 
set aside. The teleological order of the system of things, they 
thought, manifests itself only in relation to such great organic 
unities as cities and races. It does not take account of the 
mere individual. Now of course a kind of historical justice is 
most easily observable over a long time and where a great 
multitude is considered. Plato himself recognised the pro- 
visional value of such a point of view in proposing to consider 
ideal justice in the city before dealing with it in the citizen. 
But, as Proclus noted, while the virtues of the whole city are 
those of the individual ‘“‘ writ large,” they are in quality as dis- 
tinguished from quantity at a greater remove from the ideal. 
(Comm. in Remp., ed. Kroll, i. 217.) Thus, if we are to try 
at all to find in the order of the world conformity to our 
practical and esthetic demands, we must seek in the destiny of 
the individual a greater and not a less refinement of justice. 
A theodicy applying only to races and cities and perhaps 
families, would not satisfy us if it left the individual in a purely 
accidental relation to the total organic unity in which he is 
involved. This had long been an admitted point of view in 
Greek speculation of a theological cast. And, as Proclus also 
recognised, justice must not apply merely to man. There 
must be some shadow of it in relation to the lower animals. 

Before we can know how far there is room for imaginations 
of “something like” this, we must try to determine whether 
any immortality of the soul is possible. Can the permanence of 
the individual be maintained on grounds of speculative reason ?P 


200 TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


The question is obviously not to be settled at once by 
idealism. For it seems as if, on idealistic principles, individu- 
ality might be some temporary phase in an impersonal whole 
of mind. In order to start as far away as we can from any 
position that would beg the question and issue in a purely 
illusory deductive process, let us attempt a dogmatic use of 
the sceptical result arrived at by Hume in the Tveatise of 
Human Nature: namely, that no substance either of matter 
or of mind need be assumed, but that the finally true realities 
are the particular “perceptions” into which mind is resolved 
by analysis. ‘These themselves, as Hume points out expressly 
(Bk. 1. Pt. iv. sect. 5), we have no reason for supposing inex- 
tinguishable. For anything that can be asserted a priorz, 
they, in common with every object we can imagine, may be 
‘annihilated in a moment.” 

On this last position Hume remarks that it leaves everything 
‘“‘precisely as before.” We may if we like take this in the 
sense that it is permissible to try to find our way back to a 
system by any axiom or postulate that seems to offer a foot- 
hold ; though of course no one can be prevented from electing 
to remain a pure sceptic, adopting only such practical principles 
as may be necessary for the conduct of life. Now if the 
method were chosen of asserting as true anything conceivable 
on the given supposition, a positive doctrine of immortality 
might be laid down compatibly even with this complete 
disaggregation of mind. The existent perceptions may not be 
wholly annihilated ; and they may continue, after the destruc- 
tion of a particular organism (itself an illusory appearance), to 
run together in the same apparent “ form of personality.” All 
we need to do is to furnish ourselves with a practical motive 
and make an assertion agreeable to it. Perhaps this was the 
meaning of Hume’s irony. I confess, however, that I should 
prefer to remain a pure sceptic. Any axiom that it would 
seem to me satisfactory to work with must present itself as 
primarily intellectual. 

An axiom of perdurability applied to the elements of mind 
seems to have this character. Let us, then, posit as first 
realities the ‘‘elementary feelings” of Clifford’s ‘ mind-stuff,” 
and declare these to be permanent. From their union minds 
appear, and into them minds, if they perish as such, are 
resolved. This view (as follows from what has been already 
said) does not absolutely preclude continuance of the same 
form of personality from one life to another; though it does 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 201 


not in any way suggest it. Rather it suggests that death of 
the organism is accompanied by final disaggregation of the 
individual mind. Is the theory itself, however, in the end, 
thinkable ? 

Put in the extreme form provisionally adopted, it is not. 
The best refutation has been furnished by Prof. W. James, 
who has expressly discussed the question in his Principles of 
Psychology. Theconclusive argument is this. If the isolated 
‘“‘elementary feeling” is the true reality, then relations between 
feelings joined in a consciousness should be explicable from 
the mere co-existence and succession of the feelings themselves. 
But such co-existence and succession can take place without 
bringing on the slightest tendency to permanent relation 
between the feelings. Let different persons experience side 
by side and in definite temporal order, feelings which, if thus 
brought together in one consciousness, would give a total 
conscious state with related parts: neither their co-existence 
nor succession will, in the circumstances, produce any associa- 
tion whatever. Thus consciousness, or the form of the 
individual mind, remains just as unexplained as_ before. 
Whatever it may be, it is something that makes a real differ- 
ence to the feelings said to join themselves together in. actual 
minds. ‘Laws of association,” instead of showing how it 
emerges from the mere feelings, suppose it already there. 
The theory so far does not lead us a step further. 

Another way of conceiving the doctrine of mind-stuff was 
slightly developed by me some time ago. Let us suppose the 
‘relations ” of Spencer (or indeed of Hume) equally permanent 
with the feelings related. Cannot the whole real or meta- 
physical process of things be regarded as an evolution of a 
“‘ mind-stuff” consisting from the first not of isolated but of 
related feelings? The difficulty of this seems to be that we 
still get no nearer to the explanation of the many individual 
minds. Given a total of mind-stuff as the reality, its evolution 
would always be that of a single individual. It may be said 
that this is so; that particular individuals are partially illusory 
representations of the sole real experience. A view like this 
has been thought to result from Hegelianism. But on this 
theory also we need some explanation of apparent individuality. 

Logically developed, the theory in this form seems indis- 
tinguishable from a Spinozism in which the “attribute of 
thought” is identified with “absolute subject” (rather than 
“substance”; the attribute of extension being subordinated. 


202 TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


This too, however, fails to yield an explanation of the individual 
mind, at least on Spinozistic principles. ‘That thing,” says 
Spinoza (Eth. i. Def. 2), “is called in its kind finite which can 
be bounded by another of the same nature. For example, a 
body is called finite because we always conceive another 
greater. ‘Thus thought is bounded by other thought. (Sic 
cogitatio alia cogitatione tervminatuy.) But body is not 
bounded by thought nor thought by body.” Now evidently 
the organism is in this sense a finite thing, being marked off 
from other bodies. But there is no such relation between the 
particular mind, which according to Spinoza corresponds to it 
in the attribute of thought, and other minds. For there is 
no ‘“‘boundary” between one mind and another, but each 
corresponds to the universe. ‘The soul,” as Aristotle said, 
‘‘is in a manner all things.” The bounding of thought by 
thought, in analogy with a corporeal limit, is intelligible, if at 
all, only within each mind considered by itself. When Spinoza 
later speaks of “our mind” as “‘an eternal mode of thinking, 
which is determined by another eternal mode of thinking, and 
this again by another, and thus to infinity; so that all together 
constitute the eternal and infinite intellect of God” (Eth. v. 
Prop. 40, Schol.), we seem to have arrived at a fundamentally 
different position, not capable of development from the first. 
Individuality is asserted as a fact, but has not been deduced. 

Perhaps this is inevitable. At any rate, segregation and re- 
absorption of mind-atoms, and delimitation of infinite thought, 
alike turn out to be inapplicable analogies from bodies dis- 
tributed or diffused in space. Reconstitution of the individual 
mind from the ‘particular perceptions” into which it was 
apparently resolved, Hume himself did not think that he had 
achieved ; and the successors on his own line have not further 
advanced this particular problem. Mill, in his famous defini- 
tion of consciousness as ‘“‘a series aware of itself as a series,” 
in effect gave up the attempt; simply asserting individuality 
in his own manner. But had Hume really disposed of the 
‘‘immaterial soul?” Is the term henceforth superseded for the 
metaphysician ? 

Now it is remarkable that, in the section of the Tveatise 
referred to above, he only seems to dispose of it by showing 
how the logical development of the conception would run into 
Spinozism. This was meant to frighten the theologians of his 
time; and it succeeded. But suppose we have no objection 
to regarding the particular soul as not a created thing, but in 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 203 


some sense an “eternal mode” of the Substance or Subject 
that is all. If we are fairly to test the position, we must not 
take the soul as understood in the Christian Scholastic com- 
promise between a philosophically developed Platonism and 
the dualistic assumptions required to square with the faith. 
Some purely philosophical rendering of the doctrine must be 
sought for. This test, it may be pointed out, Kant as well as 
Hume failed to apply. Now we find such a purely philosophical 
rendering in Berkeley ; whose theological purpose never caused 
any deviation in the logic of his thinking. Hume, in his 
destructive criticism of ‘‘ personal identity,” does not attempt 
to deal with Berkeley’s doctrine of the “notion.” Of the 
importance of this, indeed, Berkeley himself only became fully 
conscious after his first writing of the Principles of Human 
Knowledge ; as is shown by his later insertions. What Hume 
treats as Berkeley’s definitive “theory of knowledge” is the 
position that we reason by means of ‘‘ideas.” This theory, 
however, Berkeley considered adequate only to the object- 
world. About objects in general, we can reason by particular 
“ideas,” all of which are picturable. The use of these in 
thinking is made possible by attention to them in a general 
relation. The constant order that runs through our perceptions, 
considered in this general aspect, constitutes our external 
world. By closer attention to the precise conditions of per- 
ceptions, in so far as they do not depend on each particular 
mind, we substitute science for ordinary experience. There 
must be, however, something to which the external world 
appears. This is called a “spirit.” Of spirits we have no 
“ideas,” but only an absolutely unpicturable “notion,” 
corresponding to no particular perception. Yet, for coherent 
knowledge, we cannot do without subjects of phenomena. A 
substance or subject, indicated, it may be, only by a word, 
must yet be thus indicated because perceptions are—as we 
now say—related in a consciousness. And, as has been seen, 
the course of more recent thought has failed to substitute any 
way of thinking by which we can dispense with such a “‘ notion.” 
For positive psychology, at least in beginning its expositions, 
the organism may suffice as a “bearer:” but the problems 
raised by Berkeley and Hume do not find their adequate 
solution in positive psychology. 

Let us, then, adopting the position last cited from Spinoza, 
try to conceive of the many “spirits” as interacting within a 
system (called by Spinoza ‘Dei aeternus et infinitus 


204 TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


intellectus”). These existences (‘‘spirits” or ‘ modes”), 
according to Berkeley as well as Spinoza, are not limited to a 
particular time. In fact, immediate experience suggests to us 
the notion of a subject which goes into latency (as in sleep) 
and returns from it. Why then should we limit their duration 
at all? As they are not deducible either from “infinite 
intellect” on the one side, or from hypothetical elements 
reached by analysis on the other, the consequence seems to be 
that the whole of mind must be thought of as always intrinsi- 
cally pluralised. And, since the “‘modes” by which it is 
pluralised are distinct, they too, if we are to retain our general 
axiom of perdurability, must be regarded as permanent. Thus 
the whole of mind, that is, of reality, contains in itself many 
permanently real modes or spirits, without ceasing to be a 
whole and a system. 

Evidently, on the principles of immaterialism, the conditions 
expressed as space and matter will not enable us to explain 
the pluralising of mind. The organism is merely one figured 
portion of the “‘ waking dream” (Berkeley, Sivis, § 318) which 
expresses the interaction of the ‘‘ subjects” composing reality. 
Its relation to the subject is not properly that of effect to 
cause, any more than of cause to effect, if we use the terms in 
their scientific or phenomenal sense: it is that of phenomenon 
or manifestation to noumenon. The word ‘‘cause” indeed 
was used in the sense of noumenon by Kant himself, after he 
had formally drawn the distinction. It had been used already 
in this sense by the Neo-Platonists. Comte proposed to 
expel it from philosophical or scientific language precisely on 
account of the tinge of ‘‘ metaphysics” that clings to it. Still, 
if a serious effort is made, consistent use of it in the 
phenomenal sense does not seem difficult to maintain ; though 
occasional relapses into popular language (which is more 
‘metaphysical ”) ought not to be found very misleading. 

Thus we do not seem to need any “substance” except the 
intangible and unfigured “subject” to which phenomena 
appear. The ways in which this could go out of existence 
without diminishing the whole of being, seem to be strictly 
unknowable. We cannot dogmatically assert that there are 
no such ways; but we are at least entitled to attempt an 
ontological theory on the ground of what can be coherently 
thought. To complete the scale of being, it will no doubt be 
necessary to suppose, at a lower grade than Berkeley’s self- 
conscious “spirits,” not only permanent souls of animals, but 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 205 


also ‘‘monads,” as Leibniz called them, corresponding to the 
things that appear as inorganic. These are not ‘ material 
substances” in Berkeley’s sense. Their real being is an 
activity analogous to that of the subject. Phenomenally, the 
rendering of this may be “energy.” And, if we are to 
speculate on this line, the conjecture may be thrown out that 
the phenomenal rendering of subjective being when its activity 
becomes latent is “‘entropy,” or unavailable energy. If there 
is anything that can be wholly set over against soul or mind 
or spirit, it seems to be a kind of real “not-being,” such as 
the Platonic or Neo-Platonic ‘‘ matter.” Berkeley, in his later 
speculations, did not reject the thought that there might be a 
place for this matter of the “incorporeaiists.” If it were to be 
again introduced, as has sometimes been proposed, its meaning 
would be that of a descriptive formula expressive of the fact 
that non-spatial subjects come to present themselves as if set 
apart from one another, in union with certain bounded groups 
of phenomena in space. Something very like this is to be 
found in Kant’s space considered as a ‘‘form of intuition,” 
within which the subject is necessitated to present phenomena 
to itself. For within space as a common form, the individual 
subject associates one group of phenomena (namely, its 
organism) with itself; inferring the existence of other subjects 
in association with similar appearances. Kant’s spatial 
“form” is not the same as the empty, objective space called 
by Plato the recipient of the ideas; and, though it has more 
points of resemblance to the Neo-Platonic “ matter,” it is not 
quite identical with it: but it occupies the same position in the 
system. A thorough assimilation of any of these doctrines 
would equally set us free from “ parallelism,” of the Cartesian 
type, between “extension” and “thought” conceived as 
co-ordinate realities. The metaphor suggested, instead of 
parallel straight lines, would be that of circumference and 
centre (or, as the Platonists said, the region near the centre) ; 
the former representing material objects and the latter intellect. 
A taste for paradoxical expression might suggest that, accord- 
ing to this view, the two poles of reality are mind or the 
unextended, and nature or the non-existent. 

What the Sophist called the non-existence of nature is, 
however, like its existence, relative. Actual or possible 
“natural phenomena” do not themselves constitute a process 
of real evolution: yet we must suppose a real process to go 
on through the activities of the subjects to whom are presented 


206 TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


the phases of the cosmic dream. How this process is to be 
conceived metaphysically is a genuine problem for speculation, 
though it may admit of no positive solution. A theory 
worked out by the Orientalist Emile Burnouf (in La Vie et 
la Pensée) was that the same ‘‘monads” become successively 
incarnate in the ascending stages of animal life, till at length 
they reach the stage of man, to be followed, at the next great 
geological epoch, by that of “‘super-man.” Another possible 
view is that the “Ideas of individuals” (in Platonic phrase) 
do not evolve so as to pass from one specific grade to another, 
but become by turns manifest in a phenomenal world as the 
process brings on the grouping of scenery adapted to new 
actors in the drama. In this case equally, of course, the 
apparent or physical corresponds to a real or metaphysical 
process. Either view is consistent with the facts of biological 
evolution, which refers directly only to the organisms evolved. 
If indeed the consciousness of the offspring could be explained 
by deriving it from the consciousness of the parents, the whole 
would be an affair of positive science, and we should have no. 
need for a metaphysic of heredity. But no such explanation 
has ever been offered in psychological terms. 

Speculation has thus brought us to conceive the possibility 
that permanent individual subjects may have successive lives 
through which could be seen, if we knew them, a teleological 
order resembling that which is manifested in societies to the 
insight of a philosophic historian. As in the successive genera- 
tions of a progressive or decadent civilisation, so in the case 
of the individual, the acquirement or non-acquirement of 
knowledge and virtue in one life would have its effect on the 
next. It might even be rendered conceivable that, at a certain 
elevation in the scale of being, consciousness and memory 
should go on in some phenomenal world from one life to 
another. And if the teleological order (as was always assumed 
in the Platonic myths) is one in which justice prevails, this 
does not involve any chimerical notion of guilt or merit on the 
part of the individual towards the universe. All that is done 
or suffered must be regarded as taking place naturally through 
the actions and reactions of individuals within the smaller 
or greater organic groups to which they belong. In the case 
of man, the largest group may be, as Mill thought, sentient 
life on earth; but with this each man’s connexion is less 
organic than with Humanity; as again, at the present stage, 
it is less organic with Humanity than with his own State. 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 207 


Lastly, the question put by Aristotle arises: whether the 
unity of the whole is merely in the system, or is something 
above. In terms of Spinozism: Is there any but a logical 
distinction between natura natuvans and natura naturata ? 
Or, in terms of Hegelianism: Is there any meaning in talking 
of Absolute Spirit apart from the finite spirits in which it is 
manifested? Now under the head of psychology we found 
that, while determination by “final cause” continues to a 
certain point, there is a point where, even within our experience, 
we begin to go beyond it. Intellectual activity may attain a 
kind of impersonal character in which the relation of end and 
means begins to disappear; and the mystics claim to go even 
further. So far as transcendence of teleology is concerned, 
the mystics and Aristotle—who, it must be remembered, was 
pre-eminently a teleologist—quite agree. There may exist a 
state or activity of the individual subject which does not reach 
out to anything further, but is for that subject the end. If 
something even better than this has an unchanging existence 
in that which directs the whole, or contains all, or is all, then 
there is placed for ever above volition what is finally the end 
of all desire. All below this may contain an element of will; 
since even the lowest real existences are moved by a vague 
“effort” towards some kind of good: but that which the 
whole, or the highest in it, possesses, it does not need to strive 
after. A position thus generalised seems to offer the elements 
of a solution. There are systems of ends, and these are 
mutually adapted so as to form one system; but this system 
has no end. There is no future of the universe for which its 
present state is only a preparation; just as its present state 
was not the “final cause” of the preceding. The perfection 
of the whole exists eternally, in a manner of which the mystics 
may get a glimpse. The whole, while it is a system, is more. 
The One, which remains, is either superpersonal intellect, 
containing all subjects, or something beyond intellect. Volition 
and final cause belong only to the parts and to the flux. 

From this it results that there is no evolution of the universe 
as a whole. There always has been and always will be a 
phenomenal world. The phenomenal world of science is, in 
terms of idealism, a conceptual construction representing 
for thought the groupings of appearances to thinking and 
perceiving subjects. What is indicated by it is an aggregate 
of systems analogous to our solar system, in all stages of 
evolution and dissolution simultaneously. The cyclical pro- 


208 TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


cesses of which we perceive the phases are those of particular 
systems. In the whole, all orders of mental and physical 
reality and appearance co-exist. Individual beings alternate 
between actuality and possibility, whether of perceiving or of 
arousing perception in others. The whole may be thought as 
finite. That is to say, what we call the material systems are 
numerable. They are in “infinite space,” in the sense that 
space as a subjective phantasm is necessarily infinite from the 
nature of our experience; but the ether in which they are 
immersed has a measure. Possibilities of undergoing the 
experience of perceptual motion are determinate in all direc- 
tions. At a finite, though very great, distance from our place 
in the universe, there is no longer the possibility of such 
experiences as are constitutive of our physical world. 

Time, being distinctively the form of the subject, is nearer 
to metaphysical reality than space. It is also, for the imagina- 
tion, more perplexing. Yet the puzzle regarding infinite past 
time, insisted on especially by Renouvier, seems to be in the 
end a puzzle for imagination rather than for thought. The 
assertion that there is no limit to the series of phenomenal 
events in the past can be cleared of self-contradiction ; and 
both science and metaphysics seem to require it. The 
phenomenal law of causal sequence does not allow us to stop 
anywhere in tracing back one collocation to another by which 
it was preceded. And, if we suppose a necessary relation 
between the whole of reality, or the noumenon, and its 
manifestation, it follows that there must always be phenomena, 
without limit in the past as in the future. For thought there 
is here no antinomy. The noumenon manifests itself now as 
always ; and events in time are ever succeeding one another. 

The laws of conservation of matter and energy are such as 
would result from this metaphysical position. And, if the 
transformation of energy so as to become unavailable,—the 
‘dissipation of energy” as it is called,—expresses the pre- 
dominant movement under the given conditions of our solar 
system, no ground has yet been shown for holding it to be 
more than a provisional formula for a portion of a cycle. 
“Entropy,” or energy rendered unavailable, is not held by 
physicists to be destroyed: therefore it must be conceived as 
a reserve from which under other conditions the cycle may 
renew itself. 

This general outline seems at any rate to be scientifically 
thinkable. The view set against it may be summed up in 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 209 


the assertion that phenomena are not necessarily, but con- 
tingently, related to the noumenon. In short, the production 
of the universe is to be conceived on the analogy of human 
volition. This, undoubtedly, would get rid of the trouble for 
the imagination, though at the expense of a miracle. A very 
primitive form of imagination is a “mythus” or tale, which 
starts with “once upon a time.” It is an application of this 
form of discourse when cosmogonic poets or theologians tell 
of a beginning of the world. But, as we have partly seen, 
thought leads away from this literally mythological view. A 
miraculous beginning is imaginable and is defensible by pure 
formal logic: but if we aim at a thoroughgoing scientific logic 
also, where are we to stop in tracing back phenomenal effects 
to causes? And, when we deal with the question metaphysic- 
ally, how can we be content to attribute that weakness of 
human nature which displays itself as apparently arbitrary 
choice, to the reality manifested in the whole system of things ? 
In the human mind itself, at its higher stages, action or mental 
process seems to flow by a kind of natural necessity. The 
most plausible ground for indeterminism as regards the human 
will is the seeming unreason of many (non-impulsive) actions, 
whether viewed from within or from without. Of course they 
are not really inconsistent with determinism: but, in viewing 
the world as a whole, nothing even apparently like them is to 
be observed. What physical science discovers is the immanent 
reason of uniform law. To suppose this to have begun from a 
point of time by an act of choice is to descend to a lower level 
in seeking what purports to be a philosophical explanation of 
the order revealed by science. 

The view that there is no total process of the world from a 
temporal beginning to an end, but that there always has been 
and always will be a world, was held in antiquity by philo- 
sophers who had systematically considered the question and 
who had no mythological position to maintain. Between 
naturalists and idealists there was here no difference. Earlier 
than the systematic stage of philosophising, the position had 
been explicitly stated by Heraclitus and by Parmenides. For 
the elder thinker, no less than for his immediate successor and 
opponent, the world was one perdurable whole, not made in 
the past and not to be destroyed in the future. And, in 
aphoristic or poetic form, this was connected with the idea of 
a reality expressing itself in the system of the universe but 
not exhausted by that system. 

14 


210 TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


Such “transcendence” of the universe by its reality, 
according to the interpretation of Diels, was admitted even by 
Heraclitus; though, in comparison with his doctrine of the 
flux which is the never-ceasing form of all that appears, it 
received slight expression. Parmenides was the first to lay 
stress on the noumenon as such. For him, as for Heraclitus, 
what appears is in flux. He did not deny change as an 
empirical fact, but tried to give some account of it, not too 
discordant with that of his predecessor. His Being, though 
objective, is not the universe as it appears to perception, but 
is the reality of the visible universe comprehending itself in 
thought. It is true that he had not arrived at an “ intellectual- 
ist” theory of knowledge; but the enumeration, in the second 
part of the poem, of the differences and mixtures in the world, 
is quite clearly intended to bring out the contrast of 
phenomenon with reality. This distinction, as subjective 
criticism arose, led very rapidly to a theory of knowledge more 
appropriate for its support than the “‘ sensationalist” psychology 
of all the early thinkers. Thus the Neo-Platonic commentators, 
as Diels says, if we allow for some shades of expression, did 
not intrepret Parmenides unhistorically, but had a perfectly 
correct view of his drift. And Greek thought, while moving 
from the object to the subject, remained at one in its 
cosmological assertions. The universe is the perpetual mani- 
festation of Being or Reason, but the manifestation is through 
unceasing change. 

To the decisive assertion of Parmenides that the unity of 
the world means more than unity of system, a parallel may 
be found in the Indian philosophy of the Vedanta. Here, 
however, Being (Brahman or Atman) is primarily, instead of 
secondarily, subjective. The two philosophies have in 
common, it must be allowed, the tendency to suppress what 
they cannot deduce, to call it simply illusion. By later 
thinkers a more balanced position was attained. Plotinus near 
the end of ancient philosophy, and Spinoza not long after the 
new beginning of philosophy in modern Europe, are at 
bottom free from the “acosmism” sometimes attributed to 
them. They recognise the variety as well as unity in the 
world, the metaphysical individual as well as the one essence 
of the whole. Yet, inheriting as they did a rationalist theory 
of knowledge, they felt themselves bound to attempt the 
deduction of what cannot wholly be deduced. The Many as 
distinguished from the One, the grades of pluralised being from 


TELEOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 211 


transcendent reality and unity downwards to bare possibility, 
cannot be logically arrived at either by a theory of ‘‘ emanation ” 
or of a ‘determination ” which is “negation.” The first, as is 
now generally admitted, leads to an endless interpolating of 
mean terms which can never bridge over the original chasm ; 
ard the second proceeds from something which for us at least 
is negative to the details of our positive knowledge. And yet 
the ontological movement in philosophy has not been a failure. 
What is needed is correction in method, not abandonment of 
the problem. 

This is the lesson of the experiential philosophy. The 
ontological problem still exists, and must be conceived as 
largely as ever: but we must acknowledge that the parts of the 
whole have to be taken as given. When known, their harmony 
with the rest may become an object of imaginative thought : 
but they have first to be brought into view as facts. Thus, 
for example, teleology and individuality, however they may be 
metaphysically explained, are facts of experience. A philo- 
sopher may in his higher thought rise above the teleological 
view, as Spinoza did; but this view is not to be effaced. It 
has indeed something that seems empirical and contingent, as 
contrasted not only with the “amor Dei intellectualis” but 
with a mathematical intuition of physical necessity. Between 
the objects of these it presents itself as intermediate. It 
determines the topics of mixed sciences. Sometimes it has 
been sacrificed to the idealistic and sometimes to the 
mechanical extreme, sometimes perhaps to both: yet, from its 
appeal to the ‘common sense” type of mind, it is sure always 
to return. The strength both of ancient and of modern 
philosophies deriving from Plato and Aristotle is in having 
retained the teleological point of view, conceived in a 
scientific sense, within a highly speculative system, but not at 
the summit. 


THE END. 


W. Jotty & Sons, Printers, ABERDEEN. 





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