Apollonius of Tyana, the Philosopher-Reformer of the First Century A.D Part 7

But to turn to more serious occasions. In answer to Vespasians earnest prayer, Teach me what should a good king do, Apollonius is said to have replied somewhat in the following words:

You ask me what can not be taught. For kingship is the greatest thing within a mortals reach; it is not taught. Yet will I tell you what if you will do, you will do well. Count not that wealth which is stored up--in what is this superior to the sand haphazard heaped? nor that which comes from men who groan beneath taxations heavy weight--for gold that comes from tears is base and black. Youll use wealth best of any king, if you supply the needs of those in want and make their wealth secure for those with many goods. Be fearful of the power to do whateer you please, so will you use it with more prudence. Do not lop off the ears of corn that show beyond the rest and raise their heads--for Aristotle is not just in this[116]--but rather weed their disaffection out like tares from corn, and show yourself a fear to stirrers up of strife not in I punish you but in I _will_ do so. Submit yourself to law, O prince, for you will make the laws with greater wisdom if you do not despise the law yourself. Pay reverence more than ever to the G.o.ds; great are the gifts you have received from them, and for great things you pray.[117] In what concerns the state act as a king; in what concerns yourself, act as a private man (v. 36). And so on much in the same strain, all good advice and showing a deep knowledge of human affairs. And if we are to suppose that this is merely a rhetorical exercise of Philostratus and not based on the substance of what Apollonius said, then we must have a higher opinion of the rhetorician than the rest of his writings warrant.

There is an exceedingly interesting Socratic dialogue between Thespesion, the abbot of the Gymnosophist community, and Apollonius on the comparative merits of the Greek and Egyptian ways of representing the G.o.ds. It runs somewhat as follows:

What! Are we to think, said Thespesion, that the Pheidiases and Praxiteleses went up to heaven and took impressions of the forms of the G.o.ds, and so made an art of them, or was it something else that set them a-modelling?

Yes, something else, said Apollonius, something pregnant with wisdom.

What was that? Surely you cannot say it was anything else but imitation?

Imagination wrought them--a workman wiser far than imitation; for imitation only makes what it has seen, whereas imagination makes what it has never seen, conceiving it with reference to the thing it really is.

Imagination, says Apollonius, is one of the most potent faculties, for it enables us to reach nearer to realities. It is generally supposed that Greek sculpture was merely a glorification of physical beauty, in itself quite unspiritual. It was an idealisation of form and features, limbs and muscles, an empty glorification of the physical with nothing of course really corresponding to it in the nature of things. But Apollonius declared it brings us nearer to the real, as Pythagoras and Plato declared before him, and as all the wiser teach. He meant this literally, not vaguely and fantastically. He a.s.serted that the types and ideas of things are the only realities. He meant that between the imperfection of the earth and the highest divine type of all things, were grades of increasing perfection. He meant that within each man was a form of perfection, though of course not yet absolutely perfect. That the angel in man, his dmon, was of G.o.d-like beauty, the summation of all the finest features he had ever worn in his many lives on earth. The G.o.ds, too, belonged to the world of types, of models, of perfections, the heaven-world. The Greek sculptors had succeeded in getting in contact with this world, and the faculty they used was imagination.

This idealisation of form was a worthy way to represent the G.o.ds; but, says Apollonius, if you set up a hawk or owl or dog in your temples, to represent Hermes or Athena or Apollo, you may dignify the animals, but you make the G.o.ds lose dignity.

To this Thespesion replies that the Egyptians dare not give any precise form to the G.o.ds; they give them merely symbols to which an occult meaning is attached.

Yes, answers Apollonius, but the danger is that the common people worship these symbols and get unbeautiful ideas of the G.o.ds. The best thing would be to have no representations at all. For the mind of the worshipper can form and fashion for himself an image of the object of his worship better than any art.

Quite so, retorted Thespesion, and then added mischievously: There was an old Athenian, by-the-by--no fool--called Socrates, who swore by the dog and goose as though they were G.o.ds.

Yes, replied Apollonius, he was no fool. He swore by them not as being G.o.ds, but in order that he might not swear by the G.o.ds (iv. 19).

This is a pleasant pa.s.sage of wit, of Egyptian against Greek, but all such set arguments must be set down to the rhetorical exercises of Philostratus rather than to Apollonius, who taught as one having authority, as from a tripod. Apollonius, a priest of universal religion, might have pointed out the good side and the bad side of both Greek and Egyptian religious art, and certainly taught the higher way of symbolless worship, but he would not champion one popular cult against another. In the above speech there is a distinct prejudice against Egypt and a glorification of Greece, and this occurs in a very marked fashion in several other speeches. Philostratus was a champion of Greece against all comers; but Apollonius, we believe, was wiser than his biographer.

In spite of the artificial literary dress that is given to the longer discourses of Apollonius, they contain many n.o.ble thoughts, as we may see from the following quotations from the conversations of our philosopher with his friend Demetrius, who was endeavouring to dissuade him from braving Domitian at Rome.

The law, said Apollonius, obliges us to die for liberty, and nature ordains that we should die for our parents, our friends, or our children. All men are bound by these duties. But a higher duty is laid upon the sage; he must die for his principles and the truth he holds dearer than life. It is not the law that lays this choice upon him, it is not nature; it is the strength and courage of his own soul. Though fire or sword threaten him, it will not overcome his resolution or force from him the slightest falsehood; but he will guard the secrets of others lives and all that has been entrusted to his honour as religiously as the secrets of initiation. And I know more than other men, for I know that of all that I know, I know some things for the good, some for the wise, some for myself, some for the G.o.ds, but naught for tyrants.

Again, I think that a wise man does nothing alone or by himself; no thought of his so secret but that he has himself as witness to it. And whether the famous saying know thyself be from Apollo or from some sage who learnt to know himself and proclaimed it as a good for all, I think the wise man who knows himself and has his own spirit in constant comradeship, to fight at his right hand, will neither cringe at what the vulgar fear, nor dare to do what most men do without the slightest shame (vii. 15).

In the above we have the true philosophers contempt for death, and also the calm knowledge of the initiate, of the comforter and adviser of others to whom the secrets of their lives have been confessed, that no tortures can ever unseal his lips. Here, too, we have the full knowledge of what consciousness is, of the impossibility of hiding the smallest trace of evil in the inner world; and also the dazzling brilliancy of a higher ethic which makes the habitual conduct of the crowd appear surprising--the that which they do--not with shame.

SECTION XVI.

FROM HIS LETTERS.

Apollonius seems to have written many letters to emperors, kings, philosophers, communities and states, although he was by no means a voluminous correspondent; in fact, the style of his short notes is exceedingly concise, and they were composed, as Philostratus says, after the manner of the Lacedmonian scytale[118] (iv. 27 and vii.

35).

It is evident that Philostratus had access to letters attributed to Apollonius, for he quotes a number of them,[119] and there seems no reason to doubt their authenticity. Whence he obtained them he does not inform us, unless it be that they were the collection made by Hadrian at Antium (viii. 20).

That the reader may be able to judge of the style of Apollonius we append one or two specimens of these letters, or rather notes, for they are too short to deserve the t.i.tle of epistles. Here is one to the magistrates of Sparta:

Apollonius to the Ephors, greeting!

It is possible for men not to make mistakes, but it requires n.o.ble men to acknowledge they have made them.

All of which Apollonius gets into just half as many words in Greek.

Here, again, is an interchange of notes between the two greatest philosophers of the time, both of whom suffered imprisonment and were in constant danger of death.

Apollonius to Musonius, the philosopher, greeting!

I want to go to you, to share speech and roof with you, to be of some service to you. If you still believe that Hercules once rescued Theseus from Hades, write what you would have. Farewell!

Musonius to Apollonius, the philosopher, greeting!

Good merit shall be stored for you for your good thoughts; what is in store for me is one who waits his trial and proves his innocence.

Farewell.

Apollonius to Musonius, greeting!

Socrates refused to be got out of prison by his friends and went before the judges. He was put to death. Farewell.

Musonius to Apollonius, the philosopher, greeting!

Socrates was put to death because he made no preparation for his defence. I shall do so. Farewell!

However, Musonius, the Stoic, was sent to penal servitude by Nero.

Here is a note to the Cynic Demetrius, another of our philosophers most devoted friends.

Apollonius, the philosopher, to Demetrius, the Dog,[120] greeting!

I give thee to t.i.tus, the emperor, to teach him the way of kingship, and do you in turn give me to speak him true; and be to him all things but anger. Farewell!

In addition to the notes quoted in the text of Philostratus, there is a collection of ninety-five letters, mostly brief notes, the text of which is printed in most editions.[121] Nearly all the critics are of opinion that they are not genuine, but Jowett[122] and others think that some of them may very well be genuine.

Here is a specimen or two of these letters. Writing to Euphrates, his great enemy, that is to say the champion of pure rationalistic ethic against the science of sacred things, he says:

17. The Persians call those who have the divine faculty (or are G.o.d-like) Magi. A Magus, then, is one who is a minister of the G.o.ds, or one who has by nature the G.o.d-like faculty. You are no Magus but reject the G.o.ds (i.e., are an atheist).

Again, in a letter addressed to Criton, we read:

23. Pythagoras said that the most divine art was that of healing. And if the healing art is most divine, it must occupy itself with the soul as well as with the body; for no creature can be sound so long as the higher part in it is sickly.

Writing to the priests of Delphi against the practice of blood-sacrifice, he says:

27. Herac.l.i.tus was a sage, but even he[123] never advised the people of Ephesus to wash out mud with mud.[124]

Again, to some who claimed to be his followers, those who think themselves wise, he writes the reproof: