History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne Volume I Part 25

624 "Sic habeto, omnibus qui patriam conservaverint, adjuverint, auxerint, certum esse in clo ac definitum loc.u.m ubi beati aevo sempiterno fruantur."-Cic. _Somn. Scip._

625 F??, which, according to Plutarch (who here confuses two distinct words), is poetically used for man (_De Latenter Vivendo_). A similar thought occurs in M. Aurelius, who speaks of the good man as light which only ceases to shine when it ceases to be.

_ 626 Diss._ xxi. -- 6.

627 Iamblichus, _De Sect. Pythagorae_, p. 35.

628 Porphyry, _Life of Plotinus_, cap. vii.; Plotinus, 1st _Enn._ iv. 7.

See on this subject Degerando, _Hist. de la Philos._ iii. p. 383.

629 Thus it was said of Apollonius that in his teaching at Ephesus he did not speak after the manner of the followers of Socrates, but endeavoured to detach his disciples from all occupation other than philosophy.-_Philostr. Apoll. of Tyana_, iv. 2. Cicero notices the aversion the Pythagoreans of his time displayed to argument: "Quum ex iis quaereretur quare ita esset, respondere solitos, Ipse dixit; ipse autem erat Pythagoras."-_De Nat. Deor._ i. 5.

630 See Vacherot, tome ii. p. 66.

631 See Degerando, _Hist. de la Philosophie_, tome iii. pp. 400, 401.

632 Plotinus, 1st _Enn._ ix.

633 See a strong pa.s.sage, on the universality of this belief, in Plotinus, 1st _Enn._ i. 12, and Origen, _Cont. Cels._ vii. A very old tradition represented the Egyptians as the first people who held the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Cicero (_Tusc. Quaest._) says that the Syrian Pherecydes, master of Pythagoras, first taught it. Maximus of Tyre attributes its origin to Pythagoras, and his slave Zamolxis was said to have introduced it into Greece. Others say that Thales first taught it. None of these a.s.sertions have any real historical value.

634 We have a remarkable instance of the clearness with which some even of the most insignificant historians recognised the folly of confining history to the biographies of the Emperors, in the opening chapter of Capitolinus, _Life of Macrinus_.-Tacitus is full of beautiful episodes, describing the manners and religion of the people.

635 The pa.s.sages relating to the Jews in Roman literature are collected in Aubertin's _Rapports supposes entre Seneque et St. Paul_.

Champagny, _Rome et Judee_, tome i. pp. 134-137.

636 Cicero, _pro Flacco_, 28; Sueton. _Claudius_, 25.

637 Juvenal, _Sat._ xiv.

_ 638 Hist._ v.

639 Lact. _Inst. Div._ vii. 3.

640 See their history fully investigated in Aubertin. Augustine followed Jerome in mentioning the letters, but neither of these writers a.s.serted their genuineness. Lactantius, nearly at the same time (_Inst. Div._ vi. 24), distinctly spoke of Seneca as a Pagan, as Tertullian (_Apol._ 50) had done before. The immense number of forged doc.u.ments is one of the most disgraceful features of the Church history of the first few centuries.

641 Fleury has written an elaborate work maintaining the connection between the apostle and the philosopher. Troplong (_Influence du Christianisme sur le Droit_) has adopted the same view. Aubertin, in the work I have already cited, has maintained the opposite view (which is that of all or nearly all English critics) with masterly skill and learning. The Abbe Dourif (_Rapports du Stocisme et du Christianisme_) has placed side by side the pa.s.sages from each writer which are most alike.

642 Quoted by St. Augustine.-_De Civ. Dei_, vi. 11.

643 xi. 3.

644 The history of the two schools has been elaborately traced by Ritter, Pressense, and many other writers. I would especially refer to the fourth volume of Degerando's most fascinating _Histoire de la Philosophie_.

645 "Scurra Atticus," Min. Felix, _Octav._ This term is said by Cicero to have been given to Socrates by Zeno. (Cic. _De Nat. Deor._ i.

34.)

646 Tertull. _De Anima_, 39.

647 See especially his _Apol._ ii. 8, 12, 13. He speaks of the spe?at???? ?????.

648 See, on all this, Clem. Alex. _Strom._ v., and also i. 22.

649 St. Clement repeats this twice (_Strom._ i. 24, v. 14). The writings of this Father are full of curious, and sometimes ingenious, attempts to trace different phrases of the great philosophers, orators, and poets to Moses. A vast amount of learning and ingenuity has been expended in the same cause by Eusebius. (_Praep. Evan._ xii.

xiii.) The tradition of the derivation of Pagan philosophy from the Old Testament found in general little favour among the Latin writers. There is some curious information on this subject in Waterland's "Charge to the Clergy of Middles.e.x, to prove that the wisdom of the ancients was borrowed from revelation; delivered in 1731." It is in the 8th volume of Waterland's works (ed. 1731).

650 St. Clement (_Strom._ i.) mentions that some think him to have been Ezekiel, an opinion which St. Clement himself does not hold. See, on the patristic notions about Pythagoras, Legendre, _Traite de l'Opinion_, tome i. p. 164.

651 This was the opinion of Julius Firmicus Maternus, a Latin writer of the age of Constantine, "Nam quia Sarae p.r.o.nepos fuerat ... Serapis dictus est Graeco sermone, hoc est Sa??? ?p?."-Julius Firmicus Maternus, _De Errore Profanarum Religionum_, cap. xiv.

652 Justin Martyr, _Apol._ i. 54; Trypho, 69-70. There is a very curious collection of Pagan legends that were parallel to Jewish incidents, in La Mothe le Vayer, let. xciii.

653 Suet. _Vesp._ 7; Tacit. _Hist._ iv. 81. There is a slight difference between the two historians about the second miracle. Suetonius says it was the leg, Tacitus that it was the hand, that was diseased. The G.o.d Serapis was said to have revealed to the patients that they would be cured by the emperor. Tacitus says that Vespasian did not believe in his own power; that it was only after much persuasion he was induced to try the experiment; that the blind man was well known in Alexandria, where the event occurred, and that eyewitnesses who had no motive to lie still attested the miracle.

654 The following is a good specimen of the language which may still be uttered, apparently without exciting any protest, from the pulpit in one of the great centres of English learning: "But we have prayed, and not been heard, at least in this present visitation. Have we deserved to be heard? In former visitations it was observed commonly how the cholera lessened from the day of the public humiliation.

When we dreaded famine from long-continued drought, on the morning of our prayers the heaven over our head was of bra.s.s; the clear burning sky showed no token of change. Men looked with awe at its unmitigated clearness. In the evening was the cloud like a man's hand; the relief was come." (And then the author adds, in a note): "This describes what I myself saw on the Sunday morning in Oxford, on returning from the early communion at St. Mary's at eight. There was no visible change till the evening."-Pusey's _Miracles of Prayer_, preached at Oxford, 1866.

655 E.g.: "A master of philosophy, travelling with others on the way, when a fearful thunderstorm arose, checked the fear of his fellows, and discoursed to them of the natural reasons of that uproar in the clouds, and those sudden flashes wherewith they seemed (out of the ignorance of causes) to be too much affrighted: in the midst of his philosophical discourse he was struck dead with the dreadful eruption which he slighted. What could this be but the finger of that G.o.d who will have his works rather entertained with wonder and trembling than with curious scanning?"-Bishop Hall, _The Invisible World_, -- vi.

656 Sir C. Lewis _On the Credibility of Roman Hist._ vol. i. p. 50.

657 Cic. _De Divin._ lib. i. c. 1.

658 "The days on which the miracle [of the king's touch] was to be wrought were fixed at sittings of the Privy Council, and were solemnly notified by the clergy to all the parish churches of the realm. When the appointed time came, several divines in full canonicals stood round the canopy of state. The surgeon of the royal household introduced the sick. A pa.s.sage of Mark xvi. was read. When the words 'They shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover,' had been p.r.o.nounced, there was a pause and one of the sick was brought to the king. His Majesty stroked the ulcers.... Then came the Epistle, &c. The Service may still be found in the Prayer Books of the reign of Anne. Indeed, it was not until some time after the accession of George I. that the University of Oxford ceased to reprint the office of healing, together with the Liturgy.

Theologians of eminent learning, ability, and virtue gave the sanction of their authority to this mummery, and, what is stranger still, medical men of high note believed, or affected to believe, it.... Charles II., in the course of his reign, touched near 100,000 persons.... In 1682 he performed the rite 8,500 times. In 1684 the throng was such that six or seven of the sick were trampled to death. James, in one of his progresses, touched 800 persons in the choir of the cathedral of Chester."-Macaulay's _History of England_, c. xiv.

659 One of the surgeons of Charles II. named John Brown, whose official duty it was to superintend the ceremony, and who a.s.sures us that he has witnessed many thousands touched, has written an extremely curious account of it, called _Charisma Basilicon_ (London, 1684).

This miraculous power existed exclusively in the English and French royal families, being derived, in the first, from Edward the Confessor, in the second, from St. Lewis. A surgeon attested the reality of the disease before the miracle was performed. The king hung a riband with a gold coin round the neck of the person touched; but Brown thinks the gold, though possessing great virtue, was not essential to the cure. He had known cases where the cured person had sold, or ceased to wear, the medal, and his disease returned. The gift was unimpaired by the Reformation, and an obdurate Catholic was converted on finding that Elizabeth, after the Pope's excommunication, could cure his scrofula. Francis I. cured many persons when prisoner in Spain. Charles I., when a prisoner, cured a man by his simple benediction, the Puritans not permitting him to touch him. His blood had the same efficacy; and Charles II., when an exile in the Netherlands, still retained it. There were, however, some "Atheists, Sadducees, and ill-conditioned Pharisees" who even then disbelieved it; and Brown gives the letter of one who went, a complete sceptic, to satisfy his friends, and came away cured and converted. It was popularly, but Brown says erroneously, believed that the touch was peculiarly efficacious on Good Friday. An official register was kept, for every month in the reign of Charles II., of the persons touched, but two years and a half appear to be wanting. The smallest number touched in one year was 2,983 (in 1669); the total, in the whole reign, 92,107. Brown gives numbers of specific cases with great detail. Shakspeare has noticed the power (_Macbeth_, Act iv. Scene 3). Dr. Johnson, when a boy, was touched by Queen Anne; but at that time few persons, except Jacobites, believed the miracle.

660 Lucretius, lib. vi. The poet says there are certain seeds of fire in the earth, around the water, which the sun attracts to itself, but which the cold of the night represses, and forces back upon the water.

The fountain of Jupiter Ammon, and many others that were deemed miraculous, are noticed by Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ ii. 106.

"Fly not yet; the fount that played In times of old through Ammon's shade, Though icy cold by day it ran, Yet still, like souls of mirth, began To burn when night was near."-Moore's _Melodies_.

661 Tacit. _Annal._ i. 28. Long afterwards, the people of Turin were accustomed to greet every eclipse with loud cries, and St. Maximus of Turin energetically combated their superst.i.tion. (Ceillier, _Hist. des Auteurs sacres_, tome xiv. p. 607.)

662 Suet. _Aug._ xci.

663 See the answer of the younger Pliny (_Ep._ i. 18), suggesting that dreams should often be interpreted by contraries. A great many instances of dreams that were believed to have been verified are given in Cic. (_De Divinatione_, lib. i.) and Valerius Maximus (lib.

i. c. vii.). Marcus Aurelius (Capitolinus) was said to have appeared to many persons after his death in dreams, and predicted the future.

664 The augurs had noted eleven kinds of lightning with different significations. (Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ ii. 53.) Pliny says all nations agree in clapping their hands when it lightens (xxviii. 5). Cicero very shrewdly remarked that the Roman considered lightning a good omen when it shone upon his left, while the Greeks and barbarians believed it to be auspicious when it was upon the right. (Cic. _De Divinat._ ii. 39.) When Constantine prohibited all other forms of magic, he especially authorised that which was intended to avert hail and lightning. (_Cod. Theod._ lib. ix. t.i.t. xvi. 1. 3.)

665 Suet. _Aug._ xc.

666 Ibid. _Tiber._ lxix. The virtue of laurel leaves, and of the skin of a sea-calf, as preservatives against lightning, are noticed by Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ ii. 56), who also says (xv. 40) that the laurel leaf is believed to have a natural antipathy to fire, which it shows by its angry crackling when in contact with that element.

667 Suet. _Calig._ ii.