Cicero: Decorum as a Transcendent Virtue

Cicero presenting De officiis to his son (illustration, 1508 edition).

I have said, Ye are gods. (Psalms 82:6)

IN A PREVIOUS post we observed that (1) in several works Cicero presents evidence for the divinity and grandeur of the human being (especially our soul), and (2) while his evidence is basically the same in each work, he uses it for different purposes. In De officiis (On Moral Duties), Book 1, XXVII.93 to XXXIII.133, Cicero’s exhorts us to behave with the dignity that befits our divine nature and station — as participating in both the Eternal and temporal realms, a mediator of  heaven and earth and especially beloved of God. He does this in the context of discussing the virtue of decorum:

93.
We have next to discuss the one remaining division of moral rectitude. That is the one in which we find considerateness and self-control, which give, as it were, a sort of polish to life; it embraces also temperance, complete subjection of all the passions, and moderation in all things. Under this head is further included what, in Latin, may be called decorum (propriety); for in Greek it is called πρέπον. Such is its essential nature, that it is inseparable from moral goodness;

Decorum, Cicero admits, is not easily defined, but is nonetheless familiar from experience, something very fundamental, and no less important than the four cardinal virtues:

94.
for what is proper is morally right, and what is morally right is proper. The nature of the difference between morality and propriety can be more easily felt than expressed. For whatever propriety may be, it is manifested only when there is pre-existing moral rectitude. And so, not only in this division of moral rectitude which we have now to discuss but also in the three preceding divisions, it is clearly brought out what propriety is. For to employ reason and speech rationally, to do with careful consideration whatever one does, and in everything to discern the truth and to uphold it — that is proper. … And all things just are proper; all things unjust, like all things immoral, are improper.

The relation of propriety to fortitude is similar. What is done in a manly and courageous spirit seems becoming to a man and proper; what is done in a contrary fashion is at once immoral and improper.

95.
This propriety, therefore, of which I am speaking belongs to each division of moral rectitude; and its relation to the cardinal virtues is so close, that it is perfectly self-evident and does not require any abstruse process of reasoning to see it. For there is a certain element of propriety perceptible in every act of moral rectitude; and this can be separated from virtue theoretically better than it can be practically. As comeliness and beauty of person are inseparable from the notion of health, so this propriety of which we are speaking, while in fact completely blended with virtue, is mentally and theoretically distinguishable from it.

He distinguishes between a general and what he calls subordinate forms of propriety. The exact meaning of this distinction is somewhat unclear, but his definition of the general form is noteworthy:

96.
The classification of propriety, moreover, is twofold: (1) we assume a general sort of propriety, which is found in moral goodness as a whole; then (2) there is another propriety, subordinate to this, which belongs to the several divisions of moral goodness. The former is usually defined somewhat as follows: “Propriety is that which harmonizes with man’s superiority in those respects in which his nature differs from that of the rest of the animal creation.” And they so define the special type of propriety which is subordinate to the general notion, that they represent it to be that propriety which harmonizes with nature, in the sense that it manifestly embraces temperance and self-control, together with a certain deportment. [italics added]

Decorum, then, is not merely to act and think in harmony with nature.  It is specifically related to our higher abilities — those which no other animal has, and which to relate to our special role in the plan of Creation. As he goes on to explain,

97.
to us Nature herself has assigned a character of surpassing excellence, far superior to that of all other living creatures, and in accordance with that we shall have to decide what propriety requires.

Among these unique higher human abilities are our reason, our religious nature, our refined senses, our power of discovery and invention, and our dominion over the earth and its creatures. Cicero’s most important discussion of the unique excellences of human nature is in De natural deorum 2, LIII.133 – LXVI.167.

Among other things, decorum implies propriety, grace and dignity of our outward actions and appearance:

101.
Again, every action ought to be free from undue haste or carelessness; neither ought we to do anything for which we cannot assign a reasonable motive; for in these words we have practically a definition of duty.

Later, in par. 128 he says, “So, in standing or walking, in sitting or reclining, in our expression, our eyes, or the movements of our hands, let us preserve what we have called ‘propriety.'”  As he explains in De legibus, this also applies to our countenance:

Nature … has so formed [Man’s] features as to portray therein the character that lies hidden deep within him, for not only do the eyes declare with exceeding clearness the innermost feelings of our hearts, but also the countenance [vultus], as we Romans call it, which can be found in no living thing save man, reveals the character.
Source: De legibus 1.IX.27; tr. Keyes.

Cicero doesn’t mean actions that are artificial or stilted, but rather to behave with natural poise, nobility and grace.

Decorum also applies to our inner life:

100.
For it is only when they agree with Nature’s laws that we should give our approval to the movements not only of the body, but still more of the spirit.

Cicero provides two practical tools for developing the habit of decorum in action and thought: to remind ourselves (1) that we have a divine nature, and (2) how much below our dignity it is to behave as animals; we must not dwell at the level of sensual pleasure, but rather seek pleasure in higher things and subordinate our sensual appetites to Reason and virtue:

105.
But it is essential to every inquiry about duty that we keep before our eyes how far superior man is by nature to cattle and other beasts:

106.
From this we see that sensual pleasure is quite unworthy of the dignity of man and that we ought to despise it and cast it from us; but if some one should be found who sets some value upon sensual gratification, he must keep strictly within the limits of moderate indulgence. One’s physical comforts and wants, therefore, should be ordered according to the demands of health and strength, not according to the calls of pleasure. And if we will only bear in mind the superiority and dignity of our nature, we shall realize how wrong it is to abandon ourselves to excess and to live in luxury and voluptuousness, and how right it is to live in thrift, self-denial, simplicity, and sobriety.

Ideally, he argues, we would avoid sensual pleasure altogether.  But, if not, we should always moderate it, measuring it by the criteria of health and strength.

Cicero is doing much more than explaining the social etiquette proper for a Roman statesman.  Decorum relates integrally to the Christian and Platonic notion of assimilation to God. It is an essential, but often neglected feature of the perennial philosophy. We are designed for godliness. Decorum is to behave and think harmonized with God’s will, the High Priest of creation and mediator of heaven and earth.  Through the divine human — the crown of creation — Nature achieves its telos.

Importantly, decorum at the level of behavior is something bodily: when we behave as incarnate gods, God enters material creation in a new and different way.

Decorum in action also inspires others to a life of virtue. As Seneca wrote:

3. 
If ever you have come upon a grove that is full of ancient trees which have grown to an unusual height, shutting out a view of the sky by a veil of pleached and intertwining branches, then the loftiness of the forest, the seclusion of the spot, and your marvel at the thick unbroken shade in the midst of the open spaces, will prove to you the presence of deity. Or if a cave, made by the deep crumbling of the rocks, holds up a mountain on its arch, a place not built with hands but hollowed out into such spaciousness by natural causes, your soul will be deeply moved by a certain intimation of the existence of God. We worship the sources of mighty rivers; we erect altars at places where great streams burst suddenly from hidden sources; we adore springs of hot water as divine, and consecrate certain pools because of their dark waters or their immeasurable depth.

4. 
If you see a man who is unterrified in the midst of dangers, untouched by desires, happy in adversity, peaceful amid the storm, who looks down upon men from a higher plane, and views the gods on a footing of equality, will not a feeling of reverence for him steal over you? Will you not say: “This quality is too great and too lofty to be regarded as resembling this petty body in which it dwells? A divine power has descended upon that man.”

5.
When a soul rises superior to other souls, when it is under control, when it passes through every experience as if it were of small account, when it smiles at our fears and at our prayers, it is stirred by a force from heaven. A thing like this cannot stand upright unless it be propped by the divine. Therefore, a greater part of it abides in that place from whence it came down to earth. Just as the rays of the sun do indeed touch the earth, but still abide at the source from which they are sent; even so the great and hallowed soul, which has come down in order that we may have a nearer knowledge of divinity, does indeed associate with us, but still cleaves to its origin; on that source it depends, thither it turns its gaze and strives to go, and it concerns itself with our doings only as a being superior to ourselves.
Source: Seneca, Letter XLI to Lucilius, On the God within Us (tr. Gummere)

Seneca’s comments highlight an important social dimension of acting with decorum and dignity: not only do we benefit ourselves, but others do as well. Moral virtue is more beautiful than anything earthly. When others see sage-like decorum in another, they admire and delight in it, the transcendent becomes more salient in their mind, and they are encouraged in their own pursuit of virtue.

We do well here also to recall the words of Seneca’s contemporary, St. Paul: whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things (Phil 4:8) and edify one another (1 Thess 5:11). We are to not only to edify ourselves, but others as well. The two duties are interpenetrating: by edifying ourselves we edify others, and by edifying others we edify ourselves.

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Bibliography

Griffin, M. T. (ed.); Atkins, E. M. (tr.). Cicero, On Duties. Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Gummere, Richard Mott. Seneca: Moral letters to Lucilius (Epistulae morales ad Lucilium). 3 vols. Loeb Classical Library. 1917−1925; vol. 1. Letter XLI. On the God within Us.

Keyes, Clinton Walker (tr.). Cicero: De re Publica (On the Republic), De Legibus (On the Laws). Loeb Classical Library 213. New York: Putnam, 1928.

Miller, Walter (tr.). Cicero: De officiis. Loeb Classical Library. Macmillan, 1913.

First draft 27 Oct 2022

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Gionozzo Manetti − On the Dignity and Excellence of the Human Being

Manetti, De dignitate et excellentia, British Library ms Harley 2593, f. 1

AROUND 1194, Pope Innocent III penned a treatise with the rather depressing title, On the Misery of the Human Condition (De miseria condicionis humane). He promised to write a companion work, On the Worth and Excellence of Human Life, but never did so. In the 14th century the great humanist Petrarch decided to supply the missing enomium of Man himself. This is his work, Remedies for Fortunes (De remediis utriusque fortunae), and in particular the section titled, “Of sadness and misery,” a dialogue between Sorrow and Reason.

Several centuries later, an Italian Benedictine monk, Antionio da Barga, not knowing of Petrarch’s piece, also decided a reply to Innocent III was needed. Lacking time to do it himself, he made a detailed outline and asked a friend, Bartolomeo Facio, to write a complete book around it — which Facio did.

Somehow a mutual colleague of theirs — the Florentine statesman and scholar Gionozzo Manetti (1396 – 1459) — received of the outline and decided to write his own version.  This, much longer and more skillfully executed than Facio’s work, is On the Dignity and Excellence of the Human Being (De dignitate et excellentia hominis libri IV; 1452).

While not not a literary masterpiece, it is ably written and comprehensive — drawing primarily on Cicero, Lactantius, Augustine and Aristotle. (Copenhaver: “His originality lay rather in his capacity to make a coherent synthesis of the Christian image of man and the new Renaissance experience and admiration of man as a doer and creator.”) It’s comprised four books:  I. deals with the human body; II with the human soul; III with man’s nature as a union of body and soul; and IV a rebuttal of opposing arguments.

To the traditional Ciceronian themes of human excellence, Manetti adds several important Christian elements, including:

a) That we have guardian angels;

b) Christ’s incarnation — God becoming man — reveals the great dignity of the human body;

c) That God deemed us worthy to sacrifice is Son for our salvation; and

d) The promise of resurrected human life.

The following paragraphs from the end of Book IV — addressed to all future readers — are excellent and well worth reading.

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71.
So now let me finally bring my account to an end and at last give this work of mine a conclusion, having started in the three preceding books with a full and satisfactory explanation of the worth of man’s body and how admirable it is, next how exalted the loftiness of his soul and then besides how splendid the excellence of the human composed of those two parts. Last of all, since I have recorded in this fourth book all the points that resolve and refute the main arguments thought to oppose and contradict my own stated views what remains is briefly to urge those present, and those to come: toward a careful and exact observance of God’s commandments, our only way to rise to that heavenly and eternal home.

72.
Therefore, Fairest Prince, while coming back after so long and returning to you, I humbly and meekly beg Your Majesty, and any others who may come upon these writings of mine, to choose to follow every single one of God’s commandments and fulfill them all. Whoever does his utmost to act on the commandments and put them into practice will certainly get temporal privileges here as well as rewards that last, both for this life and the next, with the undoubted result that all who keep heaven’s rules carefully seem always — right from the moment of birth — to be those who have been fortunate, are happy and will be blessed for eternity.

73.
This is why I beg and beseech all readers of this work, such as it is, to set other things aside and pay close attention to this short and friendly little plea of mine — that they may take action to do as I shall try to persuade them in the few words that follow.

My fellow humans — no, you brave men, rather, you kings, princes and generals — you have been created with such immense value and appointed to a rank so high that no doubt at all remains, given what I have written, about this: all there is in this universe, whether on land or sea or in the waters, whether in the air or the aether or the heavens, has been made subject to your command and put under your control: attend to virtue, then. With vices pressed upon you in abundance, cherish virtue with all your strength of mind and body. Love virtue and preserve it, I beg you, grasp, seize and embrace it so that by putting virtue in action, constantly and ceaselessly, you may not only be seen as fortunate and happy but also become almost like the immortal God.

In fact, your roles of knowing and acting are recognized as shared with Almighty God. Then, if by acquiring and practicing virtue you receive the blessing of serene immortality, your appearance, when you return home, will surely be like that of the eternal Prince. For with constant rejoicing and endless, jubilant song — in bliss perpetual and eternal, with pleasure unique and simple like God’s own — you will always rejoice in understanding, acting and contemplation, which properly are considered God’s roles alone. [cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1177a11 et seq.]

Source: Manetti, On the Dignity and Excellence of the Human Being 4.71−73; tr. Copenhaven pp. 251ff.

Manetti exhorts readers to “a careful and exact observance of God’s commandments (divinorum mandatorum).”  We might suppose here he doesn’t mean by this a legalistic forcing of ourselves to adhere to a set of fixed behavioral rules (though neither do we want to violate them), but more to live constantly attentive and responsive to God’s ongoing directions and guidances supplied to the soul,

Bibliography

Copenhaver, Brian (tr.). Giannozzo Manetti: On human worth and excellence. Harvard University Press, 2018. App. I: Antonio da Barga, On Mankind’s Worth and the Excellence of Human Life; App. II: Bartolomeo Facio, On Human Excellence and Distinction.

Trinkaus, Charles. In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought. London and Chicago, 1970. 2 volumes; vol. 1, pp. 200−270.

Trinkaus, Charles. Renaissance Idea of the Dignity of Man. In: Wiener, Philip P. (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, 4 vols,  New York, Scribner, 1973−74 , vol. 4., 136–147.

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Cicero – Divine Grandeur of the Human Soul

PICO della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man, an encomium on the greatness of the human being, is well known, and is often taken as a definitive statement of Renaissance humanism.  Less familiar to many are the classical roots of the Oration and Renaissance humanism in general.  One source is Plato, in whose writings several key ideas appear:  (1) the Intellect (Nous) as a higher organ of cognition; (2) the immortality of the human soul; (3) the beauty and exalted nature of virtue; and (4) likeness or assimilation to God (homoiosis theoi) as a prime ethical goal, among others.  But Cicero’s works are a second locus classicus.  Cicero returns several times to the theme of the dignity and greatness of human beings, and especially their souls.  The more important discussions are found in De legibus (Laws), Tusculan Disputations 1, De natural deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), and De officiis (On Moral Duties).

Each time Cicero works from the same basic list of reasons that point to the exalted status of human beings. (His main source may have been a lost work by the Stoic, Posidonius).  The list includes:

a) The human mind is divine, especially Reason, a capacity only gods and human beings have.

b) The unlimited nature of memory.  For Cicero, this means not so much a vast memory for facts, but that (per Plato) it appears as though (1) we have innate knowledge of principles and relations (mathematics, logic, forms), and (2) these seem unlimited in number.

c) Our capacity for extremely subtle judgments, including moral and aesthetic ones.

d) Virtue and moral excellence — again these are concerns we share with gods.

e) A unlimited capacity for invention and discovery.

f) Faculties of divination (prophecy, interpretation of oracles, etc.)

g) Finely attuned senses; for example, capable of subtle distinctions of hues,  musical pitch and tones.

h) Marvelous adaptations of the human body to support our higher nature

i) The capacity for knowledge of God (e.g., from created things and the orderliness of Creation)

j) A bounteous earth, and dominion over animals and plants, which serve man’s needs.

k) Man’s soul is immortal (a topic to which Cicero devotes all of Tusculan Disputations 1)

The religious foundation of Cicero’s arguments here is insufficiently appreciated by modern commentators. He constantly returns to the idea that these exalted attributes are gifts of the gods and also demonstrate our kinship with them.

While his lists and discussions are similar across works, his purposes vary.  His discussions of the topic and the broader context of each are summarized below:

De legibus (1.7.22−9.27)
Our divine attributes relate to the origin and nature of civil laws

Tusculan Disputations 1.24−28
How they derive from or are evidence for the immortality of the human soul

De natura deorum 2.54−66
Evidence that the gods exist and they are concerned with us

De officiis 1. 27, 30, 35−37
Moral excellence

These discussions are not of mere historical interest, but are helpful at a practical level.  First (as the early Renaissance writer Petrarch noted in On Sadness and its Remedies), to remind ourselves of the grandeur of the human soul is an antidote for sadness and negative thinking.  Second, they can form the basis of a contemplative or spiritual exercise — an ascent of the mind from considering natural phenomena, to attaining a religious state of consciousness, such as we see developed later by Richard of St. Victor and St. Bonaventure.

As Emerson said, “We are gods in ruins.”  We are divine beings who continually get caught up in the mundane.  Reminding ourselves of our exalted nature may stimulate an anamnesis, and an actual re-experiencing of ones divinity nature and immeasurable dignity.  Then we will have little patience for letting our minds fall into negative and worldly thinking.  Rather our concern will be to glorify God by having exalted thoughts.

Cicero understands the word dignity in a way somewhat different than the common modern usage.  For us today, ‘human dignity’ connotes certain legal rights and respect before the law to which all human beings are entitled.  Cicero goes beyond this, however, in seeing dignity as something it is our duty to preserve and cultivate.  The great dignity of human beings is, then, both a gift and a responsibility.

Here is Cicero’s discussion on human dignity in his early work, De legibus. This lacks some of the scope, eloquence and polish Cicero devotes to the topic in his later works, Tusculan Disputations 1 and De natural deorum, but it serves as a good starting point.

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Cicero, De legibus 1.7.22−1.9.27

VII. [22]
Marcus. I will not make the argument long. Your admission leads us to this that animal which we call man, endowed with foresight and quick intelligence, complex, keen, possessing memory, full of reason and prudence, has been given a certain distinguished status by the supreme God who created him; for he is the only one among so many different kinds and varieties of living beings who has a share in reason and thought, while all the lest are deprived of it. But what is more divine, I will not say in man only, but in all heaven and earth, than reason? And reason, when it is full grown and perfected, is rightly called wisdom.

[23]
Therefore, since there is nothing better than reason, and since it exists both in man and God, the first common possession of man and God is reason. But those who have reason in common must also have right reason in common. And since right reason is Law, we must believe that men have Law also in common with the gods. Further, those who share Law must also share Justice, and those who share these are to be regarded as members of the same commonwealth. If indeed they obey the same authorities and powers, this is true in a far greater degree, but as a matter of fact they do obey this celestial system, the divine mind, and the God of transcendent power. Hence we must now conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.

And just as in States distinctions in legal status are made on account of the blood relationships of families, according to a system which I shall take up in its proper place, so in the universe the same thing holds true, but on a scale much vaster and more splendid, so that men are grouped with Gods on the basis of blood relationship and descent.

VIII. [24]
For when the nature of man is examined, the theory is usually advanced (and in all probability it is correct) that through constant changes and revolutions in the heavens, a time came which was suitable for sowing the seed of the human race. And when this seed was scattered and sown over the earth, it was granted the divine gift of the soul. For while the other elements of which man consists were derived from what is mortal, and are therefore fragile and perishable, the soul was generated in us by God. Hence we are justified in saying that there is a blood relationship between ourselves and the celestial beings; or we may call it a common ancestry or origin. Therefore among all the varieties of living beings, there is no creature except man which has any knowledge of God, and among men themselves there is no race either so highly civilized or so savage as not to know that it must believe in a god, even if it does not know in what sort of god it ought to believe.

[25]
Thus it is clear that man recognizes God because, in a way, he remembers and recognizes the source from which he sprang.

Moreover, virtue exists in man and God alike, but in no other creature besides; virtue, however, is nothing else than Nature perfected and developed to its highest point, therefore there is a likeness between man and God. As this is true, what relationship could be closer or clearer than this one? For this reason, Nature has lavishly yielded such a wealth of things adapted to man’s convenience and use that what she produces seems intended as a gift to us, and not brought forth by chance; and this is true, not only of what the fertile earth bountifully bestows in the form of grain and fruit, but also of the animals; for it is clear that some of them have been created to be man’s slaves, some to supply him with their products, and others to serve as his food.

[26]
Moreover innumerable arts have been discovered through the teachings of Nature; for it is by a skilful imitation of her that reason has acquired the necessities of life.

Nature has likewise not only equipped man himself with nimbleness of thought, but has also given him the senses, to be, as it were, his attendants and messengers; she has laid bare the obscure and none too [obvious] meanings of a great many things, to serve as the foundations of knowledge, as we may call them; and she has granted us a bodily form which is convenient and well suited to the human mind. For while she has bent the other creatures down toward their food, she has made man alone erect, and has challenged him to look up toward heaven, as being, so to speak, akin to him, and his first home.

[27]
In addition, she has so formed his features as to portray therein the character that lies hidden deep within him, for not only do the eyes declare with exceeding clearness the innermost feelings of our hearts, but also the countenance, as we Romans call it, which can be found in no living thing save man, reveals the character. (The Greeks are familiar with the meaning which this word “countenance” conveys, though they have no name for it.)

I will pass over the special faculties and aptitudes of the other parts of the body, such as the varying tones of the voice and the power of speech, which is the most effective promoter of human intercourse, for all these things are not in keeping with our present discussion or the time at our disposal; and besides, this topic has been adequately treated, as it seems to me, by Scipio in the books which you have read. But, whereas God has begotten and equipped man, desiring him to be the chief of all created things, it should now be evident, without going into all the details, that Nature, alone and unaided, goes a step farther; for, with no guide to point the way, she starts with those things whose character she has learned through the rudimentary beginnings of intelligence, and, alone and unaided, strengthens and perfects the faculty of reason.

Source: Keyes, Clinton Walker (tr.). Cicero: De re Publica (On the Republic), De Legibus (On the Laws). Loeb Classical Library 213. New York: Putnam, 1928; pp. 323−329.

As noted, here Cicero is setting the stage for a discussion on the origin of civil laws.  However the topic is so lofty and valuable that his interlocutor, Atticus, is prompted to exclaim:

You discourse so eloquently that I not only have no desire to hasten on to the consideration of the civil law, concerning which I was expecting you to speak, but I should have no objection to your spending even the entire day on your present topic, for the matters which you have taken up, no doubt, merely as preparatory to another subject, are of greater import than the subject itself to which they form an introduction. (Source: ibid.)

A nice way of summing up is to quote the North African Church Father, Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325), sometimes called the ‘Latin Cicero.’  In a polemic against pagan philosophers titled, On the Wrath of God, he wrote:

Why God Made Man

It follows that I show for what purpose God made man himself. As He contrived the world for the sake of man, so He formed man himself on His own account, as it were a priest of a divine temple, a spectator of His works and of heavenly objects. For he is the only being who, since he is intelligent and capable of reason, is able to understand God, to admire His works, and perceive His energy and power; for on this account he is furnished with judgment, intelligence, and prudence. On this account he alone, beyond the other living creatures, has been made with an upright body and attitude, so that he seems to have been raised up for the contemplation of his Parent. On this account he alone has received language, and a tongue the interpreter of his thought, that he may be able to declare the majesty of his Lord. Lastly, for this cause all things were placed under his control, that he himself might be under the control of God, their Maker and Creator. If God, therefore, designed man to be a worshipper of Himself, and on this account gave him so much honour, that he might rule over all things; it is plainly most just that he should worship Him who bestowed upon him such great gifts, and love man, who is united with us in the participation of the divine justice. For it is not right that a worshipper of God should he injured by a worshipper of God. From which it is understood that man was made for the sake of religion and justice. And of this matter Marcus Tullius is a witness in his books respecting the Laws, since he thus speaks: But of all things concerning which learned men dispute, nothing is of greater consequence than that it should be altogether understood that we are born to justice. And if this is most true, it follows that God will have all men to be just, that is, to have God and man as objects of their affection; to honour God in truth as a Father, and to love man as a brother: for in these two things the whole of justice is comprised. But he who either fails to acknowledge God or acts injuriously to man, lives unjustly and contrary to his nature, and in this manner disturbs the divine institution and law.
Source: Lactantius, On the Wrath of God (De ira Dei) 14

Bibliography

de Plinval, Georges. M. Tullius Cicero: De Legibus. Paris. Belles Lettres, 1959. (Online Latin text).

Fletcher, William (tr.). Lactantius: On the Anger of God. In: Eds. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886; online version by Kevin Knight (ed.).

Keyes, Clinton Walker (tr.). Cicero: De re Publica (On the Republic), De Legibus (On the Laws). Loeb Classical Library 213. New York: Putnam, 1928.

Zetzel, James E. G. Cicero: On the Commonwealth and On the Laws. Cambridge University, 1999; translation based on: K. Ziegler (ed.), M. Tullius Cicero: De legibus, (3rd ed, rev. by W. Goerler, Heidelberg, 1979).

First draft: 17 Oct 2022

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Theodore Parker on Immortal Life

AS I’ve said before, I rely on Providence and grace choose my reading, and I’m seldom, if ever, disappointed. The limiting factor is not grace, but my prayer.  I must force myself in dry spells to clear my desk, calm my mind, and pray, “Lord, here I am.  What wouldst thou have me do?”  Yesterday the answer came as the suggestion in a devotional reading that, to keep faith’s fires burning bright, one might to read sermons. As I’ve recently been working on American Transcendentalism, this brought to mind the sermons of Theodore Parker.   Searching the topic quickly brought up a collection at gutenberg.org (providential, since this format is best for my purposes).  A quick look at the Contents revealed his sermon on Immortality, a regular topic here.

The sermon impressed me, and I’d very much encourage anyone with an interest in spirituality to read it.  It’s virtues are several, including: (1) its usefulness at the level of practical personal religion; (2) as an example of a very well-crafted sermon (this must rank among Parker’s best writings); and (3) for what it tells us about American Transcendentalism — its origins, message and relevance today.

Since my goal is to encourage others to read the sermon, I intentionally give only a very short summary such as may help to understand and appreciate its message.

Parker’s main subject concerns evidences of immortality of the human soul, and the possibility of a heavenly existence hereafter. The purpose is not to rationally convince an agnostic of these things.  On the contrary, he argues that logic cannot impart conviction in these matters.

Moreover, he sees a direct connection between an intuitive awareness of the soul’s immortality and of our own nature as spiritual beings.  Eventually he connects the latter with developing a greater sense of social charity.  This last part fits with Parker’s status as a seminal influence on the New England social reform and abolitionist movements.  But he is also a student of William Ellery Channing: social justice is not something apart from, but integrally connected with, our sense as spiritual beings seeking to progress in ‘likeness to God.’

Early on Parker emphasizes that human beings are aware of their immortal souls as a “fact of consciousness.”  We have, he argues, spiritual senses.  Just as we need no rational argument to convince us we possess physical vision — we need merely open our eyes and see — the same is true with spiritual vision.  If we pay sufficient attention, we simply ‘see’ that we already believe in our soul’s immorality.  In fact, we are incapable of doubting it.  Here Parker is showing influences of Kant and Coleridge (both important sources for New England Transcendentalism.)

But then why invoke rational arguments for immortality at all?  If these do not produce our own belief in immortality, they will neither persuade the atheist.  Parker responds that rational arguments here play an indirect, supportive role.  They prepare the mind to receive or recognize its innate knowledge. That is, reasoning (ratiocination, discursive reasoning) activates or improves the faculty of Reason (intuitive noetic apprehension of truths).

This seems very close to what I’ve said elsewhere about the purpose of Plato’s rational arguments for the soul’s immortality.

Parker’s actual arguments for immortality are traditional.  Their precedents can be easily found in Plato and Cicero, but they have been so thoroughly assimilated into Western literature that it would be pointless to try to identify his proximal sources.

He helpfully divides his arguments into three broad categories:  (1) from the general belief of humankind; (2) from the nature of Man; and (3) from the nature of God.

From the General Consensus

Parker notes that the belief in immortality exists in virtually all cultures throughout history.  He also argues that it is innate, and universal amongst individuals.  Moreover, it is most emphasized by our greatest philosophers and religious teachers.  Insofar at these geniuses are also the most ‘representative men’ (a principle Emerson alludes to often, e.g., in his essay ‘The Poet‘), this is added evidence of the universality of the belief.

From the Nature of Man

Here is a constellation of arguments that are again traditional.  Human beings have unlimited intellectual, aesthetic, moral and spiritual potentials.  In biological nature, all things are designed to reach a point of maximum maturity: an acorn becomes a fully grown oak tree.  Nature seems designed to promote the achievement of an organism’s telos.  How, then, could it be that no provision would be made for human beings to achieve their highest potentials?  For this Eternity and immortality are needed.

Again, we have an innate sense of moral justice.  This world is anything but consistently morally just.  How could the wrongs of the present world ever be set right?  What compensation could be made to the unfairly oppressed?  For those cheated out of their moral birthright by being born into perpetual poverty or even slavery?  The human soul objects to this. Our innate moral sense insists that (1) there is a God, (2) God is all Good, Powerful, Wise and Just; but (3)  a Good, Powerful, Wise and Just God would now allow people to unfairly suffer in this world without some compensation in the next.

We must note carefully how Parker invokes this argument.  He is not making demands on God.  Rather, he is appealing to our sense of what we deeply and instinctively believe.

From the Nature of God

The preceding lead to more arguments. Why would an all Good, Powerful and Loving God not make the human soul immortal?  And why would God design human beings with these beliefs (in immortality, perfect Justice, etc.) if they did not correspond to the true nature of the Universe?  God does not lie, nor would he build the human soul on a foundation of false beliefs.

The above suffices to convey a general idea of Parker’s arguments.  There is not much terribly new here, but he does organize the material ably and effectively.

In the process, he introduces certain characteristically Transcendentalist themes. One is his emphasis on the role of “innate facts of consciousness.”  Transcendentalists rejected authority and doctrine as the primary basis for religion, in favor of direct personal experience.

Also, like the Unitarians (Parker’s direct heritage via William Ellery Channing) and Universalists, Parker insists that all human souls will eventually be saved.  Here and elsewhere he flatly and vehemently rejects the Calvinist doctrines of ‘innate depravity,’ predestination, and eternal damnation of the wicked.

This liberating step widens ones perspective on social charity.  We can no longer blame the poor, the oppressed, or even the criminal for their actions, nor stand by as mere passive witnesses of their suffering.  Immortality is their destiny and right as well as ours.  Hence in the end — and to me this is the most original part of the sermon — Parker leverages all this discussion into an exhortation to be actively concerned with helping the oppressed.

But, — and this is vitally important — social charity flows from and must be integrally connected with spirituality.  We must remain conscious that our motivation is to advance others spiritually.  Material progress is mostly a means to that end.  Hence — as is sadly too often the case today — when an over-dominating concern for increasing the material circumstances of the poor reaches the extent that it obscures or even works contrary to our concern for their spiritual welfare, there is a problem.

A growing sense of our sense of immortality is integral to all this. We begin our immortal life in this one as we grown in holiness and virtue; and social virtue is integral to this.

I am struck with how similar this is to the integralism of Augustinian ethics — as, say, reflected so strongly in the writings of the Victorines.  There is a very strong element of anti-Catholicism in Transcendentalist writings.  Doubtless they inherited this prejudice from their English Puritan and Protestant ancestors.  It seems to have never occurred to them to give St. Augustine a charitable re-reading.  Several Transcentalists, in fact, converted to Roman Catholicism (Orestes Brownson and Rose Hawthorne, for example).

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Reference

Parker, Theodore. A Sermon of Immortal Life (1846). In: Theodore Parker, Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons in Three Volumes, Vol. 2, Boston: 1855 (repr. 1867); pp. 105−138.

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Thomas Chalmers: On Loving God for His Moral Goodness

Rev. Thomas Chalmers, by John Watson Gordon (National Galleries)

THOMAS CHALMERS (1780–1847) was an astronomer, preacher, economist, humanitarian and moral philosopher — part of the Scottish Enlightenment (along with such figures as David Hume and Adam Smith). An example of his sophisticated moral thought is his sermon, The Affection of Moral Esteem Towards God.  Its  main premise is that, both to be happy in this life and to prepare ourselves for Eternity, we must learn to love God not for gifts bestowed, but for the sake of God’s inherent loveliness, beauty and goodness.

Parts of the essay are bit marred (in my opinion) by Chalmers’ allusions to a God who, as part of his perfect justice and holiness, must punish sinners and enemies of religion.  This is a problem often found in Calvinist sermons — something perhaps to address in a later post.  But putting that aside, the sermon is making a valuable point.

And here let it be most readily and most abundantly conceded, that we are not perfect and complete in the whole of God’s will, till the love of moral esteem be in us, as well as the love of gratitude — till that principle, of which by nature we are utterly destitute, he made to arise in our hearts, and to have there a thorough establishment and operation — till we love God, not merely on account of His love to our persons, but on account of the glory and the residing excellence which meet the eye of the spiritual beholder upon His own character. We are not preparing for heaven — we shall be utterly incapable of sharing in the noblest of its enjoyments — we shall not feel ourselves surrounded by an element of congeniality in paradise — there will be no happiness for us, even in the neighbourhood of the throne of God, and with the moral lustre of the Godhead made visible to our eyes, if we are strangers to the emotion of loving God for Himself.

As a practical problem, then, we want and must learn to love God for His innate goodness.  And in particular, here, Chalmers is concerned with our loving God for His moral beauty.

These days it may sound odd to suggest that we have an innate tendency to love moral beauty.  This wouldn’t have seemed so strange to ancient writers like Cicero, though, who took the reality of this love as a given.  Our attraction to moral beauty is at the basis of much of Cicero’s social philosophy.

But, whereas Cicero had many illustrious human examples of moral virtue he could look to, today we seem less fortunate.  Where are the modern counterparts of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Demosthenes, not to mention great heroes, military leaders and statesman like Scipio Africanus!

If we had shining examples of moral heroism in modern society, then we would realize how naturally and greatly we love moral virtue.  And then it would a relatively easy step to love the perfect moral goodness of God — who is the source of these earthly instances of moral virtue.

Fortunately, even if there are few people today we can admire in this way, there is no shortage of historical exemplars we may find to inspire and enlighten us.  As an example, let me share with you one such example I find particularly inspiring.

It seems that when the great English essayist, Joseph Addison, was on his deathbed, he summoned a younger poet with whom he’d had some dealings decades earlier.  Addison told him that early in that person’s career, he (Addison) had the opportunity to assist him, but — in part from jealousy — failed to do so.  Having confessed this, he now asked the man for forgiveness.  This story to me is incredible.  Addison is on his deathbed — yet his concern is to make amends for a relatively minor wrong to another.  It wasn’t to clear his own conscience, but rather to help that other person by winning their forgiveness. On another occasion (I hope I remember the details correctly), Addison is said to have clasped his son’s hand and said, calmly and benevolently, “See here how a good Christian man faces death.”

These have always struck me as a singularly pure and beautiful moral actions.  They amaze me — and makes me love Addison for his moral virtue.  Had I never heard of them, I might never have loved moral virtue so much.  And without that love, I would not be able to love God as the source of such beauty.

Consider how God worked on my behalf.  Had Addison never been born, had he never done these things, had they not been recorded and had I (like the vast majority of even well-educated people) never heard of them, I would be less equipped to love God!  So how grateful I should be for this.  And how much more grateful that God has designed me to find joy in the moral beauty of others!

Chalmers concludes his essay with general advice we would do well to heed:

Nevertheless, the chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever. This is the real destination of every individual who is redeemed from among men. This should be the main object of all his prayers, and all his preparations. It is this which fits him for the company of heaven; and unless there be a growing taste for God in the glories of His excellency  —  for God in the beauties of His holiness  —  there is no ripening, and no perfecting, for the mansions of immortality. Though you have to combat, then, with the sluggishness of sense, and with the real aversion of nature to every spiritual exercise, you must attempt, and strenuously cultivate, the habit of communion with God.

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Celestial Ascent in Philo of Alexandria

Andromeda Galaxy. (If Andromeda were brighter as viewed from Earth, it would appear as large as the full moon!)

THE WRITINGS of ancient philosophers contain main beautiful and inspiring passages concerning the contemplation of the splendors of the starry vault.  Famous examples include Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations 1.25.62−28.70 and On the Nature of the Gods (De natura deorum) 2.15.40−17.44. These all address the sense of awe, wonder and aesthetic pleasure that the night sky invokes. Some authors also use contemplation of the heavens as a kind of rational demonstration of the existence, power, wisdom and beneficence of a Supreme Author.  Others go still further, making stargazing a spiritual exercise: a means of experiencing — and perhaps developing — the divinity and immortality of the soul.  One of the finest passages of this variety is found Philo of Alexandria’s commentary on the first book of Genesis (On the Creation of the World; De opficio mundi).  The entire section occupies section 18.55−23.71, but the most important part is shown below:

18.
[55] It was with a view to that original intellectual light, which I have mentioned as belonging to the order of the incorporeal world, that He created the heavenly bodies of which our senses are aware. These are images divine and exceeding fair, which He established in heaven as in the purest temple belonging to corporeal being. […]

23.
[69] … for after the pattern of a single Mind, even the Mind of the Universe as an archetype, the mind in each of those who successively came into being was moulded. It is in a fashion a god to him who carries and enshrines it as an object of reverence ; for the human mind evidently occupies a position in men precisely answering to that which the great Ruler occupies in all the world. It is invisible while itself seeing all things, and while comprehending the substances of others, it is as to its own substance unperceived; and while it opens by arts and sciences roads branching in many directions, all of them great highways, it comes through land and sea investigating what either element contains.

[70]
Again, when on soaring wing it has contemplated the atmosphere and all its phases, it is borne yet higher to the ether and the circuit of heaven, and is whirled round with the dances of planets and fixed stars, in accordance with the laws of perfect music, following that love of wisdom [έρωτι σοφίας] which guides its steps.

[71]
And so, carrying its gaze beyond the confines of all substance discernible by sense, it comes to a point at which it reaches out after the intelligible world, and on descrying in that world sights of surpassing loveliness, even the patterns and the originals of the things of sense which it saw here, it is seized by a sober intoxication, like those filled with Corybantic frenzy [ενθουσιά], and is inspired, possessed by a longing far other than theirs and a nobler desire. Wafted by this to the topmost arch of the things perceptible ίό mind, it seems to be on its way to the Great King Himself; but, amid its longing to see Him, pure and untempered rays of concentrated light stream forth like a torrent, so that by its gleams the eye of the understanding is dazzled [Runia: “overwhelmed by the brightness”]. (trans. Colson & Whittaker, pp. 41, 43, 55, 57; italics added)

As David Runia observes in his excellent commentary, Philo alludes to two of Plato’s discussions of contemplative ascent: Diotima’s ladder of love in Symposium 210e −212a and the Chariot Myth in Phaedrus 247c-e. Note that Philo connects the Symposium ascent with contemplation of heavenly bodies — in contrast to the more or less usual modern reading of Diotima’s speech as proceeding from love of beautiful human bodies to higher things.

Also to appreciate is how Philo implies this contemplation is not, at least at the end, something accomplished by force of will: at some point the mind is drawn or pulled upward involuntarily. At the end, the mind is ‘dazzled’ — connoting elements of both kataphatic (that is, illuminative) and apophatic (that is, beyond comprehension) mysticism.

Philo’s and other such passages are beautiful and inspiring — yet even the most magnificent words pale by comparison to the genuine spectacle of the night sky!

p.s.  Other examples from Philo:

• Philo, On Rewards and Punishments 7.40−46
• Philo, On the Change of Names 179−180
• Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 3.32.97−99

And links to two long passages in Cicero:

• Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods (De natura deorum) 2.15.40−17.44
• Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.25.62−28.70

 

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References

Colson, F. H; Whitaker, G. H. (trs.). On the Creation of the World. (De opificio mundi).  In: Philo: With and English Translation. Ten volumes and two supplementary volumes. Vol. 1.  Loeb Classical Library.  Harvard University Press, 1929.

Runia, David T. (tr.).  Philo: On the Creation of the Cosmos According to Moses: Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Leiden: Brill, 2001.

Yonge, Charles Duke (tr.). On the Creation. In: The Works of Philo. Hedrickson Publishers, 1995. (Orig. edition 1854).

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Fragments of Cicero’s Hortensius in English

AUGUSTINE relates in Confessions 3.4.7 that around the age of eighteen he was permanently converted to a passionate and lifelong love of Wisdom by reading Cicero’s dialogue, the Hortensius. In this dialogue, modeled after Aristotle’s work, Protrepticus, Cicero applies all his eloquence and rhetorical skills to exhort his fellow Romans to the study of Greek philosophy.  Unfortunately the Hortensius is also a lost work, but we have approximately 103 fragments.  These were collected by H. Mueller, and have been translated into Italian, French and German.  As far as I know, no similar translation in English exists.  However many of the fragments are found in well known works by Cicero, St. Augustine and Lactantius that are available in English.  These are supplied below.

Following these are lists of (1) fragments of Aristotle’s Protrepticus in Cicero’s other works (which might have found there way into Hortensius) and (2) related passages from Cicero’s other works.

Hortensius Fragments 

Mueller 1. Cicero. De divinitione 2 1.1

AFTER serious and long continued reflection as to how I might do good to as many people as possible and thereby prevent any interruption of my service to the State, no better plan occurred to me than to conduct my fellow-citizens in the ways of the noblest learning — and this, I believe, I have already accomplished through my numerous books. For example, in my work entitled Hortensius, I appealed as earnestly as I could for the study of philosophy. And in my Academics, in four volumes, I set forth the philosophic system which I thought least arrogant, and at the same time most consistent and refined. (Falconer, p. 371)

Mueller 2. Cicero, De finibus 1.1.2

To all of these objections I suppose I ought to make some brief reply. The indiscriminate censure of philosophy has indeed been sufficiently answered already in the book which I wrote in praise of that study, in order to defend it against a bitter attack that had been made upon it by Hortensius. The favorable reception which that volume appeared to obtain from yourself and from others whom I considered competent to sit in judgment encouraged me to embark upon further undertakings; for I did not wish to be thought incapable of sustaining the interest that I had aroused. (Rackham, p. 3)

Mueller 3. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2 2.4

But I have answered the detractors of philosophy in general, in my Hortensius. (Yonge, p. 339)

Mueller 4. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.3.6

Philosophy is certainly the medicine of the soul, whose assistance we do not seek from abroad, as in bodily disorders, but we ourselves are bound to exert our utmost energy and power in order to effect our cure. But as to philosophy in general, I have, I think, in my Hortensius, sufficiently spoken of the credit and attention which it deserves, (Yonge, p. 365)

Mueller 5. Cicero, De officiis 2 2.6

Now, when I am advocating the study of philosophy, I usually discuss this subject at greater length, as I have done in another of my books. For the present I meant only to explain why, deprived of the tasks of public service, I have devoted myself to this particular pursuit. (Miller, p. 173)

Mueller 6. Cicero, Academica 2 2.6

In fact, if there is truth in the praise of philosophy that occupies a certain volume of mine, it is obvious that its pursuit is supremely worthy of all persons of the highest character and eminence, and the only precaution that need be observed by us whom the Roman nation has placed in this rank is to prevent our private studies from encroaching at all upon our pubhc interest. (Rackham, p. 471f)

Mueller 9. Augustine, De beata vita 4

From the age of nineteen, having read in the school of rhetoric that book of Cicero’s called Hortensius, I was inflamed by such a great love of philosophy that I considered devoting myself to it at once. (Schopp, p. 46)

Mueller 10. Augustine, Confessions 3.4.7f

In the ordinary course of study, I lighted upon a certain book of Cicero, whose language, though not his heart, almost all admire. This book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called Hortensius. This book, in truth, changed my affections, and turned my prayers to Yourself, O Lord, and made me have other hopes and desires. Worthless suddenly became every vain hope to me; and, with an incredible warmth of heart, I yearned for an immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise (Luke 15:18) that I might return to You. Not, then, to improve my language — which I appeared to be purchasing with my mother’s means, in that my nineteenth year, my father having died two years before — not to improve my language did I have recourse to that book; nor did it persuade me by its style, but its matter.

[8] How ardent was I then, my God, how ardent to fly from earthly things to You! Nor did I know how You would deal with me. For with You is wisdom. In Greek the love of wisdom is called philosophy, with which that book inflamed me. There be some who seduce through philosophy, under a great, and alluring, and honourable name coloring and adorning their own errors. And almost all who in that and former times were such, are in that book censured and pointed out. There is also disclosed that most salutary admonition of Your Spirit, by Your good and pious servant: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Colossians 2:8-9 And since at that time (as Thou, O Light of my heart, know) the words of the apostle were unknown to me, I was delighted with that exhortation, in so far only as I was thereby stimulated, and enkindled, and inflamed to love, seek, obtain, hold, and embrace, not this or that sect, but wisdom itself, whatever it were; and this alone checked me thus ardent, that the name of Christ was not in it. (Pilkington)

Mueller 12. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 3.16.9

Hortensius in Cicero, contending against philosophy, is pressed by a clever argument; inasmuch as, when he said that men ought not to philosophize, he seemed nevertheless to philosophize, since it is the part of the philosophers to discuss what ought and what ought not to be done in life. (Fletcher)

Mueller 14. Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 6.2.15

In Cicero, Catulus in the Hortensius, while he prefers philosophy to all things, says that he would rather have one short treatise respecting duty, than a long speech in behalf of a seditious man Cornelius. And this is plainly to be regarded not as the opinion of Catulus, who perhaps did not utter this saying, but as that of Cicero, who wrote it. I believe that he wrote it for the purpose of recommending these books which he was about to write on Offices, in which very books he testifies that nothing in the whole range of philosophy is better and more profitable than to give precepts for living. (Fletcher)

Mueller 32. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 3.16.12

Moreover, the argument which the same Hortensius employed has great weight also against philosophy — namely, that it may be understood from this, that philosophy is not wisdom, since its beginning and origin are apparent. When, he says, did philosophers begin to exist? Thales, as I imagine, was the first, and his age was recent. Where, then, among the more ancient men did that love of investigating the truth lie hidden? (Fletcher)

Mueller 36. Augustine, De Trinitate 13.4.7

Shall we, then, hold that to be false of which the Academic Cicero himself did not doubt (although Academics doubt every thing), who, when he wanted in the dialogue Hortensius to find some certain thing, of which no one doubted, from which to start his argument, says, We certainly all will to be blessed? (Haddan)
Cf. Augustine, Against Julian 6.1.26.

Mueller 39. Augustine, De beata vita 2.10

I smiled at her and said cheerfully: ‘Mother, you have really gained the mastery of the very stronghold of philosophy. For, undoubtedly you were wanting the words to express yourself like Tullius, who also has dealt with this matter. In his Hortensius, a book written in the praise and defense of philosophy, he said: “Behold, not the philosophers, but only people who like to argue, state that all are happy who live according to their own will. This, of course, is not true, for, to wish what is not fitting is the worst of wretchedness. But it is not so deplorable to fail of attaining what we desire as it is to wish to attain what is not proper. For, greater evil is brought about through one’s wicked will than happiness through fortune.”’ (Schopp, p. 56)
Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate 13.5.8

Mueller 40. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.7.4

But perchance some one may ask of us the same question which Hortensius asks in Cicero: If God is one only, what solitude can be happy? As though we, in asserting that He is one, say that He is desolate and solitary. Undoubtedly He has ministers, whom we call messengers. And that is true, which I have before related, that Seneca said in his Exhortations that God produced ministers of His kingdom. (Fletcher)

Mueller 42. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 3.16.5

It is not therefore utility, but enjoyment, which they seek from philosophy. And this Cicero indeed testified. Truly, he says, all their disputation, although it contains most abundant fountains of virtue and knowledge, yet, when compared with their actions and accomplishments, I fear lest it should seem not to have brought so much advantage to the business of men as enjoyment to their times of relaxation. (Fletcher)

Mueller 50. Augustine, De Trinitate 14.9.12

Yet Tullius, the great author of eloquence, when arguing in the dialogue Hortensius, says of all four: If we were allowed, when we migrated from this life, to live forever in the islands of the blessed, as fables tell, what need were there of eloquence when there would be no trials, or what need, indeed, of the very virtues themselves? For we should not need fortitude when nothing of either toil or danger was proposed to us; nor justice, when there was nothing of anybody else’s to be coveted; nor temperance, to govern lasts that would not exist; nor, indeed, should we need prudence, when there was no choice offered between good and evil. We should be blessed, therefore, solely by learning and knowing nature, by which alone also the life of the gods is praiseworthy. And hence we may perceive that everything else is a matter of necessity, but this is one of free choice. This great orator, then, when proclaiming the excellence of philosophy, going over again all that he had learned from philosophers, and excellently and pleasantly explaining it, has affirmed all four virtues to be necessary. (Haddan)

Mueller 54. Augustine, City of God 3.15

In the dialogue Hortensius, too, while speaking of the regular eclipses of the sun, he says that they produce the same darkness as covered the death of Romulus, which happened during an eclipse of the sun. Here you see he does not at all shrink from speaking of his death, for Cicero was more of a reasoner than an eulogist. (Dods)

Mueller 76. Augustine, De beata vita 26

But, let us think of such a man as resembles Tullius’ description of Orata. Who could affirm offhand that Orata had been afflicted with want, since he was a man of great riches, luxuries, and delights, not lacking anything in regard to pleasure, influence, dignity, and having a healthy constitution? Immensely rich in estates, and exceptionally blessed with most charming friends, he had in abundance whatever his heart desired, and all these goods in the interest of his physical wellbeing. In a word, all his undertakings and his every wish were crowned with success. (Kavanagh, p. 74)
Note. Nonius has a longer version in Latin (see Mueller).

Mueller 81. Augustine, Against Julian 4.14.72

Consider Tully’s words in the dialogue Hortensius, which should delight you more than those of Balbus, who takes the part of the Stoics. What he says is true, but it concerns the inferior part of man, that is, his body, and it could not help you. See what he says about the quality of the mind over against the pleasure of the body. He says: ‘Should one seek the pleasures of the body, which, as Plato said truly and earnestly, are the enticements and baits of evil? What injury to health, what deformity of character and body, what wretched loss, what dishonor is not evoked and elicited by pleasure? Where its action is the most intense, it is the most inimical to philosophy. The pleasure of the body is not in accord with great thought. Who can pay attention or follow a reasoning or think anything at all when under the influence of intense pleasure? The whirlpool of this pleasure is so great that it strives day and night, without the slightest intermission, so to arouse our senses that they be drawn into the depths. What fine mind would not prefer that nature had given us no pleasures at all?’ (Schumacher, p. 229)
Cf. Ibid., 5.8.33. But if you would yield to true judgments, found in at least some of the philosophers’ writings, you would not fail to hear them say pleasures are the enticements and baits of evils, and that lust is a faulty part of the soul.
Cf. Ibid., 5.10.42. What can one think about when the very mind with which he thinks is so absorbed in this carnal pleasure? He whose words I quoted in the foregoing book spoke well when he said: ‘When its activity is most intense, it is most hostile to philosophy. Intense pleasure of the body is incompatible with great thought. What man, under the power of this the most intense of pleasures, can use his mind or carry on a process of reasoning, or think about anything at all?’

Mueller 82. Augustine, Against Julian 5.7.29

Let us enjoy present pleasures to the full, let us amuse ourselves in their absence with thoughts of them, as Epicurus advocated, and we shall be without sin and not deprive ourselves of any good. Let us not resist natural movements because of any doctrinal opinion, but, as Hortensius says: ‘Man would be obedient to nature, sensing without a teacher whatever nature desires.’ A nature which is good cannot desire what is evil, or we must deny good to the good; therefore, let whatever this good lust desires be done, lest he who resists the good himself be evil. (Schumacher, p. 274f)

Mueller 89. Augustine, De beata vita 14

To this remark he smilingly replied: ‘Such things will really cure me. For this dish you have placed before us, prickly somehow and elaborate, is sharp in its sweetness—as that well-known writer says of Hymettic honey—and docs not bloat my stomach. Therefore, after a taste of it, I gladly swallow it all. For I see no way in which this conclusion can be refuted.’ (Kavanagh, p. 61f)
Note: Nonius has a longer version in Latin (see Mueller).

Mueller 95. Augustine, Against Julian 4.15.78

How much better than you and nearer the truth in their opinions about the generation of man are those whom Cicero names in the last part of his dialogue Hortensius, who seemed to be drawn and compelled by the very evidence of things. After he had mentioned the many things we see and grieve over in human vanity and unhappiness, he said : ‘From those errors and hardships of human life it happened that at times there was vision by the ancients, whether they were seers or interpreters of the divine mind, as found in sacred things and origins; who said we are born to atone by punishment for crimes committed in a higher life. We find in Aristotle a statement to the effect that we have been afflicted by punishment similar to one once given a group of men who, fallen into the hands of Etruscan pirates, were slaughtered with deliberate cruelty, and their bodies, part corresponding to part, were very neatly piled up, the living with the dead; thus it seems our souls are united with our bodies as the living were joined with the dead.’ (tr. Schumacher, p. 234f)

Mueller 97. Augustine, De Trinitate 14.19.26

This contemplative wisdom, which I believe is properly called wisdom as distinct from knowledge in the sacred writings; but wisdom only of man, which yet man has not except from Him, by partaking of whom a rational and intellectual mind can be made truly wise — this contemplative wisdom, I say, it is that Cicero commends, in the end of the dialogue Hortensius, when he says: While, then, we consider these things night and day, and sharpen our understanding, which is the eye of the mind, taking care that it be not ever dulled, that is, while we live in philosophy; we, I say, in so doing, have great hope that, if, on the one hand, this sentiment and wisdom of ours is mortal and perishable, we shall still, when we have discharged our human offices, have a pleasant setting, and a not painful extinction, and as it were a rest from life: or if, on the other, as ancient philosophers thought — and those, too, the greatest and far the most celebrated — we have souls eternal and divine, then must we needs think, that the more these shall have always kept in their own proper course, i.e. in reason and in the desire of inquiry, and the less they shall have mixed and entangled themselves in the vices and errors of men, the more easy ascent and return they will have to heaven. And then he says, adding this short sentence, and finishing his discourse by repeating it: Wherefore, to end my discourse at last, if we wish either for a tranquil extinction, after living in the pursuit of these subjects, or if to migrate without delay from this present home to another in no little measure better, we must bestow all our labor and care upon these pursuits. And here I marvel, that a man of such great ability should promise to men living in philosophy, which makes man blessed by contemplation of truth, a pleasant setting after the discharge of human offices, if this our sentiment and wisdom is mortal and perishable; as if that which we did not love, or rather which we fiercely hated, were then to die and come to nothing, so that its setting would be pleasant to us! But indeed he had not learned this from the philosophers, whom he extols with great praise; but this sentiment is redolent of that New Academy, wherein it pleased him to doubt of even the plainest things. But from the philosophers that were greatest and far most celebrated, as he himself confesses, he had learned that souls are eternal. (Haddan)

Mueller 99. Augustine, On Dialectic 9.15.14

Thus, it is most correctly said by the dialecticians that any word is ambiguous. Do not let it dissuade that Hortensius sneers at them in Cicero: “They say that they dare explain the ambiguous clearly. They also say that any word is ambiguous. Then how were ambiguous things explained by ambiguous things? That is like bringing an unlit torch into the darkness.” (Marchand)

Mueller 100. Augustine, Contra academicos 3.14.31

Cicero admits that he himself is very much given to forming opinions, but he say’s that he is inquiring as to what a wise man does. [Cicero, Academica 2.20.66.] … you have at least read in his Hortensius: “Therefore, if there is no certainty, a wise man will not form opinions: he will never accept anything as true.” (Kavanagh, p. 205f.)

Mueller 101. Augustine, Contra academicos 1.3.7

‘Do you not think that Carneades was a wise man?’ asked Licentius.
‘I am not a Greek,’ replied Trygetius. ‘I do not know who that Carneades was.’
‘Well, what about our own Cicero?’ asked Licentius. ‘At any rate, what do you think of him?’
After a long pause, Trygetius said: ‘He was a wise man.’
‘Therefore,’ said Licentius, ‘his opinion on this matter has some weight with you?’
‘It has,’ replied Trygetius.
‘Then hear what it is, for I think it has escaped you. Our Cicero was of the opinion that a man who is searching for the truth, even though he be unable to attain to its discovery, is nevertheless happy.’
‘Where has Cicero said that?’ Trygetius asked.
Licentius rejoined: ‘Who does not know that he has forcefully asserted that nothing can be understood by man, that nothing remains for a wise man but a diligent search for the truth, and that, if he should give assent to doubtful things — and in a wise man this fault is the greatest of all—he could not be free from error, even if those things should happen to be true? Wherefore, if we must believe that a wise man Is necessarily happy, and, if a mere search for the truth is the whole function of wisdom, why should we hesitate to believe that a happy life can be attained by the mere search for the truth? ’ (Kavanagh, p. 113)
Cf. Cicero Academica 1.12.45, 2.20.60, 2.21.67.

Mueller 102. Augustine, Against Julian 4.15.76

You feared lest you be thwarted in our discussion about pleasure by those more sound philosophers whom Cicero called a kind of consular philosophers because of their soundness, as well as by the Stoics themselves, most inimical to pleasure, whose testimony you thought should be quoted from Cicero’s book, in the person of Balbus, but which was in no way helpful to you. (Schumacher, p. 233)

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Fragments of Aristotle’s Protrepticus in Cicero’s Other Works

Cicero, Tusculan Disp. 3.28.69 (= Aristotle, Protrepticus, Ross fr. 8; p. 37)

Therefore Aristotle, criticizing the old philosophers who had thought philosophy completed by their intellectual labours, says they were either very stupid or very conceited, but that he sees that, since great progress has been made in a few years, philosophy will in a short time be brought to completion. (Ross)
Cf. Iamblichus, Comm. Math. 26 (83.6−22 Festa).

Cicero, Tusculan Disp. 1.39.94 (= Aristotle, Protrepticus, Ross fr. 10a p. 40)

But what age can truly be called old? What possession of man is lasting? . . . Because we have nothing more, we call this lasting; all these things are called long or short according to the proportion of each that is given to each of us. By the river Hypanis, which flows into the Pontus from the direction of Europe, Aristotle says there are born little creatures which live for but one day. One of these that has died at the eighth hour has died at an advanced age; one that has died at sunset is decrepit, especially if it is on a midsummer day. Compare our longest life with eternity; we shall be found as short-lived as these little creatures. (Ross)
cf. Iamblichus Protrepticus 8 (47.5-21 Pistelli), Boethius Consolation 3.8, Seneca Brev. Vit. 1.2.

Cicero, De finibus 2.13.39−40 (= Aristotle, Protrepticus, Ross fr. 10c p. 42)

I shall hold that we must first exclude the opinions of Aristippus and the whole Cyrenaic school, who were not afraid to place the supreme good in the pleasure which moves our senses most delightfully, and spurned the freedom from pain of which you speak. They did not see that as the horse is born to run, the ox to plough, the dog to follow a scent, so man (as Aristotle says) is born as a sort of mortal god to do two things — for understanding and for action. (Ross)
Cf. Iamblichus Protrepticus 8 (48.9–21 Pistelli); cf. Augustine, De Trinitate 14.19.26.

Cicero, Tusculan Disp. 5.35.101 (= Aristotle, Protrepticus, Ross fr. 16  p. 53)

How then can a life be pleasant from which prudence and moderation are absent? We see from this the error of Sardanapallus, the wealthy king of Syria, who ordered these words to be engraved on his tomb: ‘What I ate and what sated lust drained to the dregs, that I have; many a famous deed lies left behind.’ ‘What else’, Aristotle says, ‘would you have inscribed on the grave, not of a king but of an ox? He says he had in death the things which even in life he had no longer than for the moment of enjoyment.’ (Ross)
Cf. Strabo 14.5.9, p. C 672; Cicero, De finibus 2.32.106.

Cicero, Tusculan Disp. 5.30.85−31.87 (= Aristotle, Protrepticus, Ross fr. 18 p. 54f.)

The case of the Peripatetics has been unfolded — apart from the views of Theophrastus and those who, following him, show a weak dread of and shrinking from pain; the rest may do what they in fact practically do, to exaggerate the importance and dignity of virtue. When they have extolled it to the skies, which these eloquent men are wont to do at length … 31.87 according to the reasoning of these men the happy life will follow virtue even if it leads to torture, and will descend with it into the tyrant’s bull,[1] with Aristotle, Xenocrates, Speusippus, and Polemon, to encourage it; it will never, seduced by threats or blandishments, desert virtue. (Ross)
[1] Phalaris’ brazen bull.

Ibid. 5.10.30.

I do not, therefore, readily allow my friend Brutus, or our common masters, or the ancients, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemon, when they count as evils the things I have enumerated above, at the same time to say that the ‘wise man’ is always happy. If this noble and beautiful title, most worthy of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, delights them, let them bring themselves to despise the things by whose splendour they are attracted—strength, health, beauty, riches, honours, power—and to count their opposites as nothing; then they will be able with a voice of crystal clearness to profess that they are terrified neither by the onslaught of fortune, by the opinion of the multitude, by pain, nor by poverty, that everything lies in themselves, that there is nothing outside their power which they should reckon as a good. (Ross)

Ibid. 5.13.39.

Cicero, De finibus 5.5.12−14

But since the happy life is sought for, and the one thing that philosophy ought to consider and pursue is the question whether happiness is entirely in the power of the wise man, or whether it can be weakened or snatched from him by adversity, on this point there seems to be sometimes variation and doubt among philosophers. This impression is produced most strongly by Theophrastus’ book on the happy life, in which a great deal is ascribed to fortune. If this were true, wisdom could not guarantee a happy life. This seems to me, so to speak, a softer and more timid line of thought than that demanded by the force and dignity of virtue. Let us, therefore, cling to Aristotle and his son Nicomachus . . . but let us follow Theophrastus in most things, only allowing virtue more firmness and strength than he did…. [14] Our own Antiochus seems to me to follow most faithfully the opinion of the ancients, which was (he maintains) common to Aristotle and to Polemon. (Ross)

Cicero De natura deorum 2.20.51−52 (= Aristotle, Protrepticus, Ross fr. 19 p. 55)  

Most admirable are the motions of the five stars which we wrongly call wandering stars…. It is on the basis of their diverse motions that mathematicians have given the name of ‘great year’ to that which is completed when the sun, the moon, and the five ‘wandering’ stars, the course of all of them completed, have returned to the same relative positions. How long this period is, is a great question, but it must be certain and definite. (Ross)
Cf. Cicero, Hortensius, fr. 35 Mueller; Tacitus Dialogus 16.7; Censor, c.18.11.

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Other Related Passages in Cicero

Throughout his philosophical works Cicero’s has magnificent passages concerning the greatness and immortality of the human soul, divine Reason, and the ascent of the mind by contemplation of the order, beauty and goodness of the natural world.

Cicero, De natura deorum 2.37.95−96 (= Aristotle, On Philosophy, Ross fr. 13; p. 85ff)

Great was the saying of Aristotle: ‘Suppose there were men who had lived always underground, in good and well-lighted dwellings, adorned with statues and pictures, and furnished with everything in which those who are thought happy abound. Suppose, however, that they had never gone above ground, but had learned by report and hearsay that there is a divine authority and power. Suppose that then, at some time, the jaws of the earth opened, and they were able to escape and make their way from those hidden dwellings into these regions which we inhabit. When they suddenly saw earth and seas and sky, when they learned the grandeur of clouds and the power of winds, when they saw the sun and learned his grandeur and beauty and the power shown in his filling the sky with light and making day; when, again, night darkened the lands and they saw the whole sky picked out and adorned with stars, and the varying lights of the moon as it waxes and wanes, and the risings and settings of all these bodies, and their courses settled and immutable to all eternity; when they saw those things, most certainly they would have judged both that there are gods and that these great works are the works of gods.’ Thus far Aristotle. (Ross)
Cf. Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 3.32.97−99; On Rewards and Punishments 7.40−46; Special Laws 1.35.185−1.36.194; Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta 2. 1009−1020; Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.4.

Cicero, De divinatione 1.30.63f (= Aristotle, On Philosophy, Ross fr. 12a; p. 84f)
Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Phys. 1.20−23; Cicero, Tusculan Disp. 1.68ff.

Cicero, De natura deorum 1.13.33 (= Aristotle On Philosophy, Ross fr. 26; p. 97)

Cicero, De natura deorum 2.6.16−17

Cicero, De natura deorum 2.15.40 (= Aristotle On Philosophy, Ross fr. 21; p. 93f.)

Cicero, De natura deorum 2.16.42−17.47

Cicero, De natura deorum 2.61.153

Cicero, De natura deorum 3.10.26

Cicero, Pro Milone 83−84

Cicero, Academica 2.38.119 (= Aristotle On Philosophy, Ross fr. 20; p. 92f)

Cicero, Academica 1.7.26 (= Aristotle On Philosophy, Ross fr. 27; p. 98f.)
Cf. Cicero, Tuscculan Disp. 1.10.22; 1.17.41; 1.26.65−27.66.

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Bibliography

Hortensius

Grilli, Alberto (ed.). M. Tulli Ciceronis Hortensius. Milan, 1962. Crtical edition and Italian translation. 2nd edition, Bologna, 2010.

Mueller, C. F. W. (ed.). M. Tulli Ciceronis scripta quae manserunt omnia. Part 4, Vol. 3. Lipsiae Teubneri, 1890.

Ruch, Michel (ed.). L’Hortensius de Cicéron; histoire et reconstitution [The Hortensius of Cicero: A History and Reconstruction] (in French). Paris, France: Les Belles Lettres, 1958.

Straume-Zimmermann, Laila. (tr.). Cicero’s Hortensius. Bern: Peter Lang, 1976. German and Latin.

Straume-Zimmermann, Laila; Broemser, Ferdinand; Gigon, Olof (trs.). Marcus Tullius Cicero: Lucullus, Academici libri. Lateinisch – deutsch. Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1990 (repr. De Gruyter, 2014).

Cicero

Falconer, William Armistead (tr.). Cicero: On Old Age, On Friendship, On Divination. Loeb Classical Library. New York, 1923.

Miller, Walter (tr.). Cicero: On Duties (De Officiis. Loeb Classical Library. New York, 1913.

Rackham, H. Harris (tr.). Cicero: On Ends (De Fiunibus). Loeb Classical Library. 2nd. ed. Cambridge, MA: 1931.

Rackham, H. (tr.). Cicero: On the Nature of the Gods, Academica. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1917.

Yonge, Charles Duke (tr.). Cicero: The Academic Questions, De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations. Bohn: London, 1853.

Augustine

Dods, Marcus (tr.). St. Augustine: The City of God. In: Philip Schaff (ed.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2, Buffalo, 1887.

Haddan, Arthur West (tr.). St. Augustine: On the Trinity. In: Philip Schaff (ed.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3, Buffalo, 1887.

Kavanagh, Denis J. (tr.). Answer to Skeptics (Contra academicos). In: Ludwig Schopp (ed.), St. Augustine: The Happy Life; Answer to Skeptics; Divine Providence and the Problem of Evil; Soliloquies. Fathers of the Church, Vol. 5, New York, 1948 (repr. 2010); pp. 87−228.

Marchand, James (tr.). Augustine: On Dialectic.  University of Illinois at Urbana. c. 1994.

Pilkington, J. G. (tr.). St. Augustine: Confessions. In: Philip Schaff (ed.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 1, Buffalo, 1887.

Schopp, Ludwig (tr.). The Happy Life (De beata vita). In: Ludwig Schopp (ed.), St. Augustine: The Happy Life; Answer to Skeptics; Divine Providence and the Problem of Evil; Soliloquies. Fathers of the Church, Vol. 5, New York, 1948 (repr. 2010); pp. 29−86.

Schumacher, Matthew A. (tr.). Saint Augustine: Against Julian. Fathers of the Church, Vol. 35. New York, 1957.

Other

Fletcher, William (tr.). Lactantius: The Divine Institutes. In: Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, A. Cleveland Coxe (eds.), Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, Buffalo, 1886.

Johnson, Thomas M. (tr.) Iamblichus’ Exhortation to the Study of Philosophy. Osceola, Missouri, U.S.A., 1907; repr. Phanes Press, 1988;

Pistelli, Ermenegildo (ed.), Iamblichi Protrepticus, Leipzig: Teubner, 1888,

Ross, David. The Works of Aristotle. Vol. XII. Select Fragments. Oxford, 1952.

von Arnim, Hans (ed.). Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. Vol. 2. Teubner, 1903 (repr. 1964).

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John Davies: Adversity Makes Us Look Within

JOHN DAVIES (1569 –1626) was an English poet and government official.  His poem Nosce Teipsum (Know Thyself) — an outstanding example of Elizabethan verse — enjoyed great popularity both during and after his lifetime and deserves more attention today than it receives.  The core of the work consists of a series of arguments for the soul’s immortality largely adapted from those of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations 1.  Here Davies begins by commenting on how adversity has the compensation of forcing us to direct our attention within. The circumstances surrounding the composition of Nosce Teipsum not without interest. Davies wrote it during a period of seclusion and remorse after being disbarred for cudgeling a former friend in response to a public insult from the latter.

Adversity

And as the man loues least at home to bee,
That hath a sluttish house haunted with sprites;
So she impatient her owne faults to see,
Turnes from her selfe and in strange things delites.

For this few know themselves: for merchants broke
View their estate with discontent and paine;
And seas are troubled, when they doe revoke
Their flowing waves into themselves againe.

And while the face of outward things we find,
Pleasing and faire, agreeable and sweet;
These things transport, and carry out the mind,
That with her selfe her selfe can never meet.

Yet if Affliction once her warres begin,
And threat the feebler Sense with sword and fire;
The Minde contracts her selfe and shrinketh in,
And to her selfe she gladly doth retire:

As Spiders toucht, seek their webs inmost part;
As bees in stormes unto their hives returne;
As bloud in danger gathers to the heart;
As men seek towns, when foes the country burn.

If ought can teach us ought, Affliction’s lookes,
(Making us looke into our selves so neere,)
Teach us to know our selves beyond all bookes,
Or all the learned Schooles that ever were.

This mistresse lately pluckt me by the eare,
And many a golden lesson hath me taught;
Hath made my Senses quicke, and Reason cleare,
Reform’d my Will and rectifide my Thought.

So doe the winds and thunders cleanse the ayre;
So working lees settle and purge the wine;
So lop’t and pruned trees doe flourish faire;
So doth the fire the drossie gold refine.

Neither Minerva nor the learned Muse,
Nor rules of Art, nor precepts of the wise;
Could in my braine those beames of skill infuse,
As but the glance of this Dame’s angry eyes.

She within lists my ranging minde hath brought,
That now beyond my selfe I list not goe;
My selfe am center of my circling thought,
Onely my selfe I studie, learne, and know.

I know my bodie’s of so fraile a kind,
As force without, feavers within can kill;
I know the heavenly nature of my minde,
But ’tis corrupted both in wit and will:

I know my Soule hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blinde and ignorant in all;
I know I am one of Nature’s little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life’s a paine and but a span,
I know my Sense is mockt with every thing:
And to conclude, I know my selfe a MAN,
Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing.

Bibliography

Davies, John.  Nosce Teipsum (extract). In: Alexander B. Grosart, (ed.), The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies, 2 vols, Vol. 2, Chatto and Windus, 1876; 22−24.
https://archive.org/details/completepoemsofs01daviuoft

The Archetypal Meaning of Hercules at the Crossroads

Annibale Carracci, The Choice of Hercules (1596)

THE ATHENIAN philosopher and rhetorician, Prodicus, a contemporary of Socrates, wrote an essay commonly known as Hercules at the Crossroads, which he often delivered orally to appreciative crowds. A moral allegory of deep psychological significance, it describes a young Hercules at a crossroads confronted by two women who personify Vice and Virtue.  Each appeals to him to take a different route: Lady Vice claims the easy path will lead to pleasure and happiness; Lady Virtue reminds him that the road to true and lasting satisfaction is the harder and more toilsome route.

Our best source of the story is Xenophon’s dialogue Memorabilia (2.1.21–34), wherein Socrates is presented as relating Prodicus’ story to a young protege named Aristippus (evidently not the eponymous founder of the Cyrenaic philosophical sect).

Thanks to Xenophon, the story was well known and often alluded to throughout antiquity and beyond. Philo of Alexandria (fl. ca. 20 AD), the Jewish Middle Platonist philosopher (and, as it happens, the virtual father of Christian allegorical interpretation of the Bible), expanded on Prodicus’ theme in a discussion of the ‘two wives of the soul’ (On the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel 1.5.21−34).  Philo’s treatment is quite interesting in its own right, in part because of his remarkable list (section 1.5.31) of over 150 negative adjectives to describe a votary of Pleasure.  Readers of Philo will recognize the connection of the story with his allegorical interpretation of the Garden of Eden myth.

Centuries later, St. Ambrose of Milan (fl. 390 AD), in Cain and Abel 4.13−5.15, paraphrased Philo’s discussion and connected it with the ‘strange woman‘ (Uebersax, 2009) in the Book of Proverbs (Prv 2:16−19; 5:3−8; 5:15−19; 5:20; 6:24−26; 7:5−27; 9:13−18; 20:16; 22:14; 23:27−35; 27:13, 15), a personification of pleasure and/or folly, and opponent of the virtuous ‘wife of thy youth.’ (Prv 5:15−19).

Cicero, in On Moral Duties (1.32.118; 3.5.25), a work addressed to his son, mentions Prodicus’ tale in the context of choosing ones career.  Others, too, have understood the tale as referring choosing one’s long term course in life.  However we have good reason to believe the story has a deeper psychological and more existential meaning. One clue to the deeper meaning is the strong appeal of the story throughout the centuries to the artistic imagination.  As Erwin Panovsky (1930) in a seminal work on art history describes, Prodicus story elicited scores of paintings and drawings beginning in the Renaissance.

Another clue to a deeper meaning is to see how this same theme is expressed in many variations throughout antiquity.  The earliest and best known example in the Greek tradition is Hesiod’s Works and Days 1.287−294.

Wickedness (κακότητα; kakotes) can be had in abundance easily: smooth is the road and very nigh she dwells. But in front of virtue (ἀρετῆς; arete) the gods immortal have put sweat: long and steep is the path to her and rough at first; but when you reach the top, then at length the road is easy, hard though it was.
Source: Hesiod, Works and Days 1.287−294 (tr. Evelyn-White)

This passage serves as a virtual epitome of book 1 of Works and Days, which also contains the Pandora and Ages of Man myths, both allegories of the moral fall.

The Judgment of Paris

Sandro Botticelli, Judgment of Paris (c. 1488)

In Greek mythology, a similar trope is found in the Judgment of Paris, where Paris (prince of Troy and brother of Hector) must choose which goddess is more beautiful: Athena, Hera or Aphrodite — allegorically symbolizing Wisdom, domestic virtue, and sensory pleasure, respectively.  His choice of Aphrodite over Athena and Hera led to the Trojan War.  If we understand the Trojan War as allegorically symbolizing the principle of psychomachia, or conflict between virtuous and unvirtuous elements of the human psyche, then the Judgment of Paris may be understood as symbolizing a depth-psychological dynamic that precipitates a fundamental form of  inner conflict.

Plato cites the above passage of Hesiod in two of his works (Republic 2.364d  and Laws 4.718e−719a). Moreover, in two underworld myths presented in his dialogues (Republic 10.614c−d and Gorgias 524a−527a), he describes a parting of two paths — one associated virtue and leading to the Isles of the Blest, and one associated with vice and leading to punishment in Tartarus. If we understand the underworld as symbolizing depth-psychological processes, it suggests that Plato is saying that orienting our mind wrongly leads to internal self-inflicted punishments, the ultimate aim of which is to educated and reform us (Gorgias 525b−c).

The Pythagorean Y

The same trope of a parting of the ways in an underworld journey is found in Book 6 of Virgil’s Aeneid (Smith, 2000).  Further, an epigram attributed (probably incorrectly, but perhaps written within a century of Virgil’s death) describes what is commonly called the Pythagorean Y (so-named because of the resemblance of ‘Y’ to a forking path):

This letter of Pythagoras, that bears
This fork’d distinction, to conceit prefers
The form man’s life bears. Virtue’s hard way takes
Upon the right hand path, which entry makes
(To sensual eyes) with difficult affair ;
But when ye once have climb’d the highest stair,
The beauty and the sweetness it contains,
Give rest and comfort, far past all your pains.’
The broadway in a bravery paints ye forth,
(In th’ entry) softness, and much shade of worth;
But when ye reach the top, the taken ones
It headlong hurls down, torn at sharpest stones.
He then, whom virtues love, shall victor crown
Of hardest fortunes, praise wins and renown:
But he that sloth and fruitless luxury
Pursues, and doth with foolish wariness fly
Opposed pains (that all best acts befall).
Lives poor and vile, and dies despised of all.
(tr. George Chapman)

Like Hercules at the Crossroads, the Pythagorean Y inspired many Renaissance works of art.

The theme of two paths associated with a choice or judgment concerning virtue vs. wickedness occurs throughout the Old and New Testament.  Perhaps best known is Psalm 1 (traditionally called The Two Paths).

When we find the same theme like this so prominently expressed across many times and traditions, it implies some universal, archetypal psychological dynamic of fundamental significance. That, I believe, is the case here. This is not a simple, prosaic morality tale such that “one must choose good and not evil.” Rather it confronts us with the existential fact — readily verifiable by introspection and close attention to thoughts — that we are always, every moment at our lives, faced with the two paths:  we can direct the immediate energies of our mind towards seeking physical pleasure, or to virtue, spirituality and higher cognitive activity.  When we choose the latter, all is well. Our mind is a harmony.  This is the path of life. But the moment we stop actively choosing virtue, our mind lapses into its immature state dominated by the pleasure principle; we are no longer true to our genuine nature, and a cascading sequence of negative mental events ensues.

This is not unlike the Freudian distinction between the pleasure principle and the reality principle, which, according to him, it is the principal task of the ego to broker.  However in this case, the reality principle is replaced by what we might call the virtue principle:  that our psyche is, in its core, fundamentally aligned with virtue.  In a sense this is still a reality principle — but, here the reality is that our nature seeks virtue.

To choose the path of virtue, wisdom and righteousness on an ongoing basis is not easy. It is, rather, as Plato calls it, the contest of contests (Gorgias 526e) and requires a degree of resolve and effort we may perhaps rightly call Herculean.

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Bibliography

Colson, F. H.; Whitaker, G. H. (trs.). Philo: On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain. In: Philo, Volume 2. Loeb Classical Library L227. Harvard University Press, 1929.

Evelyn-White, Hugh G. (tr.). Hesiod: Works and Days. In: Hesiod, Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Loeb Classical Library L057. Harvard University Press, 1943.

Marchant, E. C. Xenophon: Memorabilia and Oeconomicus. Harvard University Press, 1923. http://data.perseus.org/texts/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg002.perseus-eng1

Miller, Walter (tr.). Cicero: De Officiis. Loeb Classical Library L030. Harvard University Press, 1913. https://archive.org/details/deofficiiswithen00ciceuoft

Panofsky, Erwin. Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike Bildstoffi in der neueren Kunst, Studien der Bibliothek Warburg 18, Leipzig, 1930.

Rochette, Bruno. Héraclès à la croissé des chemins: un topos dans la literature grécolatine. Études Classiques 66, 1998, 105−113.

Savage, John J. (tr.). Saint Ambrose: Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain And Abel. Fathers of the Church 42. Catholic University of America, 1961.

Smith, Richard Upsher. The Pythagorean letter and Virgil’s golden bough. Dionysius 18, 2000, pp. 7−24. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/revista/10126/A/2000

Uebersax, John S.  The strange woman of Proverbs. 2009. https://catholicgnosis.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/the-strange-woman-of-proverbs/

1st draft, 1 Mar 2020

Greek Philosophy for Bible Exegetes



IT’S GOOD to see when a Christian is so consumed with zeal to understand the New Testament that he or she resolves to learn Greek to better understand its message. For some, this same kind of zeal might motivate an interest to learn about the Greek philosophy circulating at the time the New Testament was written.

St. Paul was well versed in Greek philosophy. He was raised in Tarsus (a philosophical center), studied in Jerusalem at Gamaliel’s rabbinical school, and when in Athens discoursed intelligently with Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. The better-educated of those to whom he directed his letters would have been familiar with Greek philosophy and accustomed to thinking about morals and religion in such terms. St. Paul, who was willing to be “all things to all men, so that some might be saved,” would have found many ideas and principles of Greek philosophy helpful in approaching Gentiles and Hellenized Jews with the message of Christianity.

The writers of the Gospels, too, show every sign of being well-educated Greek-speakers, who might easily have been familiar with elements of Greek philosophy.

Jesus himself probably spoke Greek, and may have lived in the large community of Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria during his childhood, where he might have come into contact with Greek learning.

Therefore, for such practicing Christians as may feel inspired to plunge into Greek philosophy to further their Bible study, below is a list of suggested primary texts sufficient to give one a good understanding of the subject.

Diogenes Laërtius (180 – 240 AD), Lives of Eminent Philosophers selections.

Perhaps the best single resource on the lives of ancient Greek philosophers.  Much better than modern texts!  The main chapters (“Lives”) of interest are as follows:

• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Zeno of Citium (Stoic school)
• Epicurus (Epicurean school)
• Diogenes (Cynic school)
• Pyrrho (Sceptic school)

Plato (428 − 347 BC), selected dialogues, in suggested reading order shown

It is widely believed today that St. Paul was influenced by Stoic thought. However, many of the ideas present in Stoicism are found earlier in Plato’s writings.  Stoicism, in fact, could be considered a branch of Platonism.

• Charmides (an easy introduction to the writing of the greatest Greek philosopher)
• Apology (background on the historical Socrates)
• Phaedo (Socrates’ final conversations before his execution)
• Symposium (On love)
• Phaedrus (includes Plato’s famous chariot myth)
• Republic (contrary to common opinion, this is not a literal treatise on civil politics, but an inspired allegory for the governance of ones soul; the subtitle is On the Righteous Man.)

Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)

• Nicomachean Ethics

Cicero (106 − 43 BC)

In Cicero (a Roman who wrote about Greek philosophy) we see a kind of humanism emerging that is almost Christian.  Also, Cicero transmits to us the philosophical ideas of Posidonius of Apamea (c. 135 – c. 51 BC) and Panaetius of Rhodes (c. 185 − c. 110 BC), whose versions of Stoicism would have likely influenced St. Paul and his contemporaries.

• On Ends (De finibus)
• On Moral Duties (De officiis)

Seneca (Seneca the Younger; c. 4 BC – 65 AD), selections 

Seneca was the brother of Gallio, proconsul of Achaea, who handled St. Paul’s case in Corinth. It’s remotely possible that St. Paul met Seneca in Rome, or that among his contacts in Caesar’s household were some who knew Seneca well.

• On Anger (De ira) (dedicated to Gallio)
• On Providence (De providentia)
• On Tranquility of Mind (De tranquillitate animi)

As an example of later Stoicism, one might read either Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius.

Epictetus (55 – 135 AD)

• Discourses (a short work; c. 108 AD)
• Enchiridion (c. 125 AD)

Marcus Aurelius (121 − 180 AD) 

• Meditations

Finally mention should be made of the great Platonic-Jewish exegete, Philo of Alexandria  (c. 20 BC – 50 AD).  The three books of Allegorical Interpretation supply an introduction to his sublime thought.  In some ways Philo is the most relevant of all these philosophers for Christians, but as his writing style is somewhat difficult, it’s perhaps better to first gain a solid foothold in Greek philosophy by reading the other authors.

John Uebersax
1st draft (sorry for any typos)