Praeparatio Evangelica 5 part 2/4

If, then, flutes and the clatter of drums and a throng of women are the concern of the mother of the gods, then one must practice these things, having abandoned all virtue, since nothing of prudence nor of any other god-pleasing act is the concern of the aforesaid goddess — just as for Athena tumults and battles and wars are her concern, but not peace and the affairs of peace. And let the swift hounds be the concern of the daughter of Leto, Artemis, because as huntress in the fields she makes war upon the beasts — and so with the rest of what has been enumerated for the others. What, then, could these things contribute toward a life pleasing to god and blessed? Consider for yourself whether what follows seems to you to belong to a divine nature, or to one base and utterly depraved.

Pythagoras of Rhodes rightly declared this also, that the gods invoked at sacrifices do not take pleasure in them, but come dragged along by a certain necessity of consequence, some more, others less.

Some, having made a kind of habit of their presence, come more readily, especially if they happen also to be good by nature; but others, even if they have a habit of appearing, are eager to do some harm, especially if someone seems to conduct himself too carelessly in the proceedings.

For since Pythagoras has said these things, I have observed from the oracles that what has been said is true. For all of them say that they have come by necessity — not simply so, but, if one must speak thus, by a 'persuasive necessity.'

Those words of Hecate have already been quoted above, in which she says that she appears, having left the vast, unbounded, star-filled, undefiled dwelling of the god, together with the airy radiance, and sets foot upon the life-nourishing earth, at your instruction, and by the persuasion of unspeakable words, by which a mortal man has learned to delight the mind of the immortals.

And again: 'I have come, hearkening to your all-eloquent prayer, which the nature of mortals discovered by the instructions of the gods.'

And still more clearly: 'Why then, ever needing, do you call me, goddess Hecate, hither from the running aether by god-compelling necessities?' And next: 'Some, by unspeakable magic wheels, you easily draw down unwilling from the upper air and lead to the divine earth; others, midway, mounted upon the mid-winds, apart from divine fire, you sort in among mortals like all-prophetic dreams, thereby making the demons unseemly.'

And again: 'But the Uranians above, borne aloft, hastening along with the swift Harpies, are carried away; and swiftly, yielding to god-compelling necessities, hastening down to the Deoan earth, they rush, becoming for mortals the interpreters of things to come.' And again another, being compelled, said: 'Hear me, unwilling as I am, since you have bound me by necessity.'

To these the writer again says: Since they also disclose the very compulsions laid upon themselves, as will be shown by the oracle given by Apollo concerning his own compulsion:

It runs thus: 'This is the name of necessity, mighty and yet still heavy.' And he added:

'Come swiftly at these words, which I bring up from my heart, pressed together by sacred shapes of pure fire. My nature dares to reveal these things about your birth, immortal Healer.'

And again, Apollo: 'The stream, descending from the Phoebean radiance on high, veiled beneath the shrill breath of pure air, charmed by songs and unspeakable words, fell about the head of the blameless receiver, of thin membranes; it filled the soft garment, rushing up and back again through the belly; and out of the mortal pipe it engendered its own beloved voice.'

To these the writer adds: 'Nothing could be clearer, nor more divine and natural, than these words. For the spirit that descends, an effluence from the heavenly power, entering into an organic and ensouled body, using the soul as its base, gives forth a voice through the mouth as through an instrument.'

But that they are compelled — these words are sufficient to establish; and that they also request to be released, since their withdrawal does not lie within their own power, you may learn from the following:

That the gods who have been summoned are eager to withdraw, the following words will show, as they say: 'Release now at last the Lord; the mortal can no longer contain the god.'

And again: 'Why, though lacking, do you torment the mortal so long?'

And again: 'Go forth, and come swiftly, having saved this one.'

And how one ought to release them, he himself will teach, saying: 'Cease now, of your own good will, from your utterances; give the man rest, releasing the gray shape from the buckthorn branches, and lifting with strong hands the Nilotic linen from his limbs.'

And he spoke the release: 'Lift up the high-prowed sandal, hold back the utterance from the depths.'

And the words that follow these. To which he adds, saying that, when they are slow to be released: 'Spread out the linen sheets, and release the cloud, and free the receiver.' And again, at another time, he issued a release of this sort:

'Naiad Nymphs, and Muses, loudly extol Phoebus, all of you who sing of far-shooting Apollo.'

And again, at another time, he says: 'Loose my garlands for me, and sprinkle my feet with white water, and wipe away the lines, and then I would depart. Take from my right hand the branch of laurel; wipe both my eyes and the nostrils of my face; lift the man, companions, raising him up from the ground.'

To which the writer adds: 'He therefore commands that the lines be wiped away, so that he may depart; for these hold him fast, and indeed also the rest of the arrangement of the vestment, because it bears images of the gods who have been invoked.'

I consider it to have been clearly shown by these things that there is nothing at all befitting a god, nothing great or truly divine, in spirits that have fallen to such a depth of baseness as to be drawn down and dragged along by ordinary men — not through the attainment of virtue and wisdom, but simply if these men should pursue and carry out the practices of meddlesome sorcery.

Neither, then, was Pythagoras of Rhodes right, nor he who furnished this testimony for him, nor could any man whatsoever reasonably call gods — nor even good demons — those who are dragged along by mortal men, and sorcerers at that, not according to their own will, but by force and necessity, and who do not even have in their own power the authority to release themselves from their bonds.

For if indeed the divine is unforced and uncompelled, superior to all things, impassible and free in its nature, how could beings be gods who are charmed by sorceries performed by such shapes and lines and figures, by garlands and earthly flowers, and by certain other meaningless and barbarous sounds and utterances, and who are subdued by ordinary men, and enslaved as though by bonds, so that they do not even preserve in their own power the faculty of self-determination and free choice?

And how, moreover, could they even be called good demons, if they are dragged down by force and necessity? For what could be the reason that they give themselves, unwillingly and not of their own free choice, to those in need of help?

For if, being good, they make their approach for a good end, and if there were any benefit to the soul from them, they surely ought to have embraced the good by deliberate choice, anticipating those in need with their good deeds, rather than waiting for necessity.

But if what was being done was neither noble nor beneficial — which is why it did not even happen according to their own judgment — then how could they be good, since they do what is neither noble nor advantageous?

And how could they be worthy of admiration and honored with divine worship, they who are enslaved by ordinary sorcerers, utterly depraved in character, and are compelled to do what is neither noble nor beneficial, against their own judgment — being led and dragged down, not through approval of human temperance, nor for the sake of virtue or any branch of philosophy, but by the forbidden methods of sorcerers, which the same writer again, in his letter to the aforesaid Egyptian, as though communicating true and secret matters to a prophet, has set down, requesting to be taught by him the formulas by which these things are accomplished? He inquires, then, in some such manner, being at a loss, and saying:

It greatly troubles me how, though invoked as superiors, they are commanded as inferiors, and though they require that the one who invokes them, their servant, be just, they themselves, when commanded, submit to doing unjust things; and while they would not obey one who calls upon them if he is not pure from sexual intercourse, they themselves do not hesitate to lead ordinary people into unlawful sexual acts.

And they command that the interpreters must abstain from animate food, so that they may not be defiled by the exhalations from bodies; yet they themselves are especially enticed by the exhalations from sacrifices; and they say that the overseer must not touch a corpse, yet the invocations of gods are for the most part accomplished through the corpses of animals.

But far more unreasonable than these things is this: that a man, subject to whatever chance, should terrify — not, say, a demon, or the soul of some deceased person, but the king Sun himself, or the Moon, or one of the heavenly bodies — bringing threats against them, lying, so that they may speak the truth.

For to say that he will shatter the heaven, and reveal the hidden things of Isis, and disclose the secret thing at Abydos, and stop the sacred barge, and scatter the limbs of Osiris to Typhon — what degree of folly does this leave unsurpassed on the part of him who threatens things he neither knows nor is able to do, and what degree of baseness on the part of those who fear, like utterly senseless children, such empty terror and fabrications?

And yet Chaeremon the sacred scribe also records these things, as being commonly repeated among the Egyptians as well, and they say that these and such things are the most coercive of all.

But what reasoning do these very prayers contain, calling him the one who arose from the mud, and sits upon the lotus, and sails upon a boat, and changes his shapes hour by hour, and transforms himself according to the sign of the zodiac? For thus, they say, he is seen with one's own eyes—not knowing that they are attaching to him the peculiar affection of their own imagination.

But if these things are said symbolically, being symbols of his powers, let them declare the interpretation of the symbols. For it is plain that, if this were an affection of the sun, as happens in eclipses, the same thing would appear alike to all who gazed intently upon it.

And what is the purpose of the meaningless names, and among the meaningless ones, the barbarian names, in preference to those proper to each people? For if the hearer looks to what is signified, the same underlying concept suffices to make the name clear, whatever sort it may happen to be.

For surely he who is called 'Egyptian' was not so by race; and even if he was Egyptian, he certainly did not use the Egyptian tongue, nor indeed any human tongue whatsoever. Either, then, all these things were the contrivances and pretexts of sorcerers, through ascribing to the divine the passions that occur among us, or we have unwittingly held notions about the divine that are contrary to the truth, or the divine itself is in reality so disposed.

Having said this, he again raises a difficulty against the Egyptian, saying: 'But if some are impassible while others are subject to passion—those on whose account, they say, phalli are set up and obscenities performed—then the invocations of the gods will be vain, professing as they do to summon them, and the appeasing of wrath, and sacrifices, and still more the so-called compulsions of the gods. For the impassible is uncharmable, uncoercible, and unconstrainable.'

And again he goes on to add: 'In vain has their wisdom been exercised over finding a runaway slave, or the purchase of a plot of land, or a marriage, should it happen, or a business venture—troubling the divine mind for such things. But if it is not the divine itself that is present, while those present speak most truly about other matters, yet concerning happiness nothing sure or trustworthy, then they were neither gods nor good daemons, but rather that one who is called the Deceiver.'

Let these things, then, be set forth thus far from this treatise of Porphyry. And indeed, the very teachers of this evil-crafted sorcery were none other than these 'noble' gods themselves. For from where could men have come to know these things, unless the daemons themselves had disclosed what concerns themselves, and confessed the binding-spells they use against one another?

Do not suppose, however, that this argument is our own; for we confess that we neither know nor wish to know any of these things. But for the refutation of the absurdity in these matters, and at the same time for our own defense in withdrawing from them, let this man be introduced to us as a witness—one wise in these very matters, and knowing accurately and propounding all that belongs to them. He himself, then, in the aforementioned Collection of Oracles, speaks as follows, word for word:

Not only have they themselves disclosed their manner of life and the other things already mentioned, but they have also dictated by what things they delight and are honored, and indeed also by what things they are constrained; what one must sacrifice to them, and from which day one must turn away; what sort of shape the images ought to have; in what forms they themselves appear, and in what places they spend their time; and, in short, there is nothing which men, having learned it from them, have not used in this way to honor them. Since there are many proofs of this, we shall set forth a few out of the many, that we may not leave our account unwitnessed. XII. That they themselves also prescribed how the images should be made and from what material, the passage concerning Hecate will show, running in this manner:

But perform a purified image, as I shall teach you: make bundles of wild rue, and adorn it with small household lizards; and having ground together mixtures of myrrh and storax and frankincense with those creatures, and having exposed them to the open air under the waxing moon, perform the rite, yourself praying this prayer:

Then he gave forth the prayer, and taught how many geckos must be taken: 'As many forms as I have, with so many creatures I bid you accomplish, and perform these rites with great care. And make for me, of self-sprung laurel, a covering for my house.' And having prayed much also to that image, in your sleep you shall behold such a vision. And again, at another time, he gave forth another image of her, such as this:

And concerning the shapes in which they appear in visions, they themselves have made this known, from which the images were likewise established in this fashion. Sarapis, then, speaking of himself when Pan beheld him, says: 'A bright radiance shines throughout the house of the god; for he came, the great god drew near; he beheld my irresistible might, my flame-ruling splendor, the lock of hair falling from the crown of my head, warmed round about by gleaming brows, and the sacred braided curls of my beard.'

And Pan taught a hymn concerning himself, which runs thus: 'I who was born mortal pray to Pan, the god of kindred nature, two-horned, two-footed, goat-legged, luxuriating.' And so on.

And Hecate speaks thus concerning herself: 'Now do all things for me exactly thus: in the image my form is that of Demeter, splendid with fruit, clothed in all-white garments, golden-sandaled about my feet; and about my girdle are long serpents, serpents creeping with undefiled tracks, suspended from above, from my head down to the tips of my feet, coiling spirally around my whole body in due order.' And the material, she says, is either Parian stone or well-polished ivory.

And the gods reveal in many places, by way of prediction, what they themselves declare—since each of them knows the configuration of his own nativity—that they are, if one may so put it, consummate magicians and consummate astrologers. And again, in oracles, he said that Apollo spoke, bidding men to invoke Hermes, and likewise Helios on the day of Helios, and Selene whenever her day should occur, and Kronos, and Rhea, and next in order Aphrodite, with unutterable invocations which the greatest of magicians discovered—the king of the seven-toned art, whom all men know: you mean Ostanes, he added—and he further said that each god must always be called seven times.

And the same author also adds these things: 'The symbols of Hecate are three-colored wax, composed of white and black and red, bearing the figure of Hecate carrying a whip, a torch, and a sword, around which a serpent should be coiled; and the sea-stars of heaven fixed before the doors. For these things the gods themselves have revealed through these very oracles.' And Pan says: 'Drive these forth in turn, having set the wax in the abode of flickering fire and hue; let it be white and black, and let the fire be light-bringing, from a glowing coal, a terror to the hounds of the underworld, a dread graven image of Hecate. Let there be a torch for the hands, and the avenging sword, and a serpent coiled about, holding the maiden fast with bonds, setting a dread thing about her head, and the shifting key together, and the power of the daemons, and the great clamor of the whip.'

Through these things and things like them, this noble philosopher of the Greeks, this admirable theologian, this initiate into unspeakable mysteries, presents his 'Philosophy from Oracles' as though it contained the secret oracles of the gods—while openly confessing, in effect, the ambushes laid against mankind by a power that is truly wicked and demonic. For what benefit to human life could there possibly be in this evil-crafted sorcery?

And what could be pleasing to God in the elaborate fussing over lifeless carved images? Of what divinely-inspired power could the shaping of such figures possibly be an image? Why should one not rather have counseled philosophizing than practicing magic and pursuing forbidden things, when the way of life according to virtue and philosophy is sufficient in itself for a happy and blessed life? But he, sharpening his own refutation, adds also the following to what has been said:

That they take delight in the symbols of the characters, Hecate has revealed by comparing them to what men love, in these words: 'What mortal has not longed to possess characters of bronze and of gold and of gleaming silver? And who does not love these things—I, standing above those below, gathering into one, draw together a many-portioned company of men?'

He has shown not only that the characters are dear to them, but also that, as we said, they themselves are circumscribed and are, as it were, confined within a sacred precinct by the underlying image. For they were not able to be borne upon the earth at large, but only upon consecrated ground; and consecrated is that ground which bears the image of the god—and when this image is removed, the divine power ruling upon that ground is dissolved.

Through all these things, then, I think it has been clearly demonstrated that certain earthbound and passion-loving daemons have been caught out as being what pass for their gods; wherefore it seems to me that I have made my rejection of them with sound reasoning.

You see, then, how they say that in certain regions of the earth the figures used in magic, and such characters, hold sway—when, if there were indeed truly anything divine involved, it ought to tread nowhere else but in the understanding of the soul alone, and that soul purified from every defilement and every stain, adorned with temperance and justice and the other virtues.

For once these virtues are already present beforehand in a man's soul, as in a truly sacred place, the presence of the divine spirit would fittingly come upon it; nor would there be any further need of evil-crafted sorcery for souls already prepared in advance, through virtuous and God-loving practice, for the reception of the divine.

So that it is plainly established from all these things that certain earthbound daemons are being caught out—being passion-loving and body-loving—concerning whom we were just now speaking. But now, hear next what the same author says, in these same writings, about the failing of their celebrated oracles, in this manner:

Concerning both Pytho and Clarus, our god-declaring utterance shall speak forth the prophecies of Phoebus with lawful voices. Countless were the wondrous oracular seats that once welled up upon the back of the earth, springs and whirling breaths; and of these, the very earth, opening her bosom, received back some again into her chthonic depths, while measureless time destroyed others. Only to sun-illumining Helios do there still remain, in the hollows of Didyma, the god-inspired water of Mycale, and along the foot of Pytho beneath the steep of Parnassus, and rugged Clarus, the harsh mouth of the prophetic voice. And he gave an oracle to Nicaeus, saying: 'It is not possible to restore the babbling voice of Pytho; for already, dimmed by long ages, it has cast about itself the bolts of unprophesying silence. But perform, as is the custom, the god-declaring sacrifices to Phoebus.'

It is fitting here, in due course, to add also the passages of Plutarch, from the treatise he composed, On the Failure of Oracles: 'When Ammonius had fallen silent, "Rather," I said, "tell us more about the oracle, Cleombrotus; for great was the ancient renown of the divinity there, but at present it seems to be withering away."'

But since Cleombrotus remained silent and looked down, Demetrius said there was no need to make inquiries and raise difficulties about matters over there, when we can see here, before our eyes, the dimming of the oracles—or rather, with the exception of one or two, the total failure of them all—but that we ought rather to consider together the cause for which they have grown so enfeebled.

For why need one speak of the rest, when Boeotia—which in former times was renowned for the multitude of its voices of divination—has now utterly ceased, as though its streams had dried up, and a great drought of oracular power has taken hold of the land? For nowhere else at present, save around Lebadeia, does Boeotia provide those in need with a place to draw upon divination; of the rest, some are held fast by silence, others by utter desolation. Still further on, the same author also says this about the dying of their daemons as well:

'That the oracles are presided over,' he said, 'not by gods—for whom it is fitting to be removed from the affairs of earth—but by daemons who serve the gods, does not seem to me a bad supposition. But to attribute to these daemons—almost as though quoting for a fee from the verses of Empedocles—sins and follies and god-sent wanderings, and finally to suppose that they undergo deaths just as men do, I consider to be more reckless and more barbarous.'

Cleombrotus then asked Philip who the young man was, and from where. And upon learning his name and city, he said, 'We ourselves are not unaware, Heracleon, that we have fallen into strange arguments; but it is not possible, in matters of great importance, to arrive at probable opinion without proceeding from great first principles.'

But you yourself have failed to notice that in granting this, you are taking away what you grant. For you agree that there are daemons, yet by refusing to allow that they can be base or mortal, you no longer preserve them as daemons at all. For in what way do they differ from the gods, if they possess, in respect of essence, incorruptibility, and in respect of virtue, impassibility and sinlessness?

While Heracleon was pondering something in silence in reply to this, Philip said to him, 'But it was not Empedocles alone, Heracleon, who allowed that there are base daemons, but Plato also, and Xenocrates, and Chrysippus; and further, Democritus, in praying to obtain images of favorable fortune, plainly showed that he recognized others, ill-natured, possessing certain wicked purposes and impulses.'

And concerning the death of such beings, I have heard an account from a man who was neither foolish nor given to boasting. For Epitherses was the father of Aemilianus the rhetorician, whom some of us have also heard lecture; he was my fellow citizen, and a teacher of grammar.

This man said that once, while sailing to Italy, he boarded a ship carrying merchant cargo and a great many passengers; and already in the evening, near the Echinades islands, the wind died away, and the ship, drifting, came close to Paxi. Most of the passengers were awake and drinking, since they had already had their dinner. Suddenly a voice was heard from the island of Paxi, calling someone named Thamus with a shout, so that they were amazed—for Thamus was an Egyptian helmsman, not even known by name to many on board. Twice being called, he kept silent, but the third time he answered the one calling; and that voice, raising itself still louder, said: 'When you come opposite Palodes, announce that great Pan is dead.'

Epitherses said that on hearing this, all were struck with amazement, and, taking counsel among themselves whether it would be better to carry out what had been commanded, or rather not to meddle but let it be, Thamus resolved as follows: if there should be wind, to sail past in silence, but if there should be calm and stillness around that place, to announce what he had heard.

So then, when he came opposite Palodes, there being neither wind nor swell, Thamus, looking from the stern toward the land, said, exactly as he had heard it, that great Pan is dead. And he had scarcely finished speaking when there arose a great groaning—not of one voice, but of many—mingled together with amazement.

And since many people were present, the story quickly spread abroad in Rome, and Thamus was summoned by Tiberius Caesar; and Tiberius so believed the report that he made careful inquiry and investigation concerning Pan; and the scholars in his circle, who were numerous, conjectured that he was the one born of Hermes and Penelope.

Philip, then, had some of those present as witnesses, men who had heard it from Aemilianus the elder himself. But Demetrius said that among the islands around Britain there are many that are deserted and scattered, some of which are named after daemons and heroes; and that he himself had sailed, for the sake of inquiry and observation, on the king's commission, to the nearest of these deserted islands, which had not many inhabitants, but all of whom were held sacred and inviolable by the Britons.

Newly arrived there, he said a great disturbance occurred in the air and many portents took place, and winds broke forth violently, and thunderbolts fell. When it had abated, the islanders said that one of the mightier beings had passed away. 'For as a lamp,' they said, 'when being lit, has nothing fearful about it, but when being extinguished is grievous to many, so also do great souls have kindlings that are gracious and free from grief, but their quenchings and destructions often, as now, breed winds and hailstorms, and often infect the air with pestilential afflictions.'

There, however, they say, is one island in which Kronos lies confined, kept under guard by Briareus while he sleeps; for sleep has been devised as his bond; and round about him are many daemons, his attendants and servants.

So much, then, from Plutarch. But it is worth taking particular notice of the time at which he says the death of the daemon occurred. This was in the reign of Tiberius, in which our Savior, spending his time among men, is recorded to have driven out every race of daemons from the life of mankind; so that already some of the daemons fell down on their knees before him and besought him not to hand them over to the Tartarus that awaited them.

You have, then, also the very time of the overthrow of the daemons—an event recorded at no other time throughout the whole of history—just as likewise the abolition of human sacrifice among the nations occurred at no other time than after the proclamation of the gospel teaching had gone forth to all mankind. Let these things, then, be established for us from more recent history.

But since the matters already stated do not happen to be known to everyone, it seems good to me to pass on from here to things plain to all lovers of learning, and to examine the oldest oracles in point of time—those sung upon the lips of all the Greeks, and handed down in the schools of every city to those attending for their education.

Taking up, then, the ancient histories from the beginning, consider what the Pythian god oracled to the Athenians when they were afflicted with a plague on account of the death of Androgeos. For all the Athenians were dying of plague because of the death of one man, and they deemed it right to obtain assistance from the gods.

What then does the savior-god counsel them? Perhaps someone will suppose he counsels them henceforth to attend to justice and humanity and the rest of virtue, or to repent of their offense, and to perform some act of piety and reverence, so that the gods might thereby be propitiated toward them. But none of this was the case.

For what indeed would such things matter to these marvelous gods—or rather, to these utterly wicked daemons? So again they prescribe things kindred and proper to their own nature—things merciless and savage and inhuman: plague upon plague, they say, and deaths upon deaths.

Apollo, at any rate, commands them to send every year seven of their own sons, in their youthful prime, and an equal number of virgin daughters—fourteen guiltless and blameless souls instead of one—not on a single occasion, but every year without fail, to be sacrificed in Crete before Minos. So that even down to the time of Socrates, more than five hundred years later, this dreadful and most inhuman tribute still preserved its memory among the Athenians. This, in fact, was the very custom that caused the postponement of Socrates' death.

At any rate, one of the younger writers, having with manly reasoning composed, in a treatise of his own, an exposure of sorcerers, both sets forth this oracle and at the same time thoroughly refutes it—not, as he puts it, in his own words, but saying, 'Do not listen to mine,' as he turns, in this fashion, against the oracle-giver: