Cure of the Greek Maladies 1 part 8/16

And just as heat is the opposite of cold, yet when blended with one another they produce the best temperament, so desire and the spirited temper, blended with one another and each chastened by the other, produce the best temperament of virtue.

But reason holds the mastery over what is done, so that it both checks the one and goads the other on, or curbs the latter and rouses the former.

For desire, too, puts an end to the immoderation of the spirited temper, and the spirited temper in turn chastises the insatiability of desire.

These things, then, are accomplished when reason holds the reins knowledgeably;

but if it, either beguiled by the slack and smooth allure of desire, or carried away together with the spirited temper as it rushes on out of season, slackens the reins more than it ought, then the two run disorderly like horses that have taken the bit in their teeth, and reason is dragged along, becoming a laughing-stock and a reproach to those who look on.

For this very reason it also pays the penalty, as having willingly submitted to the passion.

And indeed human laws too punish those who do wrong, and God has threatened sinners with unquenchable fire—

[punishing] not those who transgressed the laws by the necessity of fate or of nature, but those who did so by deliberate will.

But if they grant no pardon to those who do wrong, they teach outright that wickedness is the work of [deliberate] will.

These things we have both been taught to think concerning human nature, and we teach them;

and we are filled with wonder when we behold the wisdom of the Creator manifested in us: how the various activities of the senses are brought forth from a single brain, yet each conveys to it a different perception—one of sight, another of hearing, another of smell, another of taste, and another of touch;

and again, the usefulness of all the members, both the visible and the hidden; and the memory, which receives ever so many and diverse things yet does not confuse them, but preserves them undefiled and brings them forth just as it received them long, long ago; and the many branches of knowledge, which do not damage one another, but each is displayed at its proper moment.

And when we have learned these things and others like them, we cry out together with the prophet:

"Your knowledge has become too wonderful for me; it is exalted;

I am not able to attain to it." For what discourse is competent to reach either the harmony manifested in the body or the wisdom contemplated in the soul? For though many things concerning these matters have been written by Hippocrates and Galen, and indeed by Plato and Xenophon and Aristotle and Theophrastus and countless others, many times more than what has been said has been left out, since what has been wrought by the divine wisdom cannot be grasped by the human mind.

For this very reason the prophet also, in regard to those things which he comprehended, sang praise; but being unable to attain to all the things contemplated within us, he plainly confessed his defeat, judging that such a confession sufficed for a worthy hymn of praise.

Of those who embrace the seafaring life, some row the merchant ships, others steer them straight with the rudders; and indeed every fisherman, carried upon his fishing-boat, lets down his net and hunts the creatures nourished by the waters, while another, seated upon a rock, casts his line and, by baiting it, impales some of the fish upon his hook;

but there are those who meet with shipwreck and sink beneath the waves, either having set out at the wrong time through ill counsel, or having recklessly braved the storm out of rashness.

And I have recounted these things not by way of idle babbling, but trying, through a kind of image, to display the folly of those who stumble against the creation and who unrestrainedly accuse what is administered within it.

For some behold the creation and extol the Creator, while others, marvelling at it more than they ought, foolishly make it into a god.

And some marvel at each of the things that happen and behold the Pilot of the universe steering most excellently, and they praise the wisdom that appears at the helm; but others are indignant at all that happens, and nothing whatsoever of what is done pleases them, but they accuse wealth and ridicule poverty and find fault with sickness and are vexed at those who are healthy, and, to put it briefly, nothing of what happens delights them—neither good fortune nor ill fortune—but they are displeased both at a good harvest and at the barrenness of the earth, and a multitude of children and childlessness alike grieve them, and peace and war.

For which reason they accuse the rudders of Providence;

or rather, so far as it lies with them, they utterly drive it out;

and they introduce fate and destiny and chance and the Fates, and they set a violent necessity over each person, and they say that this acts even against one's will—producing both murderers and burglars and those who plot against marriages.

Come then, let us once more examine the opinions of the Greeks, and set these alongside the apostolic and prophetic teachings;

let us leave them together with the impious myths;

for indeed the chief of these myths shows the chief of the gods lamenting, as one unable to defend his child, but overcome by the threads of Clotho, and wishing to undo them yet hindered by Atropos and Lachesis, and on this account lamenting and wailing and mingling much groaning with his words.

This same poet has also shown Poseidon wishing to take vengeance on the commander of the Cephallenians, because he had blinded Polyphemus, yet unable to overcome fate, since it was fated that the son of Laertes should see Ithaca.

Leaving these aside, then, let us bring forward the swarm of philosophers.

They say that Protagoras held a doubtful opinion concerning these matters;

for they report that he said he did not know either whether gods exist, or whether they do not exist at all.

Epicurus the son of Neocles and his company said that God exists, but is turned in upon himself, and neither has troubles nor wishes to cause trouble to others.

But the son of Nicomachus (Aristotle) supposed that God governs as far as the moon, but has neglected all things below it and handed over the oversight of these to the necessity of fate, which not only distributes to men wealth and poverty, health and sickness, slavery and freedom, war and peace, but also apportions virtue and vice.

Oenomaus the Cynic plainly accused these views, and he coupled the Pythian seer (Apollo)—as one delivering oracles of a similar kind—with those he was accusing;

and he entitled his treatise "The Exposure of Charlatans."

"For there has perished—at least as the wise men have it—from human life, there has perished (whether one delights to call it the helm, or the ballast, or the foundation) the authority over our life, which we for our part set up as sovereign over the most necessary things;

But the discourse of these men is just so great as one, being a man, might think fit—men addressing men.

But if the Deity too wages war upon us—alas, what things shall we suffer!" And having said many other such things, he added these as well:

"Come, let us too in turn express our indignation.

How is it then? Wherever it seems good to us, there this thing will be both most trustworthy and most venerable;

but wherever it does not seem good, there some hidden thing of it holds sway—fate and destiny, having different effects for each of us: for one from God, for another from those tiny bodies that are borne upwards and quiver downwards and intertwine and dissolve and separate and are juxtaposed by necessity?" And again, a little later:

"It is for these reasons that I have brought these things to bear upon the argument: because it has escaped you, O seer, over which things we ourselves are masters;

Chrysippus said that destiny is a bounded and completed administration;

and that fate (heimarmenē) is a certain connected chain, whether from God's will or from some cause whatsoever;

and that the Fates (Moirai) were so named from the fact that something has been allotted and distributed to each one of us;

and that in this way too "that which must be" (chreōn) is so called from "obligation" (chreos)—that which falls to one's lot and is fitting according to fate.

And the number of the Fates indicates the three times in which all things revolve and through which all things are accomplished;

and that Lachesis was named from "obtaining by lot" (lanchanein) for each one what is destined, Atropos from the unturnable and immutable nature of the apportionment, and Clotho from the spinning-together and chaining-together of all things; and that one of them was the opinion that has been appointed.

And they called this "Providence" (Pronoia) for the reason that it administers each thing toward what is beneficial;

and Heraclitus too said that all things come to be according to fate;

and he too named fate "necessity."

And Chrysippus the Stoic said that the constrained differs in nothing from the fated, and that fate is an everlasting, continuous, and ordered motion.

Zeno of Citium called fate a power that moves matter, and he named this same thing both Providence and Nature.

And those who succeeded him said that fate is the rational principle of the things in the cosmos that are governed by Providence, and again in other treatises they called fate "a chain of causes."

And chance likewise—some supposed it to be a god and revered it as a god;

but Plato said it is a cause that comes to be incidentally, and again he called it a coincidence of nature or of choice.

And Aristotle likewise said it is an incidental cause—obscure and unstable—among things that come to be by impulse for the sake of something.

And Philemon the comic poet—and that too being a maker of laughter—openly accuses those who have supposed chance to be a god, and cries out distinctly:

"There is for us no Chance at all that is a god;

there is none, but the spontaneous thing that happens—as it chances to each one—is given the name 'Chance.'"

This same poet, ridiculing also those who make use of bird-omens or chance utterances, said:

"Whenever I see," he says, "someone watching out for who sneezed, or who spoke, or who is the one coming forward, I will destroy that fellow on the spot in the marketplace as I observe him.

Each one of us walks and talks and sneezes for himself, not for the people in the city.

Affairs come to pass just as they are naturally disposed to;

may some good come to me, O most honored gods!

As I was lacing the strap of my right shoe, I tore it;

and you, you stingy fellow, unwilling to buy new ones!"

Thus even those who embraced a life of laughter and the theater knew that such terrors and observances are exceedingly ridiculous.

And Antiphon too—when someone was distressed and thought that an omen signified something grievous, because the sow had devoured her own offspring—

said, "Rejoice at the sign, that being hungry she did not devour your children." And what was said by Bion seems to resemble this.

For he too, laughing at such things,

said, "What is so wonderful if even the mouse gnawed through the sack, having nothing to eat? This would be wonderful if, as Arcesilaus jestingly remarked,

the sack had devoured the mouse.

For it would be more paradoxical if you were to behold the pestle coiled around by the snake standing upright."

Likewise again, this same man, finding inscribed on the house of a certain wicked man

said, "And how then will the master enter the house?" Thus too did they mock who had become enslaved to the deceit of superstition—the bird-omens and the chance utterances and the portents still even now believed in by the multitude;

and they said that those who sneeze do sneeze, foreshadowing nothing to others, but merely undergoing their customary bodily affection;

and that those who converse foreshow nothing to others, but make their remarks concerning the matters before them;

and that the mouse, driven by hunger, gnaws through the sack, not foretelling some oracle to the owner of the sack;

and that the thongs of the sandal break because they are old, not foretelling something grievous like oracle-mongers.

Knowing these things clearly, Epicharmus the Pythagorean too bids us despise all these things, and exhorts us to fear the Overseer of the universe;

"Nothing escapes the Deity;

He himself is our overseer, and nothing is impossible for God."

"And indeed in Hades we believe there are two paths, one of the righteous, the other of the impious;

there is in Hades a judgment, which God, the Master of all, will execute."

For since not all who transgress here pay the penalty, nor indeed do all the worthy athletes of virtue here receive the prizes of their contests according to their desert, very fittingly did this man point to the Eye that beholds all things and foretell the judgment that is to come, so that—both fearing those things and believing that this One sees—all might embrace the contests of virtue that are worthy of love, and not be vexed at not seeing the recompense of their labors.

And Pindar the Theban too, having bidden farewell to fate and chance and destiny, teaches those who are ignorant of the all-prevailing power of God;

for he says that it is possible for God to raise up undefiled light out of black night, and to veil the pure radiance of day with dark gloom.

But the son of Ariston (Plato) shows us more clearly the Ruler of the universe as having laid hold of the helm of the whole;

and he says these things in the Laws:

"God indeed, as the ancient saying also has it, holding the beginning and end and middle of all things that exist, accomplishes his course in a straight line, proceeding according to nature;

but whoever is lifted up by arrogance, or exalted by riches or honors, or by bodily beauty together with youth and folly, inflames his soul with insolence, as one needing neither ruler nor leader, but being himself sufficient to lead others—such a one is left forsaken of God;

And in the Gorgias he reveals also the causes of punishment, speaking thus:

"It is fitting that everyone who is in a state of punishment, being rightly punished by another, should either become better and be benefited, or become an example to others, so that they, seeing him suffer whatever he suffers, may out of fear become better.

And those who are benefited and pay the penalty at the hands of both gods and men are these: whosoever commit curable transgressions.

Yet through pains and torments their benefit comes about, both here and in Hades;

for it is not otherwise possible to be set free from injustice.

But those who commit the most extreme injustices, and through such crimes become incurable—from these the examples are made;

and these men themselves no longer derive any benefit, inasmuch as they are incurable, but others are benefited—those who behold them suffering, on account of their greatest sins, the most painful and most dreadful torments, and forever, plainly, hung up as examples. These things the philosopher seems to have plundered from the divine oracles.

For he had assuredly heard what the divine Moses recorded that God said to Pharaoh: 'For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might display in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.' For upon that man, who had become utterly wicked, God brought manifold punishments—not so as to make him better (for He knew both that his mind was obstinate and his disposition incurable), but so that the accounts concerning him might become for all examples of benefit.

Just as [the executioners] punish lawbreakers by these means, not approving—but rather greatly hating—their chosen way of life, yet tolerating their service because of need, so the ruler of the cosmos permits tyrants to become, as it were, certain executioners, so that through them He may exact penalty from the impious and the lawless;

but afterwards He also delivers these very ones to utter retribution, since they did those terrible deeds not as serving God, but as enslaved to their own wickedness.

Thus, when Israel had sinned, He delivered them over to the cruelty of the Assyrians;

but when these did not discern the purpose of the chastisement, then, dissolving the dominion of these also, He compelled them to be enslaved to others.

And these things Isaiah and Ezekiel and all the prophets teach expressly;

from whom, I think, Plato, having stolen his starting-points, said that those who are incurably disposed are chastised for the benefit of others.

And in the Philebus again he confirmed the doctrine concerning Providence;

For all the wise, he says, truly exalting themselves, agree that Mind is for us a king of heaven and earth;

but let us, if you will, make our examination of this very kind by way of smaller things. Then, having employed very many syllogisms, he added the following:

But are you willing that we too should agree with what was previously conceded, that these things are so, and not merely think it right to state others' views without risk, but also share in the risk and partake in the censure, whenever some clever man should say that these things are not so, but are in disorder? And having employed very many other arguments, he added these words also:

Therefore, if not this, then following that argument we should rather say, as we have often said, that there is much that is unlimited in the universe, and sufficient limit, and over these some cause that is not paltry, which orders and binds together years and months and seasons, and is called wisdom and mind. And this too he had drawn from the Hebrew streams.

For those [Scriptures] teach clearly that God by wisdom founded the earth, and by understanding prepared the heavens, and the rest that follows from these.

And in the Laws this same philosopher both divides the nature of goods and shows that some are human and some divine;

and the one [class] depends upon the divine, and if one receives the greater goods, one acquires also the lesser, but if not, one is deprived of both.

The lesser are these, of which health takes the lead, beauty second, third strength for running and for all the other motions of the body, and fourth wealth—not blind, but keen-sighted, provided it follows understanding;

but that which leads the divine goods first is understanding, second after mind the temperate disposition of soul, and from these blended with courage, justice would be third, and fourth courage.

And all these are by nature ranked before those [human goods], and indeed the lawgiver must so rank them.

And after these things, [the lawgiver] must enjoin upon the citizens that the other ordinances given to them look to these; and of these, the human things look to the divine, and all the divine things look to the ruling Mind. Then he teaches at greater length that by nature virtue alone is good, while the others are called [good] homonymously, partaking of the name only.

For the things called good by the many, he says, are not rightly so called.

For it is said that health is best, beauty second, and wealth third;

and countless other things are called good;

for to see keenly and to hear, and to have all that pertains to the senses in good sensory condition, and furthermore for one who tyrannizes to do whatever he desires—and the end of all blessedness, for one who has acquired all these things, is to become immortal as quickly as possible.

But you and I somehow say this: that all these things are best possessions for just and holy men, but for unjust men all are worst, beginning from health;

and of justice and of all virtue [the unjust man is destitute], and it would be less [evil] in so far as such a man should live the shortest possible time. And after a little:

For I say plainly that the things called evil are good for the just, but evil for the unjust;

and the good things are good for the good, but evil for the bad. And I greatly admire this division.

For truly the greatest good is to know what is properly good, and what is so called yet becomes in one way such, and in another way the opposite, according as it is pursued either well and nobly, or embraced with the contrary disposition.

For health and beauty and bodily vigor, and indeed wealth too, have benefited some and shown them worthy of their possessions, but for others have become instruments of wickedness and incontinence;

but temperance and justice and all else akin to these are possessions of the soul, which are beneficial to all who possess them and harm none of their possessors; and for such persons even the so-called goods are advantageous possessions;

for they meet with just and temperate stewards; but the things best produced through these prove worst when they fall into the hands of the wicked and lawless;

for they see what they ought not, and hear what they ought not, and train their other senses toward licentiousness.

Therefore, dear men, let us not confound the natures of things, but let us distinguish what is truly good, what is evil, and what has obtained the middle rank between these and those;

and let us not call happy those who are wealthy and robust and clothed in some dominion;

for it is fitting truly to call wretched and thrice-miserable those who have partaken of these things but have rendered them material for vice and wickedness.

Whenever, then, we see an utterly wicked man awash in wealth, let us not name him thrice-blessed, but pitiable, because he has many resources for living lawlessly;

and whenever we behold another who seems to be decent yoked to some misfortune and poverty, let us neither suppose him wretched nor account the forethought of God unjust.

For first of all, he who seems to be just is not by any means truly just;

for otherwise does the all-seeing Eye behold and discern these things.

And this the Overseer of all things Himself taught the prophet Samuel;

For God does not see as man sees, He says;

for man looks at the face, but God at the heart. But even granting that one held fast by some ill fortune is truly just, this at least is evident to all: that he will receive no harm from his adversity, bearing hardships as an athlete of virtue who has been trained.

For just as those who live with wickedness render even the so-called goods instruments of wickedness, so those who love virtue make even the things reckoned evils into materials of true philosophy.

Thus indeed, distinguishing each of these, we shall never call God unjust, but shall agree that what Plato wrote in the Theaetetus is rightly held: that God is in no way whatever unjust, but as just as can be, and there is nothing more like Him than whoever among us becomes as just as possible concerning this. And again, in the tenth book of the Laws, he attempts to heal those who do not admit the doctrine of divine Providence;

As for him who holds that gods exist but do not care about human affairs, we must console him thus:

'O best of men,' let us say, 'that you hold gods to exist—some divine kinship in your innate nature draws you to honor them and to believe they exist;

but the fortunes of evil and unjust men, both private and public—not truly happy, though reputed exceedingly blessed in opinion, yet not harmoniously so—lead you toward impiety.' Then, having gone through the supposed good fortune of the unjust, he adds these words also:

But perhaps it would not be hard to demonstrate this at least: that the gods are no less attentive to small things—indeed even more so—than to those that excel in magnitude.

For he heard, no doubt, and was present at what was just now being said: that being good with respect to every virtue, they possess the care of all things as the most proper thing belonging to them. Then, having confirmed the argument with syllogisms, he added:

[Are we to suppose the gods] more careless than craftsmen, who—the better they are—produce both small and great works proper to them with one and the same art, all the more accurately and perfectly?

but that God, being both wise and willing to take care and able—and able indeed to take care more easily—should yet be in no way able to care for small things, like one idle or cowardly who shirks because of the labor? Then he adds:

By no means, O stranger, let us accept such an opinion concerning God;

for in no way would one be thinking a thought either holy or true. And again after a little:

For every physician and every skilled craftsman works all things for the sake of the whole, aiming at what tends toward the common good;

he produces the part for the sake of the whole, and not the whole for the sake of the part;

but you are indignant, not knowing how what is best for you coincides with what is best for the whole. And after very many windings of argument he added:

For the whole has not come into being for the sake of the smallest part, but the parts fill up the harmony of the whole;

nor was the whole body fashioned for the sake of one little bone of one finger, but for the sake of the body both the fingers and their little bones were fitted together.

Since, then, the nature of humans has become mortal, and being mortal stands in need of many things—of agriculture and planting and seafaring, and indeed of building and metalworking and weaving and shoemaking and shipbuilding, and of the other arts that cooperate toward the necessary care of the body—very fittingly the Guardian of the universe allotted to some poverty and to others wealth, so that the one group might furnish the materials, and the other have hands trained for the crafts.

And the Ruler of all bound those who pride themselves on wealth to poverty through need.

And in turn the manual laborers also need the well-off, who both supply funds and purchase the things produced by them.

But those who are vexed at this distinction and angry because we have not all partaken of the same things—let them blame the painters too, because they do not paint with one color, but elaborate their images out of various colors;

and let them accuse the lyre-makers too, and indeed the musicians themselves, because not all the strings give off an equal sound, but the highest string [nētē] one note and the lowest [hypatē] another, and the one a sharp [high], another a deep [low], and another a middle pitch.

And it would befit them to be indignant at the geometers too, because they do not display one single figure to those learning the science of lines, but triangles and squares and crescents and circles and trapezia and many other things multiplied beyond those mentioned.

And let them also reproach those who teach the science of arithmetic, because of the numbers some are even, some odd, some evenly-odd, some oddly-even, and some are cubes, others cubes-upon-cubes.

...to reap ears of grain, or to plant and to gather the vintage and to press out the fruit of wine and of the olive? And since equality of honor does not permit one man to serve another, how could each one suffice, becoming at once cowherd and goatherd and shepherd and swineherd, and indeed also weaver and shoemaker, and builder and coppersmith, and baker and cook, and farmer and planter, and shipwright and sailor and helmsman? For of all these, and of others many times more, each man is in need.

Why then, after all, do you not hymn this excellent distribution, but you above all are vexed—you who enjoy the service of maidservants and household slaves, and indeed of as many farmers as possible? For the farmer is content with the station he has obtained, and the household slave likewise, and indeed the craftsman loves his craft and the labors to which he has been allotted; but you, living luxuriously and overfed, and enjoying every kind of indulgence through the service of others, shoot down with blasphemous words the very Provider of these things;

and you labor to bring forth these arguments, choosing to be enslaved to incontinence, while supposing yourselves to find a pretext for defense: first, that the helm of the universe is not moved by divine Providence; and second, to think that under the necessity of fate not only the body and the things pertaining to it are accomplished, but even the very choice of the soul itself.

But Plato teaches the contrary, that virtue is without a master, which one will possess more or less according as one honors or dishonors it.