IN THE SHRINES OF THE TEMPLES AND THE RETREATS OF RELIGION.
Seeing that the nature of Apollonius’ business with the priests of the temples and the devotees of the mystic life was necessarily of a most intimate and secret nature, for in those days it was the invariable custom to draw a sharp line of demarcation between the inner and outer, the initiated and the profane, it is not to be expected that we can learn anything but mere externalities from the Damis-Philostratus narrative; nevertheless, even these outer indications are of interest.
The temple of Æsculapius at Ægæ, where Apollonius spent the most impressionable years of his life, was one of the innumerable hospitals of Greece, where the healing art was practised on lines totally different to our present methods. We are at once introduced to an atmosphere laden with psychic influences, to a centre whither for centuries patients had flocked to “consult the God.” In order to do so, it was necessary for them to go through certain preliminary purifications and follow certain rules given by the priests; they then passed the night in the shrine and in their sleep instructions were given them for their healing. This method, no doubt, was only resorted to when the skill of the priest was exhausted; in any case, the priests must have been deeply versed in the interpretation of these dreams and in their rationale. It is also evident that as Apollonius loved to pass his time in the temple, he must have found there satisfaction for his spiritual needs, and instruction in the inner science; though doubtless his own innate powers soon carried him beyond his instructors and marked him out as the “favourite of the God.” The many cases on record in our own day of patients in trance or some other psychic condition prescribing for themselves, will help the student to understand the innumerable possibilities of healing which were in Greece summed up in the personification Æsculapius.
Later on the chief of the Indian sages has a disquisition on Æsculapius and the healing art put into his mouth (iii. 44), where the whole of medicine is said to be dependent upon psychic diagnosis and prescience (μαντεία).
Finally it may be noticed that it was the invariable custom of patients on their recovery to record the fact on an ex-voto tablet in the temple, precisely as is done to-day in Roman Catholic countries.[96]
On his way to India Apollonius saw a good deal of the Magi at Babylon. He used to visit them at mid-day and mid-night, but of what transpired Damis knew nothing, for Apollonius would not permit him to accompany him, and in answer to his direct questions would only answer: “They are wise, but not in all things” (i. 26).
The description of a certain hall, however, to which Apollonius had access, seems to be a garbled version of the interior of the temple. The roof was dome-shaped, and the ceiling was covered with “sapphire”; in this blue heaven were models of the heavenly bodies (“those whom they regard as Gods”) fashioned in gold, as though moving in the ether. Moreover from the roof were suspended four golden “Iygges” which the Magi call the “Tongues of the Gods.” These were winged-wheels or spheres connected with the idea of Adrasteia (or Fate). Their prototypes are described imperfectly in the Vision of Ezekiel, and the so-called Hecatine strophali or spherulæ used in magical practices may have been degenerate descendants of these “living wheels” or spheres of the vital elements. The subject is one of intense interest, but hopelessly incapable of treatment in our present age of scepticism and profound ignorance of the past. The “Gods” who taught our infant humanity were, according to occult tradition, from a humanity higher than that at present evolving on our earth. They gave the impulse, and, when the earth-children were old enough to stand on their own feet, they withdrew. But the memory of their deeds and a corrupt and degenerate form of the mysteries they established has ever lingered in the memory of myth and legend. Seers have caught obscure glimpses of what they taught and how they taught it, and the tradition of the Mysteries preserved some memory of it in its symbols and instruments or engines. The Iygges of the Magi are said to be a relic of this memory.
With regard to the Indian sages it is impossible to make out any consistent story from the fantastic jumble of the Damis-Philostratus romance. Damis seems to have confused together a mixture of memories and scraps of gossip without any attempt to distinguish one community or sect from another, and so produced a blurred daub which Philostratus would have us regard as a picture of the “hill” and a description of its “sages.” Damis’ confused memories,[97] however, have little to do with the actual monastery and its ascetic inhabitants, who were the goal of Apollonius’ long journey. What Apollonius heard and saw there, following his invariable custom in such circumstances, he told no one, not even Damis, except what could be derived from the following enigmatical sentence: “I saw men dwelling on the earth and yet not on it, defended on all sides, yet without any defence, and yet possessed of nothing but what all possess.” These words occur in two passages (iii. 15 and vi. 11), and in both Philostratus adds that Apollonius wrote[98] and spoke them enigmatically. The meaning of this saying is not difficult to divine. They were on the earth, but not of the earth, for their minds were set on things above. They were protected by their innate spiritual power, of which we have so many instances in Indian literature; and yet they possessed nothing but what all men possess if they would but develop the spiritual part of their being. But this explanation is not simple enough for Philostratus, and so he presses into service all the memories of Damis, or rather travellers’ tales, about levitation, magical illusions and the rest.
The head of the community is called Iarchas, a totally un-Indian name. The violence done to all foreign names by the Greeks is notorious, and here we have to reckon with an army of ignorant copyists as well as with Philostratus and Damis. I would suggest that the name may perhaps be a corruption of Arhat.[99]
The main burden of Damis’ narrative insists on the psychic and spiritual knowledge of the sages. They know what takes place at a distance, they can tell the past and future, and read the past births of men.