Section XIII.
HIS MODE OF LIFE.
We will now present the reader with some general indications of the mode of life of Apollonius, and the manner of his teaching, of which already something has been said under the heading “Early Life.”
Our philosopher was an enthusiastic follower of the Pythagorean discipline; nay, Philostratus would have us believe that he made more superhuman efforts to reach wisdom than even the great Samian (i. 2). The outer forms of this discipline as exemplified in Pythagoras are thus summed up by our author.
“Naught would he wear that came from a dead beast, nor touch a morsel of a thing that once had life, nor offer it in sacrifice; not for him to stain with blood the altars; but honey-cakes and incense, and the service of his song went upward from the man unto the Gods, for well he knew that they would take such gifts far rather than the oxen in their hundreds with the knife. For he, in sooth, held converse with the Gods and learned from them how they were pleased with men and how displeased, and thence as well he drew his nature-lore. As for the rest, he said, they guessed at the divine, and held opinions on the Gods which proved each other false; but unto him Apollo’s self did come, confessed, without disguise,[111] and there did come as well, though unconfessed, Athena and the Muses, and other Gods whose forms and names mankind did not yet know.”
Hence his disciples regarded Pythagoras as an inspired teacher, and received his rules as laws. “In particular did they keep the rule of silence regarding the divine science. For they heard within them many divine and unspeakable things on which it would have been difficult for them to keep silence, had they not first learned that it was just this silence which spoke to them” (i. 1).
Such was the general declaration of the nature of the Pythagorean discipline by its disciples. But, says Apollonius in his address to the Gymnosophists, Pythagoras was not the inventor of it. It was the immemorial wisdom, and Pythagoras himself had learnt it from the Indians.[112] This wisdom, he continued, had spoken to him in his youth; she had said:
“For sense, young sir, I have no charms; my cup is filled with toils unto the brim. Would anyone embrace my way of life, he must resolve to banish from his board all food that once bore life, to lose the memory of wine, and thus no more to wisdom’s cup befoul—the cup that doth consist of wine-untainted souls. Nor shall wool warm him, nor aught that’s made from any beast. I give my servants shoes of bast and as they can to sleep. And if I find them overcome with love’s delights, I’ve ready pits down into which that justice which doth follow hard on wisdom’s foot, doth drag and thrust them; indeed, so stern am I to those who choose my way, that e’en upon their tongues I bind a chain. Now hear from me what things thou’lt gain, if thou endure. An innate sense of fitness and of right, and ne’er to feel that any’s lot is better than thy own; tyrants to strike with fear instead of being a fearsome slave to tyranny; to have the Gods more greatly bless thy scanty gifts than those who pour before them blood of bulls. If thou art pure, I’ll give thee how to know what things will be as well, and fill thy eyes so full of light, that thou may’st recognise the Gods, the heroes know, and prove and try the shadowy forms that feign the shapes of men” (vi. 11).