The religion of Plutarch

by John Oakesmith

By the method of placing in continuous order certain common and well-known indications, we have endeavoured to illustrate the view that the natural development of Greek Philosophy led in the direction of Ethics, and that the natural development of Ethics led in the direction of a popular scheme of conduct, which, fragmentary and incomplete as it might be in a scientific sense, had yet the advantage that it was founded upon the common daily life of the ordinary man, and placed before the ordinary man in his common daily life an ideal of virtue which, by efforts not beyond his strength, he might realize and maintain. This type of character, partly the growth of the circumstances of the time, but strengthened and expanded by the manner in which Epicureanism adapted itself to those circumstances, reacted upon the sterner conception of the Stoic ideal of private virtue, and when we reach the revival of Religion and Philosophy in the Græco-Roman world of the Empire, it is this ideal which is the aim and end of every philosopher from Seneca to Marcus Aurelius, from Plutarch to Apuleius, no matter what the particular label they may attach to their doctrines to indicate their formal adhesion to one of the great classical schools.[94] To take an extreme example of a truth which will subsequently be illustrated from Plutarch, Seneca, who is a Stoic of the Stoics, is full of praise for the noble and humane simplicity of the Epicurean ideal of life, and in those inspiring letters through which he directs the conscience of his friend Lucilius into the pure and pleasant ways of truth and virtue, it is an exceptional occurrence for him to conclude one of his moral lessons without quoting in its support the authority of the Master of the Garden. The absorbing interest of Plutarch as a moral philosopher lies mainly in the fact that though, as a polemical writer, he is an opponent, and not always a fair or judicious opponent, both of the Porch and the Garden,[95] he collects from any quarter any kind of teaching which he hopes to find useful in inculcating that ideal of conduct which he believes most likely to work out into virtue and happiness; and though his most revered teacher is Plato, the ideal of conduct which he inculcates is one which Epicurus would have wished his friend Metrodorus to appropriate and exemplify.[96] This ideal Plutarch thought worth preservation; it is the last intelligible and practicable ideal presented to us by Paganism; and the attempts which Plutarch made to preserve it are interesting as those of a man who stood at a crisis in the world’s history, and endeavoured to find, in the wisdom and strength and splendour of the Past, a sanction for purity and goodness, when a sanction for purity and goodness was being mysteriously formed, in comparison with which the wisdom and strength and splendour of the Past were to be regarded but as weakness and darkness and folly. The experiment was not without success for a considerable time; and had Paganism been defended by Julian in the pliant form which Plutarch gave it, and in the spirit of tolerance which he infused into his defence of it, it is probable that the harmonious co-operation, and perhaps the complete union, of the classical tradition and the Christian faith would have been the early and beneficial result.[97] With a view to observing some of the factors which contributed to the success of Plutarch’s work, we propose to give a brief glance at the ethical condition of the epoch in which it was carried on.

CHAPTER III.

Ethical aspect of Græco-Roman Society in the period of Plutarch: difficulty of obtaining an impartial view of it—Revival of moral earnestness concurrent with the establishment of the Empire: the reforms of Augustus a formal expression of actual tendencies—Evidences of this in philosophical and general literature—The differences between various Schools modified by the importance of the ethical end to which all their efforts were directed—Endeavour made to base morality on sanctions already consecrated by the philosophies and religious traditions of the Past—Plutarch’s “Ethics” the result of such an endeavour.

Few ages have left to posterity a character less easy to define, or more subjected to the ravages of mutually destructive schools of criticism, than that which gave the Religion of Christ to the Western world, and witnessed the moulding of Pagan Religion and Philosophy—or rather of Pagan religions and philosophies—into that systematized shape which they afterwards presented against the progress of Christianity. Many ancient and some modern apologists of Christianity have appeared to think it essential to the honour and glory of their Creed that the world, before its rise, should be regarded as sunk in iniquity to such a depth that nothing but a Divine Revelation could serve to elevate and purify it.[98] It has been maintained, on the other hand, and that too by Christian writers, that no epoch of Western civilization has been so marked, not only by the material well-being of the mass of mankind, but “by virtue in the highest places and by moderation and sobriety in the ranks beneath,” as that during which the new Creed was generally regarded as a base and superstitious sort of Atheism.[99] It may be conceded that the original authors of this period who have been most read in modern times have easily been construed into vigorous and effective testimony in support of the former position. The poets and rhetoricians of the Empire have had their most exaggerated phrases turned into evidence against the morals of their own days, and their less emphatic expressions have been regarded as hinting at the perpetration of vices too monstrous to be more clearly indicated. If, by chance an author has left writings marked by a lofty conception of morality, and breathing the purest and most disinterested love of virtue, this very fact has been sufficient to justify a denial of their Pagan origin, and the assertion that the true source of their inspiration must have been Judæa. Hence the curious struggles of many intelligent men to establish a personal connexion between Paul and Seneca, and to demonstrate that the Ethics of Plutarch are coloured by Christian modes of thought.[100] Other authors of the period who furnish material for correcting this one-sided impression have been less known to the multitude and less consulted by the learned. Even were the worst true that Juvenal, and Tacitus, and Martial, and Suetonius, and Petronius have said about Roman courts and Roman society; even were it not possible to supply a corrective colouring to the picture from the pages of Seneca, and Lucan, and Pliny, and Persius, and even Juvenal himself: yet it should be easy to remember that, just as the Palace of the Cæsars was not the City, so the City was not the Empire. Exeat aula qui volet esse pius is a maxim that could with advantage be applied to the sphere of historical criticism as well as to that of practical Ethics; and if we leave the factions and scandals of the Court and the City under the worst of the Emperors, and follow Dion into the huts of lonely herdsmen on the deserted hills of Eubœa, or linger with Plutarch at some modest gathering of family friends in Athens or the villages of Bœotia, we shall find innumerable examples of that virtue which the Republican poet sarcastically denies to the highest rulers. Even after the long reign of Christianity, vice has been centralized in the great capitals of civilization; and Rome and Alexandria and Antioch are not without their parallels among the cities of Modern Europe. In Alexandria itself, the populace who could listen to discourses like those of Dion must have been endowed with a considerable capacity for virtue; the tone of the orator, indeed, frequently reminds us of those modern preachers who provoke an agreeable sensation of excitement in the minds of their highly respectable audiences, by depicting them as involved in such wickedness as only the most daring of mankind would find courage to perpetrate.[101] We propose to deal elsewhere with the testimony of Plutarch as to the moral character of the age in which he lived, and at present confine our observations to the assertion that his “Ethical” writings are crowded with examples of the purest and most genuine virtue; not such virtue as shows itself on striking and public occasions only, but such also as irradiates the daily life of the common people in their homes and occupations. And although he is, perhaps, in some of his precepts, a little in advance of the general trend of his times, inculcating, in these instances, virtues which, though not unpractised and unknown, are still so far limited in their application that he wishes to draw them from their shy seclusion in some few better homes, and to establish them in the broad and popular light of recognized customs;[102] yet it is clear to every one of the few students of his pages that the virtues he depicts are the common aim of the people he meets in the streets and houses of Chæronea, and that the failings he corrects are the failings of the good people who are not too good to have to struggle against the temptations incident to humanity. The indications conveyed by Plutarch and Dion respecting the moral progress of obscure families and unknown villagers point to the widespread existence through the Empire of that same strenuous longing after goodness, which had already received emphatic expression in the writings of philosophers and poets whose activities had been confined to Rome.

For there can be no doubt that the establishment of the Empire had been accompanied by a strenuous moral earnestness which is in marked contrast to the flippant carelessness of the last days of the Republican Era. The note of despair—despair none the less because its external aspect was gay and debonnaire—so frequently raised by Ovid and Propertius and Tibullus; the reckless cry, Interea, dum fata sinunt, jungamus amores; Iam veniet tenebris Mors adoperta caput, is the last word of a dying epoch.[103] These three great poets utter the swan song of the moribund Republic. Their beliefs are sceptical, or frankly materialistic; they shut their eyes at the prospect of death to open them on the nearer charms of the sensual life: devoting their days and their genius to the pleasures of a passionately voluptuous love of women. In their higher moods they turn to the Past, but with an antiquarian interest only, like Ovid and Propertius, or, like Tibullus, to delight in the religious customs that still linger in the rural parts of Italy, the relics of a simpler and devouter time. If they turn their thoughts to the Afterworld at all, it is to depict in glowing verses the conventional charms of the classic Elysium, or to find occasion for striking description in the fabled woes of Ixion and Tantalus.[104] Even these descriptions change by a natural gradation into an appeal for more passionate devotion on the part of Corinna, or Delia, or Cynthia.[105] If Propertius thinks of death, it is but to hope that Cynthia will show her regard for his memory by visiting his tomb in her old age; to regret, with infinite pathos, the thousands of “dear dead women” who have become the prey of the Infernal Deities—sunt apud infernos tot milia formosarum; to lament that his deserted mistress will call in vain upon his scattered dust; or to postpone all consideration of such matters until age shall have exhausted his capacity for more passionate enjoyment. If he mentions the mighty political events of his time, it is with the air of one who watches a triumphal procession while resting his head on his mistress’s shoulder.[106] But these poets, wrapped in all the physical pleasures which their age had to supply, are not ignorant of the malady from which it suffers; they know that their despair and their materialism are born of the misery of long years of sanguinary strife; and Tibullus, in one of the sweetest of his Elegies, utters a wish which is the Ave of the storm-tossed Republic to the approaching peace of the Empire:—At nobis, Pax alma, veni.[107]

Cum domino Pax ista venit.[108] Virgil and Horace are poets of the Empire, and strike the dominant note of the new epoch. It was not the mere courtly complaisance of genius for its patrons that led Virgil and Horace to identify their muse with the religious and moral reforms of Augustus. It was rather a conscious recognition of the spiritual needs of the new age which led poets and statesmen alike to further this joint work. It is the custom to regard the labours of Augustus as resulting in the superimposition on the social fabric of mere forms and rituals which would have been appropriate were society only a fabric, but which were utterly inadequate to serve as anything better than a superficial ornament to an expanding and developing organism.[109] But, taken in conjunction with the poems of Virgil and Horace, they show their real character as outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. It is true that Horace at times attributes the disasters from which his countrymen have suffered to their disregard of the ancient religious ceremonies; to their neglect of the templa ædesque labentes deorum et fœda nigro simulacra fumo;[110] but in the six famous Odes which stand at the head of Book III he emphasizes the national necessity of chastity, fidelity, mercy, loyalty to duty; and he utters not less emphatic warnings against the general danger from avarice, ambition, luxury. The essentially religious character of the Æneid is evident to every reader. That is no mere formalism which inspires with moral vigour the splendid melodies of the Sixth Book.[111] Although the Poet uses the conventional machinery of Elysium and Tartarus to emphasize the contrast between Virtue and Vice by contrasting the fates that await them hereafter; yet justice, piety, patriotism, chastity, self-devotion; fidelity to friend and wife and client; filial and fraternal love: never received advocacy more strenuous and sincere, never were sanctioned by praise more eloquent, or reprehension more terrible, than in those immortal verses which it is an impertinence to praise. The question which presented itself to Augustus, to his ministers and to his poets, was how to re-invigorate and preserve those qualities by her practice of which Rome had become pulcherrima rerum. And we cannot wonder that an important part of their answer to this question lay in the direction of restoring those ancient religious ceremonies and moral practices which had been most conspicuously displayed when Rome was making her noblest efforts to accomplish her great destiny. The sanction of antiquity is the most permanent of all appeals that are ever made to humanity; and, even in times of revolution, its authority has been invoked by those most eager to sweep away existing institutions. Pro magno teste vetustas creditur.[112] But if Augustus and his friends appealed to antiquity, it was not merely to recall the shadows of the ancient forms and customs, but to revivify them with the new life of virtue that was welling up in their time, and which, in its turn, received external grace and strength by its embodiment in the ancestral forms.

The strong chord of moral earnestness struck by Horace and Virgil grows more resonant as the new era advances, until, in literature at least, it attains the persistence of a dominant. Juvenal is so passionately moral that he frequently renders himself liable to Horace’s censure of those who worship virtue too much; but, in his best moods, as in the famous lines which close the Tenth Satire, he depicts the virtuous man in a style which is not the less earnest and sincere because it is also dignified and calm. Persius, whose disposition was marked by maidenly modesty and gentleness, and who is also described as frugi et pudicus, shows, even when hampered by a disjointed style which only allows him to utter his thought in fragments, that devotion to the highest moral aims which we should expect from a writer brought up under the influences which he enjoyed;[113] and though he, too, exhibits some of the savage ferocity of Juvenal in his strictures of vice, he yet pays, in his Fifth Satire, that tribute to virtue in the person of Cornutus which “proves the goodness of the writer and the gracefulness with which he could write.”[114] Lucan, too, whose youth, like that of Persius, had the inestimable advantage of receiving a share of the wisdom which Cornutus had gained by nights devoted to philosophic studies, exhibits a spirit of the loftiest morality under the rhetorical phrasing of his great Republican Epic.[115] Looking back, with something of regret, to the days of a dominant oligarchy, he does not conceal the licentiousness which society harboured beneath the sway of the later Optimates, and he turns mostly to Cato as the type which he would fain accept as representative of the true Roman patrician:—

“Nam cui crediderim Superos arcana daturos

Dicturosque magis quam sancto vera Catoni?”[116]