The religion of Plutarch

by John Oakesmith

PREFACE

When the student of Plutarch leaves the familiar ground of the “Parallel Lives,” and turns, for the first time, to the less thoroughly explored region of the “Ethics,” he is struck with wonder at the many-sided excellence of the writer whose special gift he has been accustomed to regard as consisting in the composition of biographies more remarkable for the presentation of moral truths than for the accurate narration of historical facts. He learns with surprise that Plutarch has bequeathed to posterity a mine of information respecting the period in which he himself lived, as valuable and as interesting as the view presented in his “Lives” of that higher antiquity in which his classic heroes moved and worked. Even the actual bulk of Plutarch’s contribution to what may be called “general literature” is noteworthy. Apart from the “Lives,” the so-called “Catalogue of Lamprias” contains the titles of nearly two hundred works attributed, ostensibly by his son, to Plutarch,[1] and some fourscore of these have been handed down to our time under the general, but somewhat misleading, title of “Ethica” or “Moralia.”

Among these surviving essays are to be found contributions, of a surprising vitality and freshness, to the discussion of Education, Politics, Art, Literature, Music, Hygiene; serious and studied criticisms and appreciations of the great philosophic schools of Greece and their founders; short sermons on minor morals, illustrated by vivid sketches of character both typical and individual; conversations on Love and Marriage, and on other topics perpetually interesting to civilized societies. The longest work of all, the “Symposiacs,” or “Table Talk,” besides containing a wealth of material used by Plutarch and his friends in the discussion of current problems of scientific, literary, and social interest, gives a picture of Græco-Roman Society in the first Christian century, which, both from its general character and from the multitude of details it contains on matters of fact, is of the utmost importance for the accurate study of the period and its complicated problems. All these various works are interpenetrated with the character of the writer to such a vivid degree of personality that their study, from this point of view alone, would probably cast more light upon Plutarch’s methods as a writer of history than innumerable minute and difficult inquiries into his “sources,” and the manner in which he used them in writing his “Lives.”

Fascinating, however, as is the study of the “Ethics” in these various aspects, it soon becomes evident that the point of paramount importance for a proper appreciation of Plutarch’s attitude towards life and its problems in general, is to be found in the position which he assumed in face of the religious questions which perplexed the thinking men of his time and country. What was Plutarch’s view of that ancient and hereditary faith which was not only the official creed of the Empire, but which was still accepted as a sufficient spiritual satisfaction by many millions of the Empire’s subjects? Was it possible that a man so steeped in the best literature, so keen a student of the greatest philosophies, could be a believer, to any serious extent, in those traditions which appear so crude and impossible in the light of our higher modern ideals? And if he could think them worthy of credit, by what method of interpretation was this consummation facilitated? How could he persuade himself and others to find in them at once the sanction and the inspiration of virtuous conduct? These are some of the questions which are constantly before the mind of the reader as he turns the pages of the “Ethics,” and they are constantly before the mind of the reader because the author is constantly supplying materials for answering them. The most important of Plutarch’s general writings are devoted to the full discussion, from a variety of standpoints, of religious questions, not only those handed down by the popular tradition, or embodied in ceremonial observances and legalized worships, but also those more purely theological conceptions presented in the various systems of Greek Philosophy. Around Plutarch’s Religion revolves his conception of life; his numerous contributions to the discussion of other subjects of human interest unfold their full significance only when regarded in the light supplied by a knowledge of his religious beliefs.

Such, at any rate, is the experience of the present writer after a close study of the “Ethics” during several years; and it is with the hope of contributing in some degree to the clearer appreciation of Plutarch’s manifold activities in other directions, that an investigation into his religious views has been made the special object of the following pages.

The text which has been used for the purposes of this essay is that issued at intervals between the years 1888 and 1896 by Mr. G. N. Bernardakis, the director of the Gymnasium at Mytilene.[2] The editor has postponed, for discussion in a subsequent work, many questions bearing upon the authority of his MSS., and the principles which he has applied to them in the choice of his readings; his efforts in the editio minor having been almost wholly confined to presenting the results of his labours in the shape of a complete and coherent text. Although, as Dr. Holden has said, “until the appearance of the promised editio major it is premature to pronounce an opinion on the editor’s qualifications as a textual critic,”[3] yet Mr. Bernardakis has exhibited so much combined accuracy and acumen in the preliminary discussion of various questions connected with his collation of MSS., and has disposed so completely, as Dr. Holden admits, of the charges of inaccuracy brought against him by Professor von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff of Berlin,[4] that the more general student of Classical Literature may, perhaps, feel some amount of confidence that in this edition he sees the actual work of Plutarch himself, and not the ingenious and daring conjectures of some too brilliant critic. This feeling of confidence will not be diminished by the evident anxiety displayed by Mr. W. R. Paton, an English scholar working in the same field, “to induce Mr. Bernardakis to assist and correct” him in editing a text of the “De Cupiditate Divitiarum,”[5] and it will be increased by the discovery that, greatly different as the text of Bernardakis is from that of any other previous edition, the difference frequently consists in the substitution of plain sense for undiluted absurdity, or total want of meaning.

Indebtedness to other sources of criticism and information is, the writer hopes, fully acknowledged in the footnotes as occasion arises. There has yet been published no work in English dealing with Plutarch’s “Ethics” at all similar in scope and character either to Volkmann’s “Leben, Schriften und Philosophie des Plutarch von Chæronea,”[6] or to Gréard’s “La Morale de Plutarque.”[7] Archbishop Trench, who speaks slightingly of Gréard’s interesting study, has himself contributed one or two “Lectures” to some general observations on this sphere of Plutarch’s activity,[8] while the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy has given two chapters to the subject in his “Greek World under Roman Sway.”[9] Chap. xiii., which is headed “Plutarch and His Times—Public Life,” is devoted partly to Apuleius, and partly to Plutarch himself, and exhibits, in continuous form, a number of that author’s best-known and most frequently quoted statements and opinions on the subjects of Politics and Religion, some ten pages being set apart for the presentation and criticism of his views on the latter topic. Chap. xiv. is entitled “Plutarch and His Times—Private Life,” and intersperses with comments a number of extracts from the evidence furnished by Plutarch on various matters appertaining to the social and domestic life of his epoch, giving the gist of passages selected from the “Table Talk,” from various essays on Education, and from several tracts on Minor Morals and other themes of general interest.

Although Professor Mahaffy’s prolonged and extensive researches into every available sphere of Greek life and thought occasionally enable him to help out his author’s descriptions by aptly chosen illustrations from other sources, yet, in dealing with a writer at once so voluminous and so full of interest as Plutarch, the historian is hampered by the necessary limits of his appointed task, no less than by his own diffusive and gossiping style. Mr. Mahaffy’s Clio has always appeared to us in the light of an amiable and cultured hostess presiding at Afternoon Tea, gliding graciously hither and thither among her guests, and introducing topics of conversation which have only a superficial interest, or which she presents only in their superficial aspects; while, perhaps unconsciously, conveying the impression that she reserves for discussion among a few chosen intimates the more profound and sacred issues of human life. These two chapters on Plutarch furnish an excellent example of Professor Mahaffy’s method. They are entertaining in the sense that all well-conducted gossip is entertaining. A trait of character is chosen here; a smart saying, or a foolish one, is selected there; a piquant anecdote is retold elsewhere: but the searchlight is never stationary, and the earnest student who trusts solely to its assistance will vainly attempt to see Plutarch steadily and see him whole.

It is, of course, the fact, as already suggested, that, in these chapters, Professor Mahaffy is dealing with Plutarch only so far as he furnishes material illustrative of the conception which the historian has formed as to the character of the age in which his subject lived. This fact is conspicuously evident in the brief account of Plutarch’s Religion given in the ten pages from page 311 onwards, where Professor Mahaffy accepts the belief of so many of his predecessors, that the age was an age of religious decadence, and not an age of religious revival; and that, moreover, it was blameworthy in Plutarch that “he never took pains to understand” Christianity.[10] Further, it must be added, that the historian’s natural desire to illustrate Plutarch’s times, rather than to display Plutarch himself, has led him to commit serious injustice by his uncritical acceptance of certain spurious tracts as the genuine workmanship of Plutarch.

The conclusion at which Professor Mahaffy arrives, that Plutarch was “a narrow and bigoted Hellene,”[11] is intelligible enough to those who accept the view which we have endeavoured to combat in Chapter III. of the following essay, a view which is simply a belated survival of the ancient prejudice which consigns to eternal perdition the followers of other Religions, because they are wilfully blind to the light with which our own special Belief has been blessed in such splendour. But the man who, after even the most casual study of Plutarch’s utterances on Religion, can seriously describe him as “narrow and bigoted” will maintain, with equal serenity, that it is the practice of the sun to shine at midnight. Professor Mahaffy, indeed, in using such expressions, is at variance with his own better judgment, inasmuch as he elsewhere concedes that, “had Plutarch been at Athens when St. Paul came there, he would have been the first to give the Apostle a respectful hearing.”[12]