The religion of Plutarch - John Oakesmith

[230] Cf. Timon of Athens, act iii. sc. 1: “Let molten coin be thy damnation.”

[231] 561 A.—In the long extract, preserved by Stobæus, from Plutarch’s De Anima (Anthologion: Tit. 120, 28.—The Tauchnitz edition of 1838, however, ascribes this passage to Themistius, perhaps by confusion with extract No. 25), Plutarch allows his imagination to play freely with the fortunes of the soul in the afterworld. In a beautiful passage, Timon compares death to initiation into the Great Mysteries—an initiation in which gloom and weariness and perplexity and terror are followed by the shining of a wondrous light, which beams on lovely meadows, whose atmosphere resounds with sacred voices that tell us all the secret of the mystery, and whose paths are trod by pure and holy men. Timon concludes with Heraclitus that, if the soul became assuredly convinced of the fate awaiting it hereafter, no power would be able to retain it on earth. But Plutarch himself is not convinced: he is charmed and seduced, but Reason holds him back from accepting as certainties the “airy subtleties and wingy mysteries” of Imagination. Under the stress of a desire to console his wife for the loss of her little daughter, he reminds her that the “hereditary account” and the Mysteries of Dionysus—in which, he says, both of them were initiated—equally repudiate the notion that the soul is without sensation after death (Consolatio ad Uxorem, 611 D). In his polemic against the Epicureans he chiefly emphasizes the emotional aspect of the desire for immortality;—the Epicurean denial of immortality destroys “the sweetest and greatest hopes of the majority of mankind”—one of these “sweetest and greatest hopes” being that of seeing retribution meted out to those whose wealth and power have enabled them to flout and insult better men than themselves; it robs of its satisfaction that yearning of the thoughtful mind for unstinted communion with the great masters of contemplation; and deprives the bereaved heart of the pleasant dream of meeting its loved and lost ones in another world (Non posse suav., 1105 E). There is no doubt that Plutarch wished to believe in the immortality of the soul, but the evidence is not conclusive that he did; at the most it is with him a “counsel of perfection,” not an “article of faith.”

[232] “It it not clear from the writings of Plutarch to what extent he was a monotheist.” This is the opinion of Charles W. Super, Ph.D., LL.D., and it is supported by the irrefragable proof that Plutarch “uses θεὸς both with and without the article.” This judgment is given, of all places in the world, at the conclusion of a translation (a very indifferent one, by the way) of the De Sera Numinis Vindicta. (“Between Heathenism and Christianity:—Being a Translation of Seneca’s De Providentia and Plutarch’s De Sera Numinis Vindicta.” by Charles W. Super, Ph.D., LL.D., Chicago, 1899.)

[233] Plutarch himself is ignorant of its origin, and does not know whether it was Magian, Orphic, Egyptian, or Phrygian. (De Defectu Orac., 415 A. Cf. Isis and Osiris, 360 E, “following the Theologians of old.”) Those who believed, like Rualdus, that Plato had read the Old Testament (see note, page 45), had no difficulty in assigning the doctrine of Dæmons to a Jewish source. Wolff, speaking of the systematic dæmonology constructed by the neo-Platonists, alludes to this passage in Plutarch, and says:—“Hæc omnia artificiosa interpretatione ex Platonis fluxerunt fabulis; ex oriente fere nihil assumebatur. Namque Judæi aliis principiis, ac reliqui, profecti decem dæmonum genera constituerant; Chaldæi vetustiores non dæmonum genera, sed septem archangelos planetis præfectos colebant; nec credendum Plut., De Defectu Orac., 415 A. Studebat enim Plutarchus, præsertim in Comm: de Iside et de Socratis dæmonio, Græcorum placita ad Ægypti Asiæque revocare sapientiam, et quum ab Orpheo et Atti sancta quædam mysteria dicerentur profecta esse, arcanis his ritibus summam de diis doctrinam significari suspicabatur” (Wolff, op. cit.).—Volkmann, who had carefully studied Plutarch’s relationship both to his philosophical predecessors and to foreign forms of religious faith, had previously arrived at a different conclusion from that embodied in the words italicized above.—“Er war darum kein Eklektiker oder Synkretist, und was man nun gar von seiner Vorliebe für Orientalische Philosophie und Theologie gesagt hat gehört ledeglich in das Gebiet der Fabel. Plutarchs philosophisch-allegorische Auslegung aber der Ægyptischen Mythen von Isis und Osiris geht von der ausdrücklichen Voraussetzung aus dass diese Gottheiten wesentlich Hellenische sind” (Volkmann, vol. ii. p. 23). But these varying views are simply two different ways of regarding the real fact, which is that Plutarch regards foreign myths and Greek alike as different expressions of the conception of Divine Unity—such Unity not being either Hellenic or Egyptian, but simply absolute (see subsequent analysis of the De Iside et Osiride).

[234] Diogenes Laertius, viii. 32. Ritter and Preller also refer to Apuleius’ De Deo Socratis: “Atenim Pythagoricos mirari oppido solitos, si quis se negaret unquam vidisse Dæmonem, satis, ut reor, idoneus auctor est Aristoteles.” (Below this passage in my edition of Apuleius (the Delphin, of 1688) appears the note “Idem scribit Plutarch, in libello περὶ θαυμασίων ἀκουσμάτων.” This libellus I cannot identify with any enumerated in the catalogue of Lamprias.)

[235] “Plato, ne Anaxagoræ aut Socratis modo impietatis reus succumberet, præterea ne sanctam animis hebetioribus religionem turbaret, intactos reliquit ritus publicos et communem de diis dæmonibusque opinionem; quæ ipse sentiat, significat quidem, sed, ut solet in rebus minus certis et a mera dialectica alienis, obvoluta fabulis” (Wolff, De Dæmonibus, loc. cit.). Is it permissible to suppose that the third consideration—that expressed in the italicized words—operated more strongly on Plato than either or both of the first two? Aristotle, at any rate, takes up a much firmer attitude in face of the popular mythology, which he regards as fabulously introduced for the purpose of persuading the multitude, enforcing the laws, and benefiting human life (Metaphysics, xi. (xii.) 8, T. Taylor’s translation). This famous passage is as outspoken as Epicureanism.

[236] Plato: Politicus, 271 D. A similar “dispensation” is provided in the Laws, 717 A.