Ora quibus solvat nostro non invenit ævo.”
[275] The main argument of the third and shortest of the Delphic tracts has been already given. A brief description of its contents is added by way of note, to show its connexion with the two larger tracts. The tract takes the form of a letter from Plutarch to Serapion, who acts as a means of communication between Plutarch and other common friends. Its object is to ascertain why the letter Ε was held in such reverence at the Delphic shrine. A series of explanations is propounded, probably representing views current on the subject, varying, as they do, from those proper to the common people to those which could only have been the views of logicians or mathematicians. Theon, a close friend of Plutarch’s, maintains that the syllable is the symbol of the logical attributes of the God, Logic, whose basis is Ει (“if”), being the process by which philosophical truth is arrived at. “If, then, Philosophy is concerned with Truth, and the light of Truth is Demonstration, and the principle of Demonstration is Connexion, it is with good reason that the faculty which includes and gives effect to this process has been consecrated by philosophers to the god whose special charge is Truth.”... “Whence, I will not be dissuaded from the assertion that this is the Tripod of Truth, namely, Reason, which recognizing that the consequent follows from the antecedent, and then taking into consideration the original basis of fact, thus arrives at the conclusion of the demonstration. How can we be surprised if the Pythian God, in his predilection for Logic, is specially attentive to this aspect of Reason, to which he sees philosophers are devoted in the highest degree?” This connexion of Reason with Religion, a familiar process in Plutarch, is followed by a “list of the arithmetical and mathematical praises of the letter Ε” involving Pythagorean speculations, and the culmination of the whole piece lies in the splendid vindication by Ammonius of the Unity and Self-Existence and Eternity of the Deity. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of his argument is the assignation to Apollo of the functions of the Supreme Deity: an easy method of bringing Philosophy and Mythology to terms; a mode of operation perhaps not unaffected by that Mithraic worship which, on its classical side, was to culminate in Julian’s famous prayer to Helios. The tract also furnishes, as already stated, a clear example of the method by which the literal terms known in the worship of Dionysus and Apollo are refined from their grosser elements and idealized by the subtleties of the philosophic intellect, which then accepts them as appropriate designations for the various functions of the God. The pleasant seriousness, too, of all the interlocutors is worthy of note, as presenting a type of religious discussion of whose calmness and dignity the modern world knows little. It would be interesting, for example, to hear a group of classical philosophers discuss the excommunication of Professor Mivart by Cardinal Vaughan, or of Tolstoi by Pobedonostzeff.
[276] This Diogenianus does not appear to be identical with the Diogenianus of Pergamos, twice mentioned in the Symposiacs, although Bernardakis does not distinguish them in his Index.
[277] Philinus was an intimate friend of Plutarch’s (Symposiacs, 727 B; De Sollertia Animalium, 976 B); and, except in this Dialogue and in the De Soll. Anim., appears only as taking his part in the social intercourse of the Symposiacs, and as contributing his share to the discussion of the various quaint and curious problems forming so large a portion of the “Table Talk” of Plutarch and his friends. He has Pythagorean tendencies; eats no flesh (727 B); objects to a rich and varied diet, being of opinion that simple food is more easily digestible (660 F); explains somewhat crudely why Homer calls salt θεῖος (685 D); proves that Alexander the Great was a hard drinker (623 E); explains why Pythagoras advised his followers to throw their bedclothes into confusion on getting up (728 B, C); and tells a story of a wonderful tame crocodile which lay in bed like a human being (De Soll. Anim., 976 B). A very charming account of Plutarch’s friends has been given by M. A. Chenevière, in his “De Plutarchi familiaribus,” written as a Litt.D. thesis for a French University in 1886.
[278] 395 A.
[279] 396 D. Cf. Symposiacs, 628 A.
[280] 396 E. Boethus, a genial and witty man, with whom, notwithstanding his Epicureanism, Plutarch lives on terms of intimate social intercourse. In Symposiacs, 673 C, Boethus, now described as an Epicurean sans phrase, entertains, in Athens, Plutarch, Sossius Senecio, and a number of men of his own sect. After dinner the company discuss the interesting question why we take pleasure in a dramatic representation of passions whose exhibition in real life would shock and distress us. At another time he appears, together with Plutarch and a few other friends, at a dinner given by Ammonius, then Strategos at Athens for the third time, and explains, upon principles of Epicurean Science (Symposiacs, 720 F), why sounds are more audible at night than by day.
[281] 396 F.
[282] See note, p. 149.
[283] Cf. Cicero: De Divinatione, ii. 50.—“Quis est enim, qui totum diem jaculans, non aliquando collineet? Totas noctes dormimus; neque ulla fere est, qua non somniemus: et miramur, aliquando id, quod somniarimus, evadere? Quid est tam incertum quam talorum jactus? tamen nemo est quin, sæpe jactans, venereum jaciat aliquando, nonnumquam etiam iterum, ac tertium,” &c. Also ii. 971.—“Casus autem innumerabilibus pæne seculis in omnibus plura mirabilia quam in somniorum visis effecerit.”