Plutarch does not specifically discuss magic under that name at any length in any of his essays, but does treat of such subjects as superstition in general, dreams, oracles, demons, number, fate, the craftiness of animals, and other “natural questions.” Certain vulgar forms of magic, at least, were regarded by him with disapproval or incredulity.[917] He rejects as a fiction the statement that the women of Thessaly can draw down the moon by their spells, but thinks that the notion perhaps originated in the fact or story that Aglaonice, daughter of Hegetor, was so skilful in astrology or astronomy as to be able to foresee the occurrence of lunar eclipses, and that she deluded the people into believing that at such times she brought down the moon from heaven by charms and enchantments.[918] Thus we have one more instance of the union of magic and science, this time of pseudo-magic with real science as at other times of magic with pseudo-science.
Essay on superstition.
The essay entitled περὶ δεισιδαιμονίας deals with superstition in the usual Greek sense of dread or excessive fear of demons and gods. We are accustomed to think of Hellenic paganism as a cheerful faith, full of naturalism, in which the gods were humanized and made familiar. Plutarch apparently regards normal religion as of this sort, and attacks the superstitious dread of the supernatural. He contends that such fear is worse, if anything, than atheism, for it makes men more unhappy and is an equal offense against the divinity, since it is at least as bad to believe ill of the gods as not to believe in them at all. Nothing indeed encourages the growth of atheism so much as the absurd practices and beliefs of such superstitious persons, “their words and motions, their sorceries and magics, their runnings to and fro and beatings of drums, their impure rites and their purifications, their filthiness and chastity, their barbarian and illegal chastisements and abuse.”[919] Plutarch seems to be in part animated by the common prejudice against all other religions than one’s own, and speaks twice with distaste of Jewish Sabbaths. He also, however, as the passage just quoted shows, is opposed to the more extreme and debasing forms of magic, and declares that the superstitious man becomes a mere peg or post upon which all the old-wives hang any amulets and ligatures upon which they may chance.[920] He further condemns such historic instances of superstition as Nicias’s suspension of military operations during a lunar eclipse on the Sicilian expedition.[921] There was nothing terrible, says Plutarch, with his usual felicity of antithesis, in the periodic recurrence of the earth’s shadow upon the moon; but it was a terrible calamity that the shadow of superstition should thus darken the mind of a general at the very moment when a great crisis required the fullest use of his reason.
In the essay upon the demon of Socrates one of the speakers, attacking faith in dreams and apparitions, commends Socrates as one who did not reject the worship of the gods but who did purify philosophy, which he had received from Pythagoras and Empedocles full of phantasms and myths and the dread of demons, and reeling like a Bacchanal, and reduced it to facts and reason and truth.[922] Another of the company, however, objects that the demon of Socrates outdid the divination of Pythagoras.[923] These conflicting opinions may be applied in some measure to Plutarch himself. His censure of dread of demons and excessive superstition is not to be taken as a sign of scepticism on his part in oracles, dreams, or the demons themselves. To these matters we next turn.
The oracles of Delphi and of Trophonius.
Plutarch’s faith and interest in oracles in general and in the Delphian oracle of Apollo in particular are attested by three of his essays, the De defectu oraculorum, De Pythiae oraculis and De Ei apud Delphos. At the same time these essays attest the decline of the oracles from their earlier popularity and greatness. The oracular cave of Trophonius, of which we shall hear again in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, also comes into Plutarch’s works, and the prophetic and apocalyptic vision is described of a youth who spent two nights and a day there in an endeavor to learn the nature of the demon of Socrates.[924]
Divination justified.
Plutarch further had faith in divination in general, whether by dreams, sneezes or other omens: but he attempted to give a dignified philosophical and theological explanation of it. Few men receive direct divine revelation, in his opinion, but to many signs are given on which divination may be based.[925] He held that the human soul had a natural faculty of divination which might be exercised at favorable times and when the bodily state was not unfavorable.[926] A speaker in one of his dialogues justifies divination even from sneezes and like trivial occurrences upon the ground that as the faint beat of the pulse has meaning for the physician and a small cloud in the sky is for a skilful pilot a sign of impending storm, so the least thing may be a clue to the truly prophetic soul.[927] The extent of Plutarch’s faith in dreams may be inferred from his discussion of the problem, Why are dreams in autumn the least reliable?[928] First there is Aristotle’s suggestion that eating autumn fruit so disturbs the digestion that the soul is left little opportunity to exercise its prophetic faculty undistracted. If we accept the doctrine of Democritus that dreams are caused by images from other bodies and even minds or souls, which enter the body of the sleeper through the open pores and affect the mind, revealing to it the present passions and future designs of others,—if we accept this theory, it may be that the falling leaves in autumn disturb the air and ruffle these extremely thin and film-like emanations. A third explanation offered is that in the declining months of the year all our faculties, including that of natural divination, are in a state of decline. In the case of oracles like that at Delphi it is suggested that the Pythia’s natural faculty of divination is stimulated by “the prophetical exhalations from the earth” which induce a bodily state favorable to divination.[929] The god or demon, however, is the underlying and directing cause of the oracle.[930]
Demons as mediators between gods and men.
To the demons and their relations to the gods and to men we therefore next come. Plutarch’s view is that they are essential mediators between the gods and men. Just as one who should remove the air from between the earth and moon would destroy the continuity of the universe, so those who deny that there is a race of demons break off all intercourse between gods and men.[931] On the other hand, the theory of demons solves many doubts and difficulties.[932] When and where this doctrine originated is uncertain, whether among the magi about Zoroaster, or in Thrace with Orpheus, or in Egypt or Phrygia. Plutarch likens the gods to an equilateral, the demons to an isosceles, and human beings to a scalene triangle; and again compares the gods to sun and stars, the demons to the moon, and men to comets and meteors.[933] In the youth’s vision in the cave of Trophonius the moon appeared to belong to earthly demons, while those stars which have a regular motion were the demons of sages, and the wandering and falling stars the demons of men who have yielded to irrational passions.[934]