Emperor of Rome Julian

“ Therefore he who desires to be a Cynic despises all the usages and opinions of men, and turns his mind first of all to himself and the god. For him gold is not gold or sand sand, if one enquire into their value with a view to exchanging them, and leave it to him to rate them at their proper worth: for he knows that both of them are but earth. And the fact that one is scarcer and the other easier to obtain he thinks is merely the result of the vanity and ignorance of mankind. ”

“ This is as though you had announced to a man who for his health's sake and by exerting himself to the utmost was able to take moderate exercise at home: “Now you have come to Olympia and have exchanged the gymnasium in your house for the stadium of Zeus, where you will have for spectators Greeks who have come from all parts, and foremost among them your own fellow-citizens, on whose behalf you must enter the lists; and certain barbarians will be there also whom it is your duty to impress, showing them your fatherland in as formidable a light as lies in your power.” ”

“ It would be an endless business to enumerate all who have fallen victims to their wealth and victories and luxury. And as for those who, submerged by the tide of their misfortunes, from free men have become slaves, who have been humbled from their high estate after all their splendour and become poor and mean in the eyes of all men, what need now to go through the list of them as though I were copying it from a written record? Would that human life afforded no such instances! But it does not nor ever will lack such, so long as the race of man endures. ”

“ But I do not mean by this that we ought to be shameless before all men and to do what we ought not; but all that we refrain from and all that we do let us not do or refrain from, merely because it seems to the multitude somehow honourable or base, but because it is forbidden by reason and the god within us, that is, the mind.83 As for the multitude there is no reason why they should not follow common opinions, for that is better than that they should be altogether shameless, and indeed mankind is predisposed to the truth by nature. ”

“ But as he wept and implored Helios replied, “Nay, thou art young and not yet initiated. Return therefore to thine own people that thou mayst be initiated and thereafter dwell on earth in safety. For return thou must, and and cleanse away all impiety and invoke me to aid thee, and Athene and the other gods.” When Helios had said this the youth remained silent. Then mighty Helios led him to a high peak whose upper region was filled with light but the lower with the thickest mist imaginable, through which, as through water, the light of the rays of King Helios penetrated but faintly. ”

“ But if you did not believe all this that I say about a man whom all the Greeks in the generation of Plato and Aristotle admired next to Socrates and Pythagoras, a man whose pupil was the teacher of the most modest and most wise Zeno,—and it is not likely that they were all deceived about a man as contemptible as you make him out to be in your travesty,—well, in that case, my dear sir, perhaps you might have studied his character more carefully and you would have progressed further in your knowledge of the man. ”

“ On either side of these sat on golden thrones the mother and daughter, Hera beside Zeus and Rhea beside Kronos. As for the beauty of the gods, not even Hermes tried to describe it in his tale; he said that it transcended description, and must be comprehended by the eye of the mind; for in words it was hard to portray and impossible to convey to mortal ears. Never indeed will there be or appear an orator so gifted that he could describe such surpassing beauty as shines forth on the countenances of the gods. ”

“ Now in so far as all soul, but in a much higher degree the soul of man, is akin to and related to the gods, so much the more is it likely that the gaze of the gods should penetrate through his soul easily and effectively. And observe the love of the god for mankind when he says that he delights in the disposition of god-fearing men as much as in Olympus most pure and bright. How then shall he not lead up our souls from the darkness and from Tartarus, if we approach him with pious awe? ”

“ Since therefore one part of our souls is more divine, which we call mind and intelligence and silent reason, whose herald is this speech of ours made up of words and phrases and uttered through the voice; and since there is yoked therewith another part of the soul which is changeful and multiform, something composite of anger and appetite, a many-headed monster, we ought not to look steadily and unswervingly at the opinions of the multitude until we have tamed this wild beast and persuaded it to obey the god within us, or rather the divine part. ”

“ For Diogenes possessed nothing that is usually offered, incense or libations or money to buy them with. But if he held right opinions about the gods, that in itself was enough. For he worshipped them with his whole soul, thus offering them as I think the most precious of his possessions, the dedication of his soul through his thoughts. Let not the Cynic be shameless, but led by reason let him first make subservient to himself the emotional part of his soul so that he may entirely do away with it and not even be aware that he is superior to pleasures. ”

“ It was my fortune, O Zeus and ye other gods, to be born, following a number of great men, in a city so illustrious that she rules more subjects than any other city has ever ruled; and indeed other cities are well pleased to rank as second to her.614 What other city, I ask, began with three thousand citizens and in less than six centuries carried her victorious arms to the ends of the earth? What other nations ever produced so many brave and warlike men or such lawgivers? What nation ever honoured the gods as they did? ”

“ Then after my nurture in childhood, my path as a boy took me through the discourses of Plato and Aristotle, which are not at all suited for the reading of communities who think that on account of their luxury they are the happiest of men. Then I had to work hard myself among the most warlike and high-spirited of all nations, where men have knowledge of Aphrodite, goddess of Wedlock, only for the purpose of marrying and having children, and know Dionysus the Drink-Giver, only for the sake of just so much wine as each can drink at a draught. ”

“ Then when it was in your power by the aid of this careful reasoning to refrain from compelling us to do what is just; when you might have allowed every man to do whatever he pleases and has the power to do,—for the temper of the city is surely like that, excessively independent—do you then, I say, fail to understand this and assert that the citizens ought to be wisely governed? Have you not even observed what great independence exists among the citizens, even down to the very asses and camels? The men who hire them out lead even these animals through the porticoes as though they were brides. ”

“ You must above all exercise philanthropy, for from it result many other blessings, and moreover that choicest and greatest blessing of all, the good will of the gods. For just as those who are in agreement with their masters about their friendships and ambitions and loves are more kindly treated than their fellow slaves, so we must suppose that God, who naturally loves human beings, has more kindness for those men who love their fellows. ”

“ O most ignorant and most quarrelsome of men, is it so senseless then and so stupid, that puny soul of yours which men of poor spirit call temperate, and which you forsooth think it your duty to adorn and deck out with temperance? You are wrong; for in the first place we do not know what temperance is and we hear its name only, while the real thing we cannot see. But if it is the sort of thing that you now practise, if it consists in knowing that men must be enslaved to the gods and the laws, in behaving with fairness to those of equal rank and bearing with mildness any superiority among them ”

“ Such my greatness of soul that I was convinced that I should become, or rather that I was already, a god.” “At any rate,” said Silenus, “you were often defeated by yourself.” “Nay,” retorted Alexander, “to conquer oneself or be defeated by oneself amounts to the same thing. I was talking of my victories over other men.” “No more of your logic!” cried Silenus, “how adroitly you detect my sophisms! ”

“ But what has been made by a wise and good man can be destroyed by a bad and ignorant man. But those beings which were fashioned by the gods as the living images of their invisible nature, I mean the gods who revolve in a circle in the heavens, abide imperishable for all time. Therefore let no man disbelieve in gods because he sees and hears that certain persons have profaned their images and temples. Have they not in many cases put good men to death, like Socrates and Dio and the great Empedotimus?510 And yet I am very sure that the gods cared more for these men than for the temples. ”

“ Endure for the brief fraction of a day even a babbling Cynic! It is not the first time that thou hast had to hear the gods blasphemed! Our state is not so well governed, our private life is not so virtuous, in a word we are not so favoured by fortune that we can keep our ears pure or at any rate our eyes at least undefiled by the many and various impieties of this iron race. And now as though we had not enough of such vileness this Cynic fills our ears with his blasphemies, and has uttered the name of the highest of the gods in such wise as would he had never spoken nor I heard! ”

“ This then is his aim, to do away with all reverence for the gods, to bring dishonour on all human wisdom, to trample on all law that can be identified with honour and justice, and more than this, to trample on those laws which have been as it were engraved on our souls by the gods, and have impelled us all to believe without teaching that the divine exists, and to direct our eyes to it and to yearn towards it: for our souls are disposed towards it as eyes towards the light. ”

“ Then is it not absurd when a human being tries to find happiness somewhere outside himself, and thinks that wealth and birth and the influence of friends, and generally speaking everything of that sort is of the utmost importance? If however nature had bestowed on us only what she has bestowed on other animals, I mean the possession of bodies and souls like theirs, so that we need concern ourselves with nothing beyond, then it would suffice for us, as for all other animals, to content ourselves with physical advantages, and to pursue happiness within this field. ”

“ Then Hermes proposed to examine the heroes personally and Zeus was of the same mind. Quirinus thereupon begged that he might summon one of their number to his side. “Quirinus,” said Heracles, “I will not have it. For why did you not invite to the feast my beloved Alexander also? Zeus, if you are minded to introduce into our presence any of these Emperors, send, I beg of you, for Alexander. For if we are to examine into the merits of men generally, why do we not throw open the competition to the better man?” ”

“ But whereas the boorish Celts used easily to put up with these ways of mine, they are naturally resented by a prosperous and gay and crowded city in which there are numerous dancers and flute players and more mimes than ordinary citizens, and no respect at all for those who govern. For the blush of modesty befits the unmanly, but manly fellows like you it befits to begin your revels at dawn, to spend your nights in pleasure, and to show not only by your words but by your deeds also that you despise the laws. ”

“ Prefer our worship to all other blessings. For we are thy benefactors and friends and preservers.” At these words the youth became calm and showed plainly that he was already obedient in all things to the gods. “Come,” said Helios, “now depart with good hope. For everywhere we shall be with thee, even I and Athene and Hermes here, and with us all the gods that are on Olympus or in the air or on earth and the whole race of gods everywhere, so long as thou art pious towards us and loyal to thy friends, and humane towards thy subjects, ruling them and guiding them to what is best. ”

“ I am planning to oppose the gods, and I have imagined that I can devise wiser schemes for myself than those who know all things. And yet human wisdom, which looks only to the present moment, may be thankful if, with all its efforts, it succeed in avoiding mistakes even for a short space. That is why no man takes thought for things that are to happen thirty years hence, or for things that are already past, for the one is superfluous, the other impossible, but only for what lies near at hand and has already some beginnings and germs. ”

“ Now the true short cut to philosophy is this. A man must completely come out of himself and recognise that he is divine, and not only keep his mind untiringly and steadfastly fixed on divine and stainless and pure thoughts, but he must also utterly despise his body, and think it, in the words of Heracleitus, “more worthless than dirt.”222 And by the easiest means he must satisfy his body's needs so long as the god commands him to use it as an instrument. ”

“ For there is nothing so closely akin to wisdom as justice. Therefore those who slight her you will justly expel as showing impiety towards the goddess who dwells among you. For this reason I wish to report my conduct to you, though indeed you know it well, in order that if there is anything you do not know—and it is likely that some things you do not, and those in fact which it is most important for all men to be aware of—it may become known to you and through you to the rest of the Greeks. ”

“ They induce them to reverence the same things as they do by means of pleasure, which is, it seems, the most blessed thing and the most highly honoured, not only by men but by beasts also. It is for this reason, I think, that you are so very happy, because you refuse every form of slavery; first you begin by refusing slavery to the gods, secondly to the laws, and thirdly to me who am the guardian of the laws. And I should indeed be eccentric if, when the gods suffer the city to be so independent and do not chastise her, I should be resentful and angry. ”

“ And that is not so dreadful, but do you see that they persuade them to love wealth, to hate poverty, to minister to the belly, to endure any toil for the body's sake, to fatten that prison of the soul, to keep up an expensive table, never to sleep alone at night,90 provided only that they do all this in the dark and are not found out? ”