Empyrean

“ The inequality of merit, and therefore of reward, is also declared by the difference in both the quickness of the spirits' movement and their clearness of vision into the essence of God. The Empyrean, it is worth while repeating, is the only true Paradise, the nine Heavens being only myths or poetic devices. If231 spirits are seen there, they have come forth only from the Empyrean and will quickly return there after preparing the poet for the eternal Light of Light. ”

“ In the Empyrean is the Rose of the Blessed, whose myriad leaves form the thrones of the spirits, and whose centre of light is the Father himself. Dividing the Rose horizontally, the lower thrones are held by those who died in infancy; among them are varying degrees of glory. Above it, are those who died adults. ”

“ Epiphanius said furiously, “Malefactor and cannibal, speakest thou thus, treating us and our city and our emperor as heretics? We are more Christian and orthodox than thou art. We confess that our Lord and God has both a divine will and a human will, and an intellectual soul, and that every intellectual nature has by nature, Will, and Operation, since motion belongs to life, and will to mind: and we know Him to have the capacity of Will not only in the Godhead, but also in the Manhood. Nor do we deny His Two Wills and Two Operations.” ”

“ The admiration which was universally excited by his beauty gave him no pleasure, and many a time he felt as though it was not worth while to stir a limb or draw a breath. Almost everything he saw was indifferent to him excepting a kind word from the lips of the Emperor, whom he regarded as great above all other men, whom he feared as Destiny incarnate, and to whom he felt himself bound as intimately as the flower to the tree, the blossom that must die when the stem is broken, on which it flaunts as an ornament and a grace. ”

“ There they are shrewd enough to create new gods, which start up out of the earth like mushrooms. If it should only occur to them, they would raise murder to the dignity of god of gods, and you to be his high-priest."
"That would be your office," interposed the philosopher.
"You shall see," returned the emperor, laughing shrilly, "and the witlings of the Museum with you! You use the knife; but hear the words of the master: The teeth of wild beasts and their claws are weapons not to be despised. ”

“ While I numbered myself among the Epicureans, whose doctrine still possesses the greatest charm for me, I nevertheless shared the master's opinion that it is insulting the gods to suppose that they will disturb their blissful repose for the sake of us insignificant mortals. Now my mind and my experience rebel against holding to this view, yet I believe with Epicurus, and with you, that the eternal laws of Nature bow to neither divine nor human will. ”

“ To-day the terrestrial Jupiter had again crushed into the earth with his thunderbolts, an overbold mortal, and this time the son of the worthy gate-keeper was his victim. The sculptor certainly had been so unlucky as to touch Hadrian in his most sensitive spot, but a cordially benevolent feeling is not easily converted into a relentless opposition if we are not ourselves—as was the case with the Emperor—accustomed to jump from one mood to the other, are not conscious—as he was—of having it in our power directly to express our good-will or our aversion in action. ”

“ Enter Epire and Alphonso.
Epire. Mercy is banish'd courts; the king, like flint,
Hardens his royal temper 'gainst our 'plaints,
And makes our woes most unavoidable.
What inauspicious star reign'd at her birth,
That heaven thus frowns upon her misery?
And, my good lord, now innocence must die,
As white as untrod snow or culver down. [182]
Kings' words are laws, and cannot be withstood;
Yet 'tis false greatness, which delights in blood.
Alph. Patience, my lord; I do not think this ill
Is yet so big, as [to be] unrecoverable. ”

“ Epimetheus accordingly proceeded to bestow upon the different animals the various gifts of courage, strength, swiftness, sagacity; wings to one, claws to another, a shelly covering to a third, etc. But when man came to be provided for, who was to be superior to all other animals, Epimetheus had been so prodigal of his resources that he had nothing left to bestow upon him. In his perplexity he resorted to his brother Prometheus, who, with the aid of Minerva, went up to heaven, and lighted his torch at the chariot of the sun, and brought down fire to man. ”

“ The emperor, still spell-bound by the unheard-of audacity of the youth before him, now felt moved to keep step with the philosopher, whom few could equal in sharpness of wit; and, controlling the raging fury of his blood, he cried, in a tone of superiority:
“So that is the boasted logic of the Museum? Death is your dearest desire, and yet you would give it to your enemy?”
“Quite right,” replied Philip, his lip curling with scorn. “For there is something which to the philosopher stands higher than logic. It is a stranger to you, but you know it perhaps by name—it is called justice.” ”

“ Then cried Philip, and his great eyes burning with hatred and indignation sought the emperor's: "Till this hour I was sure of nothing, and therefore uncertain of the existence of a god; but now I believe firmly that Nature, by whom everything is carried out according to everlasting, immutable laws, and who casts out and destroys anything that threatens to bring discord into the harmonious workings of all her parts, would of her own accord bring forth a god, if there be not one already, who should crush you, the destroyer of life and peace, in his all-powerful hand!" ”

“ And truly the Immortals had moulded this child of man to such a type; every muscle of that throat, that chest, those arms and legs was a marvel of softness and of power; no human countenance could be more regularly chiselled. Antinous observing that his master’s attention had been attracted to his play with the dog, let the animal go and turned his large, but not very brilliant, eyes on the Emperor.
“What are you doing here?” asked Hadrian kindly. ”

“ He had been a hundred times into the ancient rock-tombs, only not to leave Hadrian and not for his own amusement; but to-day—he could hardly bear himself for impatience and excitement, for he knew that a ride, a walk, of a few hours, would carry him to Besa and to Selene. The Emperor would remain absent three or four hours at any rate, and if he made up his mind to it he could have sought out the girl for whom his heart was longing before his return, and still be back again before his master. ”

“ The aspens were cut down next morning, and before night the new bed had been placed in the emperor's room.
Now when the emperor lay down in it he seemed as if he had grown a hundred times heavier than usual, yet he felt a kind of calm that was quite new to him. But the empress felt as if she was lying on thorns and nettles, and could not close her eyes.
When the emperor was fast asleep, the bed began to crack loudly, and to the empress each crack had a meaning. She felt as if she were listening to a language which no one but herself could understand. ”

“ Eternal gods! what have we here?”
The Emperor held the wax tablet prepared by Aminonius at arm’s length from his eyes and never parted his lips again till he had come to the end of the last hour of the night. Then he dropped the hand that held the horoscope, saying with a shudder:
“A hideous destiny. Horace was right in saying the highest towers fall with the greatest crash.”
“The tower of which you speak,” said Sabina, “is that darling of fortune of whom you are afraid. Vouchsafe then to Verus a brief space of happiness before the horrible end you foresee for him.” ”

“ There are, according to Empedocles, four ultimate elements, four primal divinities, of which are made all structures in the world—fire, air, water, earth. These four elements are eternally brought into union, and eternally parted from each other, by two divine beings or powers, love and hatred—an attractive and a repulsive force which the ordinary eye can see working amongst men, but which really pervade the whole world. ”

“ Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth. And (he says) that the masculine (partner) looks down from on high upon and takes thought for his spouse and that the Earth below receives the intellectual fruits proper to her brought down from Heaven to Earth. Wherefore, he says, the Logos beholding often the things born from Nous and Epinoia, that is from Heaven and Earth, says: “Hear, O Heaven, and give ear, O Earth, for the Lord has spoken. ”

“ Epictetus, a celebrated Stoic philosopher of the 1st century, originally a slave; lived and taught at Rome, but after the expulsion of the philosophers retired to Nicopolis, in Epirus; was lame, and lived in poverty; his conversations were collected by Arrian, and his philosophy in a short manual under the Greek name of “Enchiridion of Epictetus,” written, as is alleged, in utter obliviousness of the fact that “the end of man is an action, not a thought.”
Epicureans, a sect of philosophers who derived their name from Epicurus, and who divided the empire of philosophy with the Stoics (q. v.) ”

“ I have served the emperor willingly, but before I consent become the wife of such a monster—"
"She is right," broke in Euryale, and drew Melissa toward her. But the philosopher took the girl's hand and said, kindly:—"You must come with me now, my child, and pretend that you know nothing of Caesar's intentions toward you. It is the only way to save you. But while you are with the emperor, who, in any case, can devote but a short time to you to-day, I will return here and consult with your people. There is much to be decided, of the greatest moment, and not to you alone." ”

“ Thousands of parts are here combined to form a whole, and each is welded with the rest into beautiful harmony and helps to give expression to the stupendous idea which existed in the brain of the builder of this hall. What other art is gifted with the power of creating a work so imperishable and so far transcending all ordinary standards?”
“A poetess crowning the architect with laurels!” exclaimed the Emperor. “But is not the poet’s realm the infinite, and can the architect ever get beyond the finite and the limited?”
“Then is the nature of the divinity a measurable unit?” asked Balbilla. ”

“ When the emperor saw that the king of Ampluy wrote to him more for fear than for love, he wrote again to him, that if he would find good and sufficient sureties to keep the peace, and bind himself all the days of his life to do him service and homage, he would receive him to peace. ”

“ Then he let it go and said kindly:
"And will Verus fulfil all you expect of a son?" She nodded assent.
"What makes you so confident of that?" asked the Emperor. "He is a Roman and not lacking in brilliant and estimable gifts. A man who shows such mettle alike in the field and in the council-chamber and yet can play the part of Eros with such success will also know how to wear the purple without disgracing it. But he has his mother's light blood, and his heart flutters hither and thither." ”

“ The tearful yet bright gaze of those resistless eyes pierced the Emperor's very soul, and he imagined how this lovely vision of purity and innocence, this rare creature, of whom he had heard such marvellous things from Herr Pfinzing during their ride through the forest, would have fired the heart of his eighteen-year-old son, so sensitive to every impression, whom death had snatched from him so suddenly. ”

“ The emperor’s globe is an emblem of this terrestrial globe of ours—the core of each is a handful of earth—and this emperor’s globe of mine, again, is a miniature emblem of a real emperor’s, with even less of earth—none at all, in fact. The mustard-pot and sugar-dish, again, are emblems of this emblem. What a long, diminishing series, ere man arrives at enjoyment!” Most of man’s pleasures are but preparations for pleasure; he thinks he has attained his ends, when he has merely got hold of his means to those ends. ”

“ They say so, and my friend from Athens is quite convinced. In books of magic there are many formulas by which misfortunes may be transferred not merely from men to beasts, but from one human being to another. Very remarkable experiments have even been carried out with slaves, and to this day I have to struggle in several, provinces to suppress human sacrifices by which the gods are to be reconciled or propitiated. ”

“ He hated himself; he hit his forehead with his fists and sobbed aloud bitterly again and again, though he shed no tears. Still, in the midst of his self-accusation, the flattering voice made itself heard in his soul: "It is only to preserve your master from sorrow, and it is nothing wrong that you are asked to do." And each time that his inward ear heard these words he began to puzzle his brain to discover in what way it might be possible for him to tempt the Emperor, at the hour named, down from his watch-tower in the palace. ”

“ And he also made statements nearly in accord with Empedocles, as he said that Discord and Friendship were the beginning of all things, and that the intellectual fire was God and that all things were borne in upon one another and did not stand still. And like Empedocles he said that every place of ours was filled with evil things, and that these come as far as the moon extending from the place surrounding the earth, but go no further, since the whole place above the moon is very pure. ”

“ Nothing is more remarkable about Empedocles than his versatility and comprehensiveness. Other men of his age were as nobly born, as great in philosophic power, as disti [Pg 208] nguished for the part they bore in politics, as celebrated for poetic genius, as versed in mystic lore, in medicine, and in magic arts. But Parmenides, Pythagoras, Pausanias, and Epimenides could claim honor in but one, or two at most, of these departments. Empedocles united all, and that too, if we may judge by the temper of his genius and the few legends handed down to us about his life, in no ordinary degree. ”