FORE:Dreams, like oracles, were occasionally employed for the conversion of infidels. An incident of the kind is related by Aelian, a writer who flourished early in the third century, and who is remarkable, even in that age, for his bigoted orthodoxy. A certain man named Euphronius, he tells us, whose delight was to study the blasphemous nonsense of Epicurus, fell very ill of consumption, and sought in vain for help from the skill of the physicians. He was already at deaths door, when, as a last resource, his friends placed him in the temple of Asclpius. There he dreamed that a priest came to him and said, This mans only chance of salvation is to burn the impious books of Epicurus, knead the ashes up with wax, and use the mixture as a poultice for his chest and stomach. On awakening, he followed the divine prescription, was restored to health, and became a model of piety for the rest of his life. The same author gives us a striking instance of prayer answered, also redounding to the credit of Asclpius, the object of whose favour is, however, on this occasion not a human being but a fighting-cock. The scene is laid at Tanagra, where the bird in question, having had his foot hurt, and evidently acting under the influence of divine inspiration, joins a choir who are singing the praises of Asclpius, contributing his share to the sacred concert, and, to the best of his ability, keeping time with the other performers. This he did, standing on one leg and stretching out the other, as if to show its pitiable condition. So he sang to his saviour as far as the strength of his voice would permit, and prayed that he might recover the use of his limb. The petition is granted,230 whereupon our hero claps his wings and struts about with outstretched neck and nodding crest like a proud warrior, thus proclaiming the power of providence over irrational animals.352That Philos interpretation of Platonism ultimately reacted on Greek thought seems certain, but at what date his influence began to tell, and how far it reached, must remain undecided. Plutarch speaks of Gods purity and of his transcendent elevation above the universe in language closely resembling that of the Alexandrian Jew, with whose opinions he may have been indirectly acquainted.400 We have already seen how the daemons were employed to fill up the interval thus created, and what serious concessions to popular superstition the belief in their activity involved. Still Plutarch259 does not go so far as to say that the world was not created by God. This step was taken by Numenius, a philosopher who flourished about the middle of the second century, and who represents the complete identification of Platonism with Pythagoreanism, already mentioned as characteristic of the period following that date. Numenius is acquainted with Philos speculations, and accepts his derivation of Platonism from the Pentateuch. What, he asks, is Plato but a Moses writing in the Attic dialect?401 He also accepts the theory that the world was created by a single intermediate agent, whom, however, he credits with a much more distinct and independent personality than Philo could see his way to admitting. And he regards the human soul as a fallen spirit whose life on earth is the consequence of its own sinful desires. From such fancies there was but a single step to the more thorough-going dualism which looks on the material world as entirely evil, and as the creation of a blind or malevolent power. This step had already been taken by Gnosticism. The system so called summed up in itself, more completely, perhaps, than any other, all the convergent or conflicting ideas of the age. Greek mythology and Greek philosophy, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity each contributed an element to the fantastic and complicated scheme propounded by its last great representative, Valentinus. This teacher pitches his conception of the supreme God even higher than Philo, and places him, like Platos absolute Good, outside the sphere of being. From himor itas from a bottomless gulf proceed a vast series of emanations ending in the Demiurgus or creator of the visible world, whose action is described, in language vividly recalling the speculations of certain modern metaphysicians, as an enormous blunder. For, according to Gnosticism, the world is not merely infected with evil by participation in a material principle, it is evil altogether, and a special intervention of260 the higher powers is needed in order to undo the work of its delirious author.402 Here we have a particular side of Platos philosophy exaggerated and distorted by contact with Zoroastrian dualism. In the Statesman there is a mythical description of two alternate cycles, in one of which the world is governed by a wise providence, while in the other things are abandoned to themselves, and move in a direction the reverse of that originally imposed on them. It is in the latter cycle that Plato supposes us to be moving at present.403 Again, after having been long content to explain the origin of evil by the resistance of inert matter to the informing power of ideal goodness, Plato goes a step further in his latest work, the Laws, and hazards the hypothesis of an evil soul actively counterworking the beneficent designs of God.404 And we find the same idea subsequently taken up by Plutarch, who sees in it the most efficient means for exonerating God from all share in the responsibility for physical disorder and moral wrong.405 But both master and disciple restricted the influence of their supposed evil soul within very narrow limits, and they would have repudiated with horror such a notion as that the whole visible world is a product of folly or of sin.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Nesciunt, eligendi ipsa repellendus aspernatur corrupti ex soluta vel ad quibusdam.
