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| Chapter XV.—The Greek Philosophy in Great Part Derived from the Barbarians.
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Chapter XV.—The Greek Philosophy in Great Part Derived from the Barbarians.
These are the times of the oldest wise men
and philosophers among the Greeks. And that the most of them were
barbarians by extraction, and were trained among barbarians, what
need is there to say? Pythagoras is shown to have been either a
Tuscan or a Tyrian. And Antisthenes was a Phrygian. And Orpheus was
an Odrysian or a Thracian. The most, too, show Homer to have been an
Egyptian. Thales was a Phœnician by birth, and was said to have
consorted with the prophets of the Egyptians; as also Pythagoras did
with the same persons, by whom he was circumcised, that he might enter
the adytum and learn from the Egyptians the mystic philosophy. He
held converse with the chief of the Chaldeans and the Magi; and he
gave a hint of the church, now so called, in the common hall1960
which he maintained.
And Plato does not deny that he procured all
that is most excellent in philosophy from the barbarians; and he
admits that he came into Egypt. Whence, writing in the Phœdo
that the philosopher can receive aid from all sides, he said:
“Great indeed is Greece, O Cebes, in which everywhere there
are good men, and many are the races of the barbarians.”1961
| 1961 Greece is ample, O Cebes,
in which everywhere there are good men; and many are the races of
the barbarians, over all of whom you must search, seeking such a
physician, sparing neither money nor pains.—Phædo,
p. 78 A. | Thus Plato thinks that some of the barbarians,
too, are philosophers. But Epicurus, on the other hand, supposes that
only Greeks can philosophise. And in the Symposium, Plato,
landing the barbarians as practising philosophy with conspicuous
excellence,1962
| 1962 This
sense is obtained by the omission of μόνους from the
text, which may have crept in in consequence of occuring in the previous
text, to make it agree with what Plato says, which is, “And both
among Greeks and barbarians, there are many who have shown many and
illustrious deeds, generating virtue of every kind, to whom many temples
on account of such sons are raised.”—Symp., p. 209
E. | truly says: “And in many other instances both among
Greeks and barbarians, whose temples reared for such sons are already
numerous.” And it is clear that the barbarians signally honoured
their lawgivers and teachers, designating them gods. For, according to
Plato, “they think that good souls, on quitting the super-celestial
region, submit to come to this Tartarus; and assuming a body, share in
all the ills which are involved in birth, from their solicitude for
the race of men;” and these make laws and publish philosophy,
“than which no greater boon ever came from the gods to the race of
men, or will come.”1963
| 1963
Plato, Timæus, p. 47 A. |
And as appears to me, it was in consequence of
perceiving the great benefit which is conferred through wise men, that
the men themselves were honoured and philosophy cultivated publicly
by all the Brahmins, and the Odrysi, and the Getæ. And such were
strictly deified by the race of the Egyptians, by the Chaldeans and
the Arabians, called the Happy, and those that inhabited Palestine,
by not the least portion of the Persian race, and by innumerable
other races besides these. And it is well known that Plato is found
perpetually celebrating the barbarians, remembering that both himself
and Pythagoras learned the most and the noblest of their dogmas among
the barbarians. Wherefore he also called the races of the barbarians,
“races of barbarian philosophers,” recognising, in the
Phœdrus, the Egyptian king, and shows him to us wiser than Theut,
whom he knew to be Hermes. But in the Charmides, it is manifest that
he knew certain Thracians who were said to make the soul immortal. And
Pythagoras is reported to have been a disciple of Sonches the Egyptian
arch-prophet; and Plato, of Sechnuphis of Heliopolis; and Eudoxus,
of Cnidius of Konuphis, who was also an Egyptian. And in his book,
On the Soul,1964
| 1964
A mistake of Clement for The Republic. | Plato again
manifestly recognises prophecy, when he introduces a prophet announcing
the word of Lachesis, uttering
predictions to the souls whose destiny is becoming fixed. And in the
Timæus he introduces Solon, the very wise, learning from the
barbarian. The substance of the declaration is to the following effect:
“O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children. And no Greek is
an old man. For you have no learning that is hoary with age.”1965
Democritus appropriated the Babylonian ethic
discourses, for he is said to have combined with his own compositions
a translation of the column of Acicarus.1966
| 1966 About which the learned have tortured themselves
greatly. The reference is doubtless here to some pillar inscribed with
what was deemed a writing of importance. But as to Acicarus nothing
is known. | And you may find the distinction notified by him
when he writes, “Thus says Democritus.” About himself,
too, where, pluming himself on his erudition, he says, “I have
roamed over the most ground of any man of my time, investigating the
most remote parts. I have seen the most skies and lands, and I have
heard of learned men in very great numbers. And in composition no one
has surpassed me; in demonstration, not even those among the Egyptians
who are called Arpenodaptæ, with all of whom I lived in exile up
to eighty years.” For he went to Babylon, and Persis, and Egypt,
to learn from the Magi and the priests.
Zoroaster the Magus, Pythagoras showed to be a
Persian. Of the secret books of this man, those who follow the heresy
of Prodicus boast to be in possession. Alexander, in his book On the
Pythagorean Symbols, relates that Pythagoras was a pupil of Nazaratus
the Assyrian1967
| 1967 Otherwise
Zaratus, or Zabratus, or Zaras, who, Huet says, was Zoroaster. |
(some think that he is Ezekiel; but he is not, as will afterwards
be shown), and will have it that, in addition to these, Pythagoras
was a hearer of the Galatæ and the Brahmins. Clearchus
the Peripatetic says that he knew a Jew who associated with
Aristotle.1968
| 1968 [Direct testimony, establishing one important
fact in the history of philosophy.] | Heraclitus
says that, not humanly, but rather by God’s aid, the
Sibyl spoke.1969
| 1969
Adopting Lowth’s emendation, Σιβύλλην
φἀναι. | They say, accordingly,
that at Delphi a stone was shown beside the oracle, on which, it is
said, sat the first Sibyl, who came from Helicon, and had been reared
by the Muses. But some say that she came from Milea, being the daughter
of Lamia of Sidon.1970
| 1970 Or,
according to the reading in Pausanias, and the statement of Plutarch,
“who was the daughter of Poseidon.” | And Serapion,
in his epic verses, says that the Sibyl, even when dead, ceased not from
divination. And he writes that, what proceeded from her into the air after
her death, was what gave oracular utterances in voices and omens; and on
her body being changed into earth, and the grass as natural growing out of
it, whatever beasts happening to be in that place fed on it exhibited to
men an accurate knowledge of futurity by their entrails. He thinks also,
that the face seen in the moon is her soul. So much for the Sibyl.
Numa the king of the Romans was a Pythagorean,
and aided by the precepts of Moses, prohibited from making an image of
God in human form, and of the shape of a living creature. Accordingly,
during the first hundred and seventy years, though building temples,
they made no cast or graven image. For Numa secretly showed them
that the Best of Beings could not be apprehended except by the mind
alone. Thus philosophy, a thing of the highest utility, flourished in
antiquity among the barbarians, shedding its light over the nations. And
afterwards it came to Greece. First in its ranks were the prophets of
the Egyptians; and the Chaldeans among the Assyrians; and the Druids
among the Gauls; and the Samanæans among the Bactrians; and the
philosophers of the Celts; and the Magi of the Persians, who foretold
the Saviour’s birth, and came into the land of Judæa guided
by a star. The Indian gymnosophists are also in the number, and the other
barbarian philosophers. And of these there are two classes, some of them
called Sarmanæ,1971
and others Brahmins. And those of the
Sarmanæ who are called Hylobii1972
| 1972 Altered for Ἀλλόβιοι
in accordance with the note of Montacutius, who
cites Strabo as an authority for the existence of a
sect of Indian sages called Hylobii, ὑλόβιοι—Silvicolæ. |
neither inhabit cities, nor have roofs over them, but are clothed in
the bark of trees, feed on nuts, and drink water in their hands. Like
those called Encratites in the present day, they know not marriage nor
begetting of children.
Some, too, of the Indians obey
the precepts of Buddha;1973
whom, on account of his extraordinary sanctity, they have raised to
divine honours.
Anacharsis was a Scythian, and is recorded to have
excelled many philosophers among the Greeks. And the Hyperboreans,
Hellanicus relates, dwelt beyond the Riphæan mountains,
and inculcated justice, not eating flesh, but using nuts. Those
who are sixty years old they take without the gates, and do away
with. There are also among the Germans those called sacred women,
who, by inspecting the whirlpools of rivers and the eddies, and
observing the noises of streams, presage and predict future events.1974
| 1974 Cæsar, Gallic War,
book i. chap. 50. | These did not allow the men to fight against
Cæsar till the new moon shone.
Of all these, by far the oldest is the
Jewish race; and that their philosophy committed to writing has the
precedence of philosophy among the Greeks, the Pythagorean Philo1975
| 1975 Sozomen also calls Philo a
Pythagorean. | shows at large; and, besides him, Aristobulus
the Peripatetic, and several others, not to waste time, in
going over them by name. Very
clearly the author Megasthenes, the contemporary of Seleucus Nicanor,
writes as follows in the third of his books, On Indian Affairs:
“All that was said about nature by the ancients is said also
by those who philosophise beyond Greece: some things by the Brahmins
among the Indians, and others by those called Jews in Syria.”
Some more fabulously say that certain of those called the Idæan
Dactyli were the first wise men; to whom are attributed the invention
of what are called the “Ephesian letters,” and of numbers
in music. For which reason dactyls in music received their name. And the
Idæan Dactyli were Phrygians and barbarians. Herodotus relates that
Hercules, having grown a sage and a student of physics, received from the
barbarian Atlas, the Phrygian, the columns of the universe; the fable
meaning that he received by instruction the knowledge of the heavenly
bodies. And Hermippus of Berytus calls Charon the Centaur wise; about
whom, he that wrote The Battle of the Titans says, “that
he first led the race of mortals to righteousness, by teaching them the
solemnity of the oath, and propitiatory sacrifices and the figures of
Olympus.” By him Achilles, who fought at Troy, was taught. And
Hippo, the daughter of the Centaur, who dwelt with Æolus, taught
him her father’s science, the knowledge of physics. Euripides also
testifies of Hippo as follows:—
“Who first, by oracles, presaged,
And by the rising stars, events divine.”
By this Æolus, Ulysses
was received as a guest after the taking of Troy. Mark the epochs by
comparison with the age of Moses, and with the high antiquity of the
philosophy promulgated by him. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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