when any ordinary man dies, his Soul survives his body, and that, not as a poor vanishing shade, but as a responsible person destined for immortal life. The ux, as Pindar ψυχή, conceives it, is not the "totality of the bodily functions," as the philosophers and the agnostic Athenian public conceived it, but the Double which has its home in the body. This Double comes from the Gods and is immortal: καὶ σῶμα μὲν πάντων ἕπεται θανάτῳ περισθενεῖ, ζωόν δ ̓ ἔτι λείπεται αἰῶνος εἴδωλον· Being of God, the Soul is necessarily immortal, but is immersed in the body because of ancient sin-Talaiov πένθος. At the death of its first body, the Soul goes to Hades, where it is judged and recompensed for the deeds, good or ill, done in the flesh. But its sin is not wholly purged. It reappears on earth in a second body, at the death of which it goes a second time to Hades, where its sin is further purged. Then it returns to animate a third body on earth (see Pindar, Ol. ii. 68 ff). Then, if these three lives on earth, as well as the two periods of sojourn in Hades, have been spent without fault, and if, when it returns for the third time to Hades, it lives there without fault, Persephone, in the ninth year of this third sojourn in Hades, receives the full tale of satisfaction due for παλαιὸν πένθος, and sends it back to earth, to be born in the person of a Philosopher or King (see Pindar, quoted Meno, 81 B), who, at his death, becomes a holy Hero, or Daemon-a finally disembodied spirit: the Soul has at last got out of the κύκλος γενέσεων. This is 1 Pindar, fr. apud Plut. Consol. ad Apoll. 35. 2 I am indebted to Rohde (Psyche, ii. 207-217) for the substance of this sketch of Pindar's Eschatology. In the last paragraph I have tried to combine the doctrine of Ol. ii. 68 ff. and the fragment, Men. 81 B. The life of Philosopher or King is indeed a bodily life on earth, but it is not one of the three bodily lives necessary (together with the three sojourns in Hades) to the final purification of the Soul. The Soul has been finally purified before it returns to this fourth and last bodily life which immediately precedes its final disembodiment. In the case of Souls which do not pass three faultless lives here and in Hades, the number of re-incarnations would be greater. Pindar's estimate seems to be that of the time required in the most favourable circumstances. We may take it that it is the time promised by the Orphic priests to those whose ritual observances were most regular. According to Phaedrus, 249 A, however, it would appear that a Soul must have been incarnate as a Philosopher in three Pindar's doctrine-plainly Orphic doctrine, with beauty and distinction added to it by the genius of the great poet. Plato's Eschatological Myths also, like Pindar's poems, plainly reproduce the matter of Orphic teaching. Is it going too far, when we consider Plato's reverence for the genius of Pindar, to suggest that it was Pindar's form which helped to recommend to Plato the matter which he reproduces in his Eschatological Myths-that the poet's refined treatment of the Orphic μlos helped the philosopher, himself a poet, to see how that uûlos might be used to express imaginatively what indeed demands expression of some kind,-man's hope of personal immortality, but cannot, without risk of fatal injury, be expressed in the language of science? It is Pindar, as chief among divine seers who is quoted, in the Meno (81), for the pre-existence, transmigrations, responsibility, and immortality of the Soul; but the Platonic "Socrates" is careful to say that he does not contend for the literal truth of the doctrine embodied in Pindar's myth, but insists on its practical value in giving us hope and courage as seekers after knowledge (Meno, 86 B). It is Pindar, again, who is quoted at the beginning of the Republic (331 B) for that yλukeîa exis, which is visualised in Orphic outlines and colours at the close of the Dialogue, in the greatest of Plato's Eschatological Myths. Orphic doctrine, refined by poetic genius for philosophic use, is the material of which Plato weaves his Eschatological Myths. And he seems almost to go out of his way to tell us this. Not only is the Meno Myth introduced with special mention of the priestly source from which it is derived (Meno, 81 B), but even brief allusions made elsewhere to the doctrine contained in it are similarly introduced-as in the Phaedo, 70 c, where the doctrine of the transmigrations of the Soul is said to be derived from a raλaiòs λóyos; in the Phaedo, 81 A, where it is connected with what is said кaтà тŵv μeμvnμévwv; and in the Laws, 872 E, where the successive lives before entering on the disembodied state: see Zeller, Plato, Eng. Tr. p. 393; and cf. Phaedo, 113 D ff., where five classes of men are distinguished with respect to their condition after death-on which see Rohde, Psyche, ii. 275, n. 1. "'EσTpis éκаTÉрwo," says Prof. Gildersleeve in his note on Pind. Ol. ii. 75, "would naturally mean six times. eorpis may mean three times in all. The Soul descends to Hades, then returns to earth, then descends again for a final probation." I do not think that this last interpretation can be accepted. παλαιοὶ ἱερεῖς are referred to for the doctrine that, if a man kills his mother, he must be born again as a woman who is killed by her son. But, after all, the most convincing evidence for the great influence exercised by Orphic doctrine over Plato is to be found in the way in which he loves to describe Philosophy itself in terms borrowed from the Orphic cult and the Mysteries.1 Thus in the Phaedo, 69 c, καὶ κινδυνεύουσι καὶ οἱ τὰς τελετὰς ἡμῖν οὗτοι καταστήσαντες οὐ φαῦλοι εἶναι, ἀλλὰ τῷ ὄντι πάλαι αἰνίττεσθαι ὅτι ὃς ἂν ἀμύητος καὶ ἀτέλεστος εἰς "Αιδου ἀφίκηται, ἐν βορβόρῳ κείσεται, ὁ δὲ κεκαθαρμένος τε καὶ τετελεσμένος ἐκεῖσε ἀφικόμενος μετὰ θεῶν οἰκήσει. εἰσὶ γὰρ δή, φασὶν οἱ περὶ τὰς τελετάς, ναρθηκοφόροι μὲν πολλοί, βάκχοι δέ τε παῦροι. οὗτοι δ ̓ εἰσὶν κατὰ τὴν ἐμὴν δόξαν οὐκ ἄλλοι ἢ οἱ πεφιλοσοφηκότες ὀρθῶς. Again, in the Gorgias, 493 4, borrowing an Orphic phrase, he likens the body, with its lusts, to a tomb-τὸ μὲν σῶμά ἐστιν ἡμῖν σημα—from which Wisdom alone can liberate the Soul (cf. also Cratylus, 400 B); and in the Phaedrus, 250 B, C, he describes Philosophy-the Soul's vision of the Eternal Forms as a kind of Initiation: κάλλος δὲ τότ ̓ ἦν ἰδεῖν λαμπρόν, ὅτε σὺν εὐδαίμονι χορῷ μακαρίαν ὄψιν τε καὶ θέαν, ἑπόμενοι μετὰ μὲν Διὸς ἡμεῖς, ἄλλοι δὲ μετ ̓ ἄλλου θεῶν, εἰδόν τε καὶ ἐτελοῦντο τῶν τελετῶν, ἣν θέμις λέγειν μακαριωτά την, ἣν ὠργιάζομεν ὁλόκληροι μὲν αὐτοὶ ὄντες καὶ ἀπαθεῖς κακῶν ὅσα ἡμᾶς ἐν ὑστέρῳ χρόνῳ ὑπέμενεν, ὁλόκληρα δὲ καὶ ἁπλᾶ καὶ ἀτρεμῆ καὶ εὐδαίμονα φάσματα μυούμενοί τε καὶ ἐποπτεύοντες ἐν αὐγῇ καθαρᾷ, καθαροὶ ὄντες καὶ ἀσήμαντοι τούτου ὃ νῦν σῶμα περιφέροντες ὀνομάζομεν, ὀστρέου τρόπον δεδεσμευμένοι. Again, in the Timaeus, 44 c, he speaks of the Soul which has neglected the ὀρθὴ τροφὴ παιδεύσεως as returning, “ uninitiated” and “without knowledge of truth,” into Hades-ἀτελὴς καὶ ἀνόητος εἰς "Αιδου πάλιν ἔρχεται; and in the Symposium, 209 E, in Diotima's Discourse on ἔρως, the highest Philosophy is described as τὰ τέλεα καὶ ἐποπτικά, for the sake of which we seek initiation in τὰ ἐρωτικά. 1 See Rohde, Psyche, ii. 279. 2 See Archer-Hind's note on Phaedo, 69 c. Let us not think that this is "mysticism -"the scholas ticism of the heart"1—such as we find afterwards in the NeoPlatonic teaching. On the contrary, it is to be regarded as evidence of the non-scholastic, concrete view which Plato takes of Philosophy. Philosophy to Plato is not copía-a mere system of ascertained truth—but strictly pλo oopia— ἔρως, child of πόρος and ἀπορία, as the parentage is set forth in Diotima's Myth in the Symposium: Philosophy is not what finally satisfies-or surfeits-the intellect: it is the organic play of all the human powers and functions-it is Human Life, equipped for its continual struggle, eager and hopeful, and successful in proportion to its hope-its hope being naturally visualised in dreams of a future state. These dreams the human race will never outgrow, so the Platonist holds, will never ultimately cast aside as untrue; for the young will believe in them in every generation, and the weary and bereaved will cherish them, and men of geniuspoets, philosophers, saints-will always rise up to represent them anew. The Philosophy of an epoch must be largely judged by the way in which it "represents" them. much virtue Plato finds in "representation "-philosophical and poetical-may be gathered from the fact that, while he attaches the highest value to the Orphic doctrine which he himself borrows for philosophical use, he ascribes the worst moral influence to the actual teaching of the Orphi priests.2 How I said that it is reasonable to suppose that Plato wa affected by the agnosticism which prevailed in Athens, and felt, notwithstanding some "proofs" which he ventured t offer, serious doubt as to whether even the bare fact of con scious immortality is matter of scientific knowledge. It may 1 "Der Mysticismus ist die Scholastik des Herzens, die Dialektik de Gefühls," Goethe, Sprüche in Prosa: Maximen und Reflexionen: dritt Abtheilung. 2 Republic, 364 E. In Aristoph. Ranae, 159, and Demosth. de Corona, 259 f the practices of the agyrtae, or itinerant celebrants of initiatory rites, are hel up to ridicule. 3 But see Zeller's Plato, p. 408 (Eng. Transl.). Zeller holds that the fact immortality and future retribution was regarded by Plato as established beyon doubt; only details were uncertain. Couturat (de Pl. Myth. p. 112) thinks tha the whole doctrine of immortality in Plato is "mythic.' Jowett (Introductio to Phaedo) remarks that in proportion as Plato succeeds in substituting a philo sophical for a mythological treatment of the immortality of the Soul, the con templation of ideas 'under the form of eternity' takes the place of past an now be added, however, that his sympathy with the personal religion, in which many took refuge from agnosticism, was profound, and moved him to deal, in Myth openly borrowed from the religious teachers, with subjects which Aristotle left alone. Official (as distinct from personal) religion offers no safe refuge from agnosticism. Recognising this, Plato took the matter of his strictly Eschatological Myths almost entirely from the Orphic teaching, which presented religion as a way of salvation which all, without distinction of sex or civil status, simply as human beings, of their own free choice, can enter upon and pursue.1 future states of existence." Mr. Adam (Rep. vol. ii. p. 456) says, "that soul is immortal, Plato is firmly convinced: transmigration he regards as probable, to say the least." 1 See Gardner and Jevons' Manual of Greek Antiquities, Book iii. ch. iv. Orgiastic Cults," and Jevons' Introduction to the History of Religion, pp. 327374. "The leading characteristic," says Dr. Jevons (o.c. p. 339), "of the revival in the sixth century B. C., both in the Semitic area, and as transplanted into Greece, is a reaction against the gift theory of sacrifice, and a reversion to the older sacramental conception of the offering and the sacrificial meal as affording actual communion with the God whose flesh and blood were consumed by his worshippers. . . . The unifying efficacy (p. 331) of the sacrificial meal made it possible to form a circle of worshippers. We have the principle of voluntary religious associations which were open to all. Membership did not depend on birth, but was constituted by partaking in the divine life and blood of the sacred animal." These voluntary associations formed for religious purposes-thiasi or erani-"differed (p. 335) from the cult of the national gods in that all-women, foreigners, slaves-were admitted, not merely members of the State." In short, initiatio (uúnois) took the place of civitas as the title of admission to religious privileges. Prof. Gardner closes the chapter on "Orgiastic Cults," referred to above, with the following words:"In several respects the thiasi were precursors of Christianity, and opened the door by which it entered. If they belonged to a lower intellectual level than the best religion of Greece, and were full of vulgarity and imposture, they yet had in them certain elements of progress, and had something in common with the future as well as the past history of mankind. All properly Hellenic religion was a tribal thing, belonged to the state and the race, did not proselytise, nor even admit foreign converts; and so when the barriers which divided cities were pulled down it sank and decayed. The cultus of Sabazius or of Cybele was, at least, not tribal: it sought converts among all ranks, and having found them, placed them on a level before the God. Slaves and women were admitted to membership and to office. The idea of a common humanity, scarcely admitted by Greek philosophers before the age of the Stoics, found a hold among these despised sectaries, who learned to believe that men of low birth and foreign extraction might be in divine matters superior to the wealthy and the educated. In return for this great lesson we may pardon them much folly and much superstition." Prof. Gardner pursues this subject further in his Exploratio Evangelica, pp. 325 ff., chapter on Christianity and the thiasi"; see also Grote's History of Greece, part i. ch. i. (vol. i. 19, 20, ed. 1862). |