Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 · Plutarch
OF SUPERSTITION OR INDISCREET DEVOTION.
Poor virtue! thou wast but a name, and mere jest, And I, choust fool, did practise thee in earnest, and for thee have I quitted injustice, the way to wealth, and excess, the parent of all true pleasure,—these are the thoughts that call at once for our pity and indignation; for they will engender swarms of diseases, like fly-blows and vermin, in our minds. 2. To return then to our subject, atheism, which is a false persuasion that there are no blessed and incorruptible beings, tends yet, by its disbelief of a Divinity, to bring men to a sort of unconcernedness and indifferency of temper; for the design of those that deny a God is to ease themselves of his fear. But superstition appears by its appellation to be a distempered opinion and conceit, productive of such mean and abject apprehensions as debase and break a man’s spirit, while he thinks there are divine powers indeed, but withal sour and vindictive ones. So that the atheist is not at all, and the superstitious is perversely, affected with the thoughts of God; ignorance depriving the one of the sense of his goodness, and superadding to the other a persuasion of his cruelty. Atheism then is but false reasoning single, but superstition is a disorder of the mind produced by this false reasoning.
3. Every distemper of our minds is truly base and ignoble; yet some passions are accompanied with a sort of levity, that makes men appear gay, prompt, and erect; but none, we may say, are wholly destitute of force for action. But the common charge upon all sorts of passions is, that they excite and urge the reason, forcing it by their violent stings. Fear alone, being equally destitute of reason and audacity, renders our whole irrational part stupid, distracted, and unserviceable. Therefore it is called δεῖμα because it _binds_, and τάρβος because it _distracts_ the mind.[95] But of all fears, none so dozes and confounds as that of superstition. He fears not the sea that never goes to sea; nor a battle, that follows not the camp; nor robbers, that stirs not abroad; nor malicious informers, that is a poor man; nor emulation, that leads a private life; nor earthquakes, that dwells in Gaul; nor thunderbolts, that dwells in Ethiopia: but he that dreads divine powers dreads every thing, the land, the sea, the air, the sky, the dark, the light, a sound, a silence, a dream. Even slaves forget their masters in their sleep; sleep lightens the irons of the fettered; their angry sores, mortified gangrenes, and pinching pains allow them some intermission at night. Dear sleep, sweet easer of my irksome grief, Pleasant thou art! how welcome thy relief![96]
4. Polycrates was formidable at Samos, and so was Periander at Corinth; but no man ever feared either of them that had made his escape to an equal and free government. But he that dreads the divine government, as a sort of inexorable and implacable tyranny, whither can he remove? Whither can he fly? What land, what sea can he find where God is not? Wretched and miserable man! in what corner of the world canst thou so hide thyself, as to think thou hast now escaped him? Slaves are allowed by the laws, when they despair of obtaining their freedom, to demand a second sale, in hopes of kinder masters. But superstition allows of no change of Gods; nor could he indeed find a God he would not fear, that dreads his own and his ancestors’ guardians, that quivers at his preservers and benign patrons, and that trembles and shakes at those of whom we ask wealth, plenty, concord, peace, and direction to the best words and actions. Slaves again account it their misfortune to become such, and can say,— Both man and wife in direful slavery, And with ill masters too! Fate’s worst decree!
But how much less tolerable, think you, is their condition, that can never possibly run away, escape, or desert? A slave may fly to an altar, and many temples afford sanctuary to thieves; and they that are pursued by an enemy think themselves safe if they can catch hold on a statue or a shrine. But the superstitious fears, quivers, and dreads most of all there, where others when fearfullest take greatest courage. Never hale a superstitious man from the altar. It is his place of torment; he is there chastised. In one word, death itself, the end of life, puts no period to this vain and foolish dread; but it transcends those limits, and extends its fears beyond the grave, adding to it the imagination of immortal ills; and after respite from past sorrows, it fancies it shall next enter upon never-ending ones. I know not what gates of hell open themselves from beneath, rivers of fire together with Stygian torrents present themselves to view; a gloomy darkness appears full of ghastly spectres and horrid shapes, with dreadful aspects and doleful groans, together with judges and tormentors, pits and caverns, full of millions of miseries and woes. Thus does wretched superstition bring inevitably upon itself by its fancies even those calamities which it has once escaped.
5. Atheism is attended with none of this. True indeed, the ignorance is very lamentable and sad. For to be blind or to see amiss in matters of this consequence cannot but be a fatal unhappiness to the mind, it being then deprived of the fairest and brightest of its many eyes, the knowledge of God. Yet this opinion (as hath been said) is not necessarily accompanied with any disordering, ulcerous, frightful, or slavish passion. Plato thinks the Gods never gave men music, the science of melody and harmony, for mere delectation or to tickle the ear, but in order that the confusion and disorder in the periods and harmonies of the soul, which often for want of the Muses and of grace break forth into extravagance through intemperance and license, might be sweetly recalled, and artfully wound up to their former consent and agreement. No animal accurst by Jove Music’s sweet charms can ever love,[98] saith Pindar. For all such will rave and grow outrageous straight. Of this we have an instance in tigers, which (as they say), if they hear but a tabor beat near them, will rage immediately and run stark mad, and in fine tear themselves in pieces. They certainly suffer the less inconvenience of the two, who either through defect of hearing or utter deafness are wholly insensible of music, and therefore unmoved by it. It was a great misfortune indeed to Tiresias, that he wanted sight to see his friends and children; but a far greater to Athamas and Agave, to see them in the shape of lions and bucks. And it had been happier for Hercules, when he was distracted, if he could have neither seen nor known his children, than to have used like the worst of enemies those he so tenderly loved.
Where have I erred? What have I done amiss? What should be done by me that undone is?[99] But the fanciful superstitionist accounts every little distemper in his body or decay in his estate, the death of his children, and crosses and disappointments in matters relating to the public, as the immediate strokes of God and the incursions of some vindictive daemon. And therefore he dares not attempt to remove or relieve his disasters, or to use the least remedy or to oppose himself to them, for fear he should seem to struggle with God and to make resistance under correction. If he be sick, he thrusts away the physician; if he be in any grief, he shuts out the philosopher that would comfort and advise him. Let me alone, saith he, to pay for my sins: I am a cursed and vile offender, and detestable both to God and angels. Now suppose a man unpersuaded of a Divinity in never so great sorrow and trouble, you may yet possibly wipe away his tears, cut his hair, and force away his mourning; but how will you come at this superstitious penitentiary, either to speak to him or to bring him any relief? He sits him down without doors in sackcloth, or wrapped up in foul and nasty rags; yea, many times rolls himself naked in mire, repeating over I know not what sins and transgressions of his own; as, how he did eat this thing and drink the other thing, or went some way prohibited by his Genius. But suppose he be now at his best, and laboring under only a mild attack of superstition; you shall even then find him sitting down in the midst of his house all becharmed and bespelled, with a parcel of old women about him, tugging all they can light on, and hanging it upon him as (to use an expression of Bion’s) upon some nail or peg.
8. It is reported of Teribazus that, being seized by the Persians, he drew out his scimitar, and being a very stout person, defended himself bravely; but when they cried out and told him he was apprehended by the king’s order, he immediately put up his sword, and presented his hands to be bound. Is not this the very case of the superstitious? Others can oppose their misfortunes, repel their troubles, and furnish themselves with retreats, or means of avoiding the stroke of things not under the disposal of their wills; but the superstitious person, without anybody’s speaking to him,—but merely upon his own saying to himself, This thou undergoest, vile wretch, by the direction of Providence, and by Heaven’s just appointment,—immediately casts away all hope, surrenders himself up, and shuns and affronts his friends that would relieve him. Thus do these sottish fears oftentimes convert tolerable evils into fatal and insupportable ones. The ancient Midas (as the story goes of him), being much troubled and disquieted by certain dreams, grew so melancholy thereupon, that he made himself away by drinking bull’s blood.
By gathering in his sails, with mighty pain, Escapes the hell-pits of the raging main. Hesiod[101] directs his husbandman, before he either plough or sow, to pray to the infernal Jove and the venerable Ceres, but with his hand upon the plough-tail. Homer acquaints us how Ajax, being to engage in a single combat with Hector, bade the Grecians pray to the Gods for him; and while they were at their devotions, he was putting on his armor. Likewise, after Agamemnon had thus prepared his soldiers for the fight,— Each make his spear to glitter as the sun, Each see his warlike target well hung on,— he then prayed,— Grant me, great Jove, to throw down Priam’s roof.[102] For God is the brave man’s hope, and not the coward’s excuse. The Jews indeed once sat on their tails,—it being forsooth their Sabbath day,—and suffered their enemies to rear their scaling-ladders and make themselves masters of their walls, and so lay still until they were caught like so many trout in the drag-net of their own superstition.[103]
9. Such then is the behavior of superstition in times of adversity, and in things out of the power of man’s will. Nor doth it a jot excel atheism in the more agreeable and pleasurable part of our lives. Now what we esteem the most agreeable things in human life are our holidays, temple-feasts, initiatings, processionings, with our public prayers and solemn devotions. Mark we now the atheist’s behavior here. ’Tis true, he laughs at all that is done, with a frantic and sardonic laughter, and now and then whispers to a confidant of his, The devil is in these people sure, that can imagine God can be taken with these fooleries, but this is the worst of his disasters. But now the superstitious man would fain be pleasant and gay, but cannot for his heart. The whole town is filled with odors of incense and perfumes, and at the same time a mixture of hymns and sighs fills his poor soul.[104] He looks pale with a garland on his head, he sacrifices and fears, prays with a faltering tongue, and offers incense with a trembling hand. In a word, he utterly baffles that saying of Pythagoras, that we are then best when we come near the Gods. For the superstitious person is then in his worst and most pitiful condition, when he approaches the shrines and temples of the Gods.
Had I a power as my will is good, Know this, bold tyrant, I would have thy blood.[108] The atheist believes there are no Gods; the superstitious would have none, but is a believer against his will, and would be an infidel if he durst. He would be as glad to ease himself of the burthen of his fear, as Tantalus would be to slip his head from under the great stone that hangs over him, and would bless the condition of the atheist as absolute freedom, compared with his own. The atheist now has nothing to do with superstition; while the superstitious is an atheist in his heart, but is too much a coward to think as he is inclined.
The sire lifts up his dear beloved son, Who first some other form and shape did take; He doth him slay and sacrifice anon, And therewith vows and foolish prayers doth make. But they knowingly and wittingly themselves devoted their own children; and they that had none of their own bought of some poor people, and then sacrificed them like lambs or pigeons, the poor mother standing by the while without either a sigh or tear; and if by chance she fetched a sigh or let fall a tear, she lost the price of her child, but it was nevertheless sacrificed. All the places round the image were in the mean time filled with the noise of hautboys and tabors, to drown the poor infants’ crying. Suppose we now the Typhons and Giants should depose the Gods and make themselves masters of mankind, what sort of sacrifices, think you, would they expect? Or what other expiations would they require? The queen of King Xerxes, Amestris, buried twelve men alive, as a sacrifice to Pluto to prolong her own life; and yet Plato saith, This God is called in Greek Hades, because he is placid, wise, and wealthy, and retains the souls of men by persuasion and oratory. That great naturalist Xenophanes, seeing the Egyptians beating their breasts and lamenting at the solemn times of their devotions, gave them this pertinent and seasonable admonition: If they are Gods (said he), don’t cry for them; and if they are men, don’t sacrifice to them.
14. There is certainly no infirmity belonging to us that contains such a multiplicity of errors and fond passions, or that consists of such incongruous and incoherent opinions, as this of superstition doth. It behooves us therefore to do our utmost to escape it; but withal, we must see we do it safely and prudently, and not rashly and inconsiderately, as people run from the incursions of robbers or from fire, and fall into bewildered and untrodden paths full of pits and precipices. For so some, while they would avoid superstition, leap over the golden mean of true piety into the harsh and coarse extreme of atheism. THE APOPHTHEGMS OR REMARKABLE SAYINGS OF KINGS AND GREAT COMMANDERS.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.