第28章 THE BANQUET(4)

The fruit fell from the man's hand, and the woman, clinging to the neck of her luckless husband, said, "I too will be ignorant and suffer with him." The triumphant Iaveh kept Adam and Eve and all their seed in a condition of hebetude and terror.His art, which consisted only in being able to make huge meteors, triumphed over the science of the serpent, who was a musician and geometrician.He made men unjust, ignorant, and cruel, and caused evil to reign in the earth.He persecuted Cain and his sons because they were skilful workmen; he exterminated the Philistines because they composed Orphic poems, and fables like those of AEsop.He was the implacable enemy of science and beauty, and for long ages the human race expiated, in blood and tears, the defeat of the winged serpent.Fortunately, there arose among the Greeks learned men, such as Pythagoras, and Plato, who recovered by the force of genius, the figures and the ideas which the enemy of Iaveh had vainly tried to teach the first woman.The soul of the serpent was in them; and that is why the serpent, as Dorion has said, is honoured by the Athenians.Finally, in these latter days, there appeared, under human form, three celestial spirits--Jesus of Galilee, Basilides, and Valentinus--to whom it was given to pluck the finest fruits of that tree of knowledge, whose roots pass through all the earth, and whose top reaches to the highest heaven.I have said all this in vindication of the Christians, to whom the errors of the Jews are too often imputed.

DORION.If I understood you aright, Zenothemis, you said that three wonderful men--Jesus, Basilides, and Valentinus--had discovered secrets which had remained hidden from Pythagoras and Plato, and all the philosophers of Greece, and even from the divine Epicurus, who, however, has freed men from the dread of empty terrors.You would greatly oblige me by telling me by what means these three mortals acquired knowledge which had eluded the most contemplative sages.

ZENOTHEMIS.Must I repeat to you, Dorion, that science and cogitation are but the first steps to knowledge, and that ecstasy alone leads to eternal truth?

HERMODORUS.It is true, Zenothemis, that the soul is nourished on ecstasy, as the cicada is nourished on dew.But we may even say more:

the mind alone is capable of perfect rapture.For man is of a threefold nature, composed of material body, of a soul which is more subtle, but also material, and of an incorruptible mind.When, emerging from the body as from a palace suddenly given over to silence and solitude and flying through the gardens of the soul, the mind diffuses itself in God, it tastes the delights of an anticipated death, or rather of a future life, for to die is to live; and in that condition, partaking of divine purity, it possesses both infinite joy and complete knowledge.It enters into the unity which is All.It is perfected.

NICIAS.That is very fine; but, to say the truth, Hermodorus, I do not see much difference between All and Nothing.Words even seem to fail to make the distinction.Infinity is terribly like nothingness--they are both inconceivable to the mind.In my opinion perfection costs too dear; we pay for it with all our being, and to possess it must cease to exist.That is a calamity from which God Himself is not free, for the philosophers are doing their best to perfect Him.After all, if we do not know what it is /not/ to be, we are equally ignorant what it is to /be/.We know nothing.It is said that it is impossible for men to agree on this question.I believe--in spite of our noisy disputes--that it is, on the contrary, impossible for men not to become some day all at unity buried under the mass of contradictions, a Pelion on Ossa, which they themselves have raised.

COTTA.I am very fond of philosophy, and study it in my leisure time.

But I never understand it well, except in Cicero's books.Slaves, pour out the honeyed wine!

CALLICRATES.It is a singular thing, but when I am hungry I think of the time when the tragic poets sat at the boards of good tyrants, and my mouth waters.But when I have tasted the excellent wine that you give us so abundantly, generous Lucius, I dream of nothing but civil wars and heroic combats.I blush to live in such inglorious times; Iinvoke the goddess of Liberty; and I pour out my blood--in imagination --with the last Romans on the field of Philippi.

COTTA.In the days of the decline of the Republic my ancestors died with Brutus--for liberty.But there is reason to suspect that what the Roman people called liberty was only in reality the right to govern themselves.I do not deny that liberty is the greatest boon a nation can have.But the longer I live the more I am persuaded that only a strong government can bestow it on the citizens.For forty years Ihave filled high positions in the State, and my long experience has shown me that when the ruling power is weak the people are oppressed.

Those, therefore, who--like the great majority of rhetoricians--try to weaken the government, commit an abominable crime.An autocrat, who governs by his single will, may sometimes cause most deplorable results; but if he governs by popular consent there is no remedy possible.Before the majesty of the Roman arms had bestowed peace upon all the world, the only nations which were happy were those which were ruled over by intelligent despots.

HERMODORUS.For my part, Lucius, I believe that there is no such thing as a good form of government, and that we shall never discover one, because the Greeks, who had so many excellent ideas, were never able to find one.In that respect, therefore, all hope of ultimate success is taken from us.Unmistakable signs show that the world is about to fall into ignorance and barbarism.It has been our lot, Lucius, to witness terrible events.Of all the mental satisfactions which intelligence, learning, and virtue can give, all that remains is the cruel pleasure of watching ourselves die.