‘For thy sake are we done to death all the day long:We were accounted as sheep of the shambles.’
‘For thy sake are we done to death all the day long:We were accounted as sheep of the shambles.’
‘For thy sake are we done to death all the day long:
We were accounted as sheep of the shambles.’
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor sovereignties, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from that love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“This, at all events,” said I, “Scaurus cannot say that Epictetus has borrowed from Paul. Never have I heard Epictetus mention the word ‘love’; and here, in this one short passage, Paul uses it twice!” My next thought was that Scaurus was quite right in his estimate of Paul’s style. It was indeed terse, intense, fervid, strangely stimulating and constraining. “There is no lack ofpathos,” I said, “Let us now test thelogos.” So I sat down to study the passage, trying to puzzle out the meaning of the separate words and phrases.
“The love of Christ.” Well, Christus was their leader. The Christians still loved him, and clung to his memory. That was intelligible. But “that love of God which was in Christ” perplexed me. I read the whole passage over again. Gradually I began to see that the passage implied the Epictetian ideal—according to Scaurus, not Epictetian but Pauline or Christian—of a Son of God standing fearless and erect in the face of enemies, tyrants, oppression, death. But it also suggested invisible enemies—“angels and sovereignties” that seemed to be against the sons of God. And still I could not make out the expression, “that love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”
So I turned back to the words at the bottom of the preceding column:—“If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not His own Son but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not also, with him, freely give us all things? It is God that maketh and calleth us righteous: who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died—or rather that was raised from the dead, who is on the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” And so, coming to the end of the column, I looked on again to the words with which I had begun, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
Now I could understand. “This,” said I, “is a great battle. There are sovereignties of evil against the good. The Son ofthe good God is supposed to devote himself to death, fighting against the hosts of evil. Or rather the Father sends him into the battle and he goes willingly. This Christus of the Galilæans is regarded by them as we Romans might think of one of the Decii plunging into the ranks of the enemy and devoting himself to death for the salvation of Rome. Philosophers might ask inconvenient questions about the nature of the God to whom the brave man devotes himself—whether it is Pluto, or Zeus, or Nemesis, or Fate. No philosopher, perhaps, would approve of this theory. But, in practice, the bravery stirs the spirits of those who believe it. Even if the sacrifice is discreditable to the Gods accepting it, it is creditable to the man making it.”
Turning back still further, I found that Paul imagined the Cosmos—or “creation” as he called it—to have gone wrong. He did not explain how. Nor did he prove it. He assumed it, looking forward, however, to a time when the wrong would be made right, and even more right than if it had never gone wrong: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present season are not fit to be spoken of in comparison of the glory that is destined to be revealed and to extend to us. For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth intently for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to change, decay, corruption—not willingly but for the sake of Him that made it thus subject—in hope, and for hope: because even this very creation, now corrupt, shall be made free from the slavery of corruption and brought into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole of creation groaneth together and travaileth together—up to this present time.”
This struck me as a very different message from that of Epictetus about Zeus. Both Paul and Epictetus seemed to agree as regards the past, that certain things had happened that were not pleasing to God, taken by themselves. But whereas the Greek said about God, “He would have, if He could have; but He could not,” the Jew seemed to say, “He can, and He will. Only wait and see. It will turn out to have been for the best.”
Reading on, I found something corresponding to Epictetus’s doctrine of the indwelling Logos, namely, that each of us has in himself a fragment of the Logos of God,—but Paul called it Spirit—in virtue of which we may claim kinship with Him, being indeed God’s children. Epictetus, however, never said that we were to pray to our Father for help. He seemed to think that each must derive his help from such portion of the Logos as each possessed. “Keep,” he said, “that which is your own,” “Take from yourselves your help,” “Within each man is ruin and help,” “Seek and ye shall find within you,” or words to that effect. Paul’s doctrine was different, teaching that we do not at present possess salvation and help to their full extent, but that we must look forward in hope: “And not only so, but we ourselves also, though possessing the firstfruits of the Spirit—we ourselves also, I say, groan within ourselves, waiting earnestly for the adoption, namely, the ransoming and deliverance of our body”—as though a time would come when that very same clay, which (according to Epictetus) the Creator would have wished to make immortal but could not, would be transmuted and transported in some way out of the region of flesh into the region of the spirit.
Moreover, besides looking onward in hope, we must also (Paul said) look upward for help. Epictetus, too, as I have said above, sometimes spoke of looking “upward,” and of the Cynic stretching up his hands to God. That, however, was not in prayer but in praise.
Epictetus never used the word “prayer” in my hearing except of foolish, idle, or selfish prayers. But Paul represented the Logos, or rather the Spirit, within us, as an emotional, not a merely reasonable power. “It searcheth all things, yea, even the deep things of God,” he said to the Corinthians; and by it (so he told the Romans in the passage I was just now quoting) the children express to the Father, and the Father receives from the children, their wants and aspirations: “For by hope were we saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopeth for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that which we fail to see, then in patient endurance we earnestly wait for it. And in the same way the Spirit also taketh part with ourweakness. For as to what we should pray for, according to our needs, we do not know. But the Spirit itself maketh representation in our behalf in sighings beyond speech. Now He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind and temper of the Spirit, because, being in union and accord with God, it maketh representation in behalf of the saints.”
This passage I only vaguely understood. For I started with the preconception that the spirit or breath or wind, must be only another metaphor—like “word”—to describe a “fragment” of God (as Epictetus called the Logos in man). I did not as yet understand that this Spirit might be regarded as, at one and the same moment, in heaven with God and on earth with men, representing the love and will of God to man below, and the love and prayers of man to God above. Still I perceived that in some way it was connected with the Christian Christ; and that the Father and the Spirit and Christ were in some permanent relation to each other and to man, by which relation man and God were drawn together. And this led me back again to the words, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” and “We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
Comparing this “love” with the friendship felt by the Epictetian Diogenes for the whole human race, I found the latter thin and poor. The Greek philosopher, being a “friend” of the Father of Gods and men, seemed to me to be friendly to men in the region (so to speak) of the Logos, “because”—I was disposed to add—“the Logos within him, in a ‘logical’ way, commanded him to be friendly to them, for consistency’s sake, as being ‘logically’ akin to him.” Perhaps some reaction against the constant inculcation of loyalty to the Logos during the last few weeks led me to be a little unfair to the Epictetian ideal. But, fair or unfair, these were my thoughts at the moment, while I was turning over the letters addressed by this wandering Jewish Diogenes to some of the principal cities of Greece and Asia, coming every now and then on such sentences as these: “I have strength for all things in Him that giveth me inward power”: “Being made powerful with all power, in accordance with the might of His glory, so that we rejoice inendurance and longsuffering, being thankful to the Father”: “Be ye made powerful in the Lord and in the might of His strength.” Here I noted that he did not say (as Epictetus did) “take power from yourselves.” Moreover Paul added “Put on the panoply of God.” Then I turned back again to the Roman and Corinthian letters; and still the same thoughts and phrases met me, about “power” in various contexts, such as “demonstration of Spirit and power,” and “abounding in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” “Love,” too, was represented as an irresistible power. “The love of Christ constraineth us,” he said. And then he added, “One died for all” and “He died for all, that the living should be living no longer to themselves, but to Him that for their sake died and was raised up from death.”
There was a great deal in this Roman letter that was almost total darkness to me at first. The references to Abraham—and, still more, those to Adam, coming abruptly in the phrases, “death reigned from Adam,” and “the transgression of Adam”—perplexed me a great deal till I perceived that the Jews fixed their hopes on God’s promise to their forefather Abraham, just as Romans—if they believed Virgil—might fix theirs on the forefather of the Julian race. As Æneas was the divine son of Anchises, so Isaac, by promise, was the divinely given son of Abraham. Paul, I thought, might draw a parallel between our Æneas and his Isaac, as though both were receivers of divine promises of empire extending over all the nations of the earth. At this Jewish fancy (so I called it) I remember smiling at the time, and quoting Virgil from a Jew’s point of view:
“Tantæ molis eratJudæamcondere gentem.”
“Tantæ molis eratJudæamcondere gentem.”
“Tantæ molis eratJudæamcondere gentem.”
But I soon perceived, not only that Paul was in serious earnest, quite as much as Virgil, but also that his scheme, or dream, of universal empire for the seed of Abraham was compatible with the fact of universal empire for the seed of Anchises. Rome, the new Troy, claimed dominion over nothing but men’s bodies. The new Jerusalem claimed it over men’s souls.
I did not fully take all this into my mind till I had read the story of Abraham and Isaac in the scriptures, as I shall describe later on. But, with Virgil’s help, and Roman traditions, Ipartially understood it even now; and I remember asking myself, “If Virgil were now alive, would he be as sanguine as this Jew? Is not Rome on the wane? Ever since the Emperor cried to Varus, ‘Give me back my legions!’ have we not had qualms of fear lest we should be beaten back by the barbarians? Do not even the wisest of our rulers say, ‘Let us draw the line here. Let us conquer no more’? But this Jew sets no limits to his conquests. His projects may be mad. But at least he has some basis of fact for them. If he has conquered so far, why not further?”
As to “the transgression of Adam,” I remained longer in the dark. But I perceived from other passages in the epistles (and from the Jewish scriptures soon afterwards) that the story of Adam and Eve resembled some versions that I had read of the story of Epimetheus and Pandora, who caused sins and pains to come into the world, but “hope” came with them. Adam and Eve did the same. But Paul believed that the “hope” sprang from a promise of a higher and nobler life than would have been possible if Adam and Eve had never gone wrong. I took this for a mere legend, but a legend that might represent the will of Zeus—namely, that man should not stand still, but that he should go on growing, from age to age, in righteousness, which, as Plato says, is the attribute of man that makes him most like God.
Thus I was led on to higher and higher inferences about Paul’s “power.” First, it was real power, attested by facts—facts visible in great cities of Europe and Asia. In the next place, this power was based on faith and hope. Lastly, this faith and this hope—although they extended to everything in heaven and earth (since everything was to be bettered, purified, drawn onward or upward to what Plato might call itsideain God, that is, its perfection)—were themselves based on Christ, as having once died, but now being alive for ever in heaven.
But not only in heaven. For Paul seemed to think of Christ as also still perpetually present with, and in, his disciples on earth. Socrates in the Phædo says “As soon as I have drunk this poison I shall be no longer remaining among you, but shall be off at once to the isles of the blessed.” ButPaul spoke of Christ’s love, and spirit, and of Christ himself, as still remaining amongst his followers. I knew that the common people think of Hercules as descending from heaven now and then to do a man a good turn; and at this I had always been disposed to laugh. But Paul’s view of Christ as being always in heaven, and yet also always on earth, among, or in the hearts of, those who loved him—this seemed to me more noble and more credible; though I did not believe it.
Now I was to be led a step further. For while I was repeating Paul’s words “one died for all,” and again, “one died,” it occurred to me “Yes, but he does not sayhowhe died. Is he ashamed to speak of the shamefulness of the death, the slave’s death, death upon the cross?” So I looked through the Roman letter, right to the end, and I could find no mention of the “cross” or of “crucifying.” But in the very next column, where the first Corinthian letter began, I found this passage: “Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel, not in wisdom of ‘logos’ (i.e. word), lest the cross of Christ should be emptied of its power. For as to the ‘logos’ of the cross, to those indeed who are going the way of destruction, it is folly: but to us, who are going the way of salvation, it is the power of God. For it is written:
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wiseAnd the subtlety of the subtle will I bring to naught.’
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wiseAnd the subtlety of the subtle will I bring to naught.’
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
And the subtlety of the subtle will I bring to naught.’
Where is the ‘wise’? Where is the learned writer? Where is the ‘subtle’ discusser and disputer of this present age?”
Then followed some very difficult words: “Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the Cosmos? For since, in the wisdom of God, the Cosmos, through that wisdom, recognised not God, God decreed through the foolishness of the proclamation of the gospel to save them that go the way of belief: for indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified; to the Jews, a stumbling block; to the other nations, a folly; but, to the called and summoned—Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
I have translated this literally so as to leave it as obscure to the reader as it was to me when I first read it. Even when I had read it over two or three times, there was a great deal thatI could not understand. But it appeared to me to be ironical. It suggested that the “logos” of God may be different from the “logos” of men, or at all events, the “logos” of Greek philosophers. I had for some time been drawing near to a belief that “logos” might include feeling as well as reason. But this strange contrast between the unwise “wisdom of logos” and the wise “logos of the cross” came upon me as (possibly) a new revelation. As for the saying “the Greeks seek wisdom,” it reminded me how Epictetus used to deride the man of mere logic, words without deeds, the futile spinner of syllogisms. “Epictetus,” I said to myself, “would agree with this accusation.” But then I reflected that Paul would perhaps class Epictetus himself among these futile Greeks; and had not my Master himself confessed that the Jew, by mere force of “pathos,” outclassed the Greek in resolution and steadfastness, although the latter was backed by “logos”? The conclusion fell upon me, like a blow, “Here is Paul boasting as a conqueror what my Master confesses as a man conquered! Both agree that the ‘feeling’ of the Jew is more powerful in producing courage than the ‘reasonableness’ of the Greek!”
I did not like this turn of things. But I was intensely interested in it; and it quite decided me to continue the investigation. The question turned on “logos” and I quoted to myself Plato’s precept, “Follow the logos.” Epictetus made much of “logos.” Well, I would “follow the ‘logos,’” in its fullest sense, and would try to find out whether it did, or did not, indicate that “feeling,” as well as “reason,” may help us towards the knowledge of God. Dawn was appearing when I rolled up the little volume and placed it in my cabinet by the side of Scaurus’s sealed note with WORDS OF CHRISTUS on it. That reminded me of my old friend. What would he think of all this?
I sat down at once and wrote to him that I had not opened his note. If I ever did, it would be, I said, because I accepted his verdict. Epictetus really did seem to have borrowed from Paul. The subject was very interesting to me from a historical as well as a literary point of view; and I hoped he would not think it waste of time if I investigated it a little further. Atthe same time, I sent a note to Flaccus. Æmilius Scaurus, I said, had sent me some “words of Christus” extracted from Christian books, and I desired to receive the books themselves. As for the “scriptures” from which Paul so frequently quoted in their Greek form, I knew that I should have no difficulty in procuring copies of all or most of them from Sosia. This I resolved to do on the morrow, or rather in the day that was now dawning. It was not a lecture-day. Even if it had been, in the mood in which I then was, I should have thought a lecture or two might be profitably missed.
The Greek translation of the Scriptures shewn me by Sosia was in several volumes of various sizes and in various conditions. Unrolling the one that shewed most signs of use, I found that, although it was in prose, it was a translation of Hebrew poems, mostly very short, and of a lyrical character. One of them had in its title the name of “David,” which I had met with in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Sosia told me that he was the greatest of the ancient kings of the Jews. Ordering the other volumes to be sent to my rooms, I took this back with me, and began to read it immediately, beginning with the poem on which I had chanced in the shop.
It was a prayer for purification from sin: “Pity me, O God, according to thy great pity, and according to the multitude of thy compassions blot out my transgression. Cleanse me still more from my crime, and purify me from my sin.” So far, the poem was intelligible to me. I was familiar with the religious rites of cleansing from blood-guiltiness—mentioned in connexion with Orestes and many others by the Greek poets and recognised in various forms all over the world. So I said, “This king has committed homicide. He has been purified with lustral rites and sacrifices. But he needs some further rites: ‘Cleanse me still more,’ he says. The poem will tell me, I suppose, what more he needs.”
After adding some words to the effect that the transgression was against God, against God alone, the king continued, “For behold, in transgressions was I created at birth, and in sins did my mother conceive me. For behold, thou hast ever lovedtruth; thou hast shewn unto me the hidden secrets of thy wisdom. Thou wilt sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be purified; thou wilt wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” Here I was at a stand. It seemed to me a great and sudden descent to a depth of superstition, to suppose that this particular additional rite of “cleansing with hyssop” could satisfy the king’s conscience. Moreover I thought that “wisdom” must mean the wisdom of the Greeks. It was not till afterwards that I discovered how great a gulf separates our syllogistic or rhetorical or logical “wisdom” from that of the Jews—which means “knowledge of the righteousness of the Creator based upon reverence.” Thence comes their saying, “Reverence for God is the beginning ofwisdom.”
These two misunderstandings almost led me to put down the book in disgust. But the passionateness of the king’s prayer made me read its opening words once again. Then I felt sure I must have done him injustice. So I read on. Presently I came to the words, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy countenance, and take not thy holy spirit from me.” These made me ashamed of having taken “hyssop” literally. I saw now that it was just as much metaphorical as “whiter than snow,” and that it meant a deep and inward purification—of the heart, not of the body. Still more was I ashamed when I came to the words, “If thou hadst delight in sacrifice I would have given it to thee, but thou wilt take no pleasure in whole burnt-offerings. The sacrifice for God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart God will not despise.”
This was all new and strange doctrine to me. The graceful lines of Horace about the efficacy of the simplest sacrifice—of meal and salt—from the hand of an innocent country girl, and about its superiority to the proffered bribe of a hecatomb from a man of guilt, these I knew by heart; but they did not touch the present question, which was as to how the man of guilt could receive purification, without a hecatomb, without the blood of bulls and goats. And the question went even beyond that. For the king said that he had been “in sins” even from the beginning, even before birth. Did he speak of himselfalone, or of himself as the type of erring mankind? I thought the latter. He seemed to me to say, “Man is from the first an animal, born to follow appetite. In part (no doubt) he is a divine being, born to follow the divine will; but in part he is an animal, born to follow animal propensity.” So far this agreed with Epictetus’s doctrine about the Beast. The Beast, at the beginning, tyrannizes over the divine Man, so that the human being may be said to be in sin—and indeed is in sin, as soon as he becomes conscious of the tyranny within him. “No lustral rites, no blood of bulls and goats,” the king seemed to say, “can purify this human heart of mine now that it has been tainted and corrupted by submitting to the Beast within me. A moment ago, my prayer was ‘Purge me with hyssop,’ but now it is ‘Destroy me and create me anew,’ ‘Take away my old heart and give me a new heart.’”
These last words were quite contrary to the doctrine of Epictetus, who taught us that we are to receive strength and righteousness from that which is within our own hearts. And, thought I, is not the king’s prayer superstitious? The witches in Rome suppose they can draw down the moon by incantations. This king David in Judæa supposes he can draw down “a clean heart” and “a right spirit” by passionate invocation to the God of the Jews! Are not the two superstitions parallel? Would not Epictetus say so? Would not all the Cynics say so? I thought they would: and, as I was rolling up the little book, I said, “It is a fine and passionate poem, but the prayer is not one for a philosopher.” Then, however, it occurred to me that there was a true and a deep philosophy—though I knew not of what school—in the doctrine that the true and purifying sacrifice for guilt is a penitent heart. That set me pondering the whole matter again and reflecting on some of the things in my own life of which I was most ashamed, things that I would have given much to forget, and a great deal more to undo. In the end, I found myself thinking—not saying, but thinking of it as a possible prayer—“In me, in me, too, create a clean heart, O thou God of forgiveness!” It might not be a prayer for philosophers, but I could not help feeling that it might be a good prayer for me.
While I was placing my new volume by the side of Paul’s epistles it occurred to me that the words I had just been reading might throw some light on a passage in the epistle to the Romans at which I had glanced last night. Then I could make nothing of it. Now I read it again: “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. To will [that which is good] is present with me, but to do is not present. I will to do good and I do it not. I will not to do evil, and I do it.” This now seemed to me a truer description of the state of things (within me at all events) than the view mostly presented to us in our lecture-room. Epictetus often talked as though we had merely to will, and then what we willed—at least so far as concerns the mind and the things in the mind’s province—would at once come to pass. True, he did not always say this. Sometimes he insisted on the need of training or practice, and then he likened the Cynic to an athlete preparing for the Olympian games. But it seemed to me that he habitually underrated the difficulty of conforming the human to the divine will: and he never—never even once, as far as I know—recognised the need or efficacy of repentant sorrow.
My immediate conclusion was that, although it was not for me to decide between the “feeling” of the Jews and the “reason” of the Greeks in general, yet one thing was certain—I had a good deal to learn from the former. So I welcomed the arrival of Sosia’s servant bringing the rest of my new books. A good many of them I unrolled and cursorily inspected at once. Both from their number, and from the variety of their subjects, it was clear that I should only be able to study a few. I resolved to confine myself to such parts as bore on Paul’s epistles, and to dispense with lectures for a day or two. Then it occurred to me that Arrian, who had proposed to resume to-day our conversation on the Jews and Galilæans, might come in at any moment. I put away the Jewish books and went to his lodging, thinking that I could perhaps tell my friend of my new studies in order to explain to him my non-attendance at lecture. Instead of Arrian, however, I found a note informing me that he had been obliged to go suddenly toCorinth (in connexion with some business of his father’s) but hoped to return before long.
This saved explanation; and I spent several days (during his prolonged absence) in studying my new volumes. They led me into a maze—or rather, maze after maze—of bewildering novelties. Sosia had told me that my first volume, containing five books, was called by the Jews “the Law.” But it included pedigrees, poems, prophecies, histories of nations, and stories of private persons. The legal portion of it was largely devoted to details about feasts and purificatory sacrifices—the very things that David appeared to call needless. However, when I came to look into the Law more closely, I found that its fundamental enactments were humane and gentle—so much so as to give me the impression of being unpractical. It enjoined on the Jews kindness to strangers as well as to citizens. While retaining capital punishment, it prohibited torture. At least I took that to be a fair inference from the fact that it even forbade the infliction of more than forty blows with the scourge, on the ground that a “brother”—that was the word—must not be so far degraded as to become “vile” in the eyes of his fellow-citizens. It also placed some limitations on the right of masters to punish slaves, even when the latter were foreigners.
Having been accustomed to regard the Jews as unique for their moroseness and unneighbourliness I was all the more astonished at these things. It occurred to me then, as it does sometimes now, that the Law was almost too humane to have been ever fully obeyed by the greater part of the people. For example, even the slaves, even the beasts of burden, were to have one day in seven as a holiday, on which all labour was forbidden. Periodic remission of debts was enacted by law! This surprised me most of all. To think that the revolutionary measure—so our Roman historians called it—for which our tribunes of the people had contended in vain under the Republic, should here be found legalised by the Law of Moses—and this, too, not as an exceptional and isolated condonation, but as a regular remission after a fixed number of years!
“How,” I asked, “could the Lawgiver expect people to lend money to borrowers if the creditor knew that in the course of afew months the obligation to pay the debt would cease?” Was he blind to the most manifest tendencies of human nature? No, I found he was not blind to them. He simply said that they must be resisted: “Beware,” said he, “that there be not a base thought in thine heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand.”
This notion of forbidding an action, or abstinence from action, in a code of laws as being “base”—not as being “subject to a penalty of such a kind,” or “a fine of so much,” was quite new to me. I had given some time to the study of Roman law, and had always assumed that when the law says “Do this,” it adds a punishment in some form or other, “Do this, or you shall suffer this or that.” But here, embedded in the Law of Moses, was a law, or rather a recommendation, without penalty. And presently I found that the last of their Ten Greater Laws—if I may so call them—was of the same kind. It could not possibly be enforced—for it forbade “coveting”! Only a few days ago, before I had bought these books from Sosia, I had read in Paul’s epistle to the Romans “I should not have known covetousness if the law had not said,Thou shalt not covet”; and these words had puzzled me a good deal. I had thought that they must refer to some “law” of a spiritual kind, such as we might call “the law of the conscience” or “the law of our higher nature,” or the like. Yet I felt that this interpretation did not quite agree with the context. Now I found, to my utter astonishment, that this was the very letter of the first clause of the tenth of the Greater Laws, “Thou shalt not covet.”
To crown all, I found that elsewhere the whole of the code was based by the Lawgiver on two fundamental precepts. The first was, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” and this love was to call forth all the powers of mind and soul and body. The second was, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” How was either of these to be enforced? “Love,” say all the poets, “is free.” The Law neither prescribed nor suggested any means of enforcing these two Great Commandments of “loving.” And how could “love” be at once “free,” as poetry protests, and yet a part of the Law, as Moses testified? Thereseemed no answer to this question, unless some God could make us willing and eager to enforce the two commandments on ourselves, constraining us (so to speak) by love to love both Him and one another. “Truly,” said I, “this Law of Moses is very ambitious.” It seemed to aim at more than Law could accomplish. It reminded me of a sentence I had found in one of my new volumes, entitled “Proverbs,” “The light of the Lord is as the breath of men; He searcheth the storehouses of the soul.”
Somewhat similar was a saying imputed to Epictetus—which I had not heard from Arrian but from a fellow-student—reproving one of his disciples in these words, “Man, where are you putting it? See whether the basin is dirty!” The disciple, though an industrious scholar, was of impure life; and Epictetus meant that, if the vessel of his soul was foul, all the knowledge put into that vessel would also become foul. The moral was, “First cleanse the vessel!” So the Jewish Proverb seemed to say, “The light of the Lord must first search the storehouse of the soul: then the food taken out from the storehouse will be pure and wholesome.” This brought me back to the words of David, who seemed to think that the searching and cleansing must come from God and not from man alone, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me!”
Comparing these two fundamental or Greatest Laws of Moses with the fundamental law of Epictetus, “Keep the things that are thine own,” I thought at first that the Jew and the Greek were entirely opposed. On second thoughts, however, I perceived that in “the things that are thine own” Epictetus would include justice and kindness, and all social so-called virtues so far as they did not interfere with one’s own peace of mind—for he would perhaps exclude pity, and certainly sympathy in the full sense of the term. But Epictetus thought that people could be sufficiently kind and just and virtuous without other aid than that of the “logos” within them. David did not, in his own case, unless that which waswithinhim had been cleansed or renewed by a Power regarded asoutsidehim, to whom he prayed as God. There seemed to me, in thisdifference of “within” and “outside,” more than a mere difference of metaphor. But I had no time to think over the matter. For, just as I was regretting that Arrian was not with me to talk over some of these subjects, Glaucus, coming in to borrow a book, informed me that he had met my friend late in the previous night coming from the quay. I had intended to stay at home that morning. But now, finding that Glaucus was on his way to the lecture, I resolved to accompany him, expecting to meet Arrian there.
When we reached the lecture-room, a little late, we found it unusually crowded. My place was taken, and I could not see Arrian in his customary seat. Epictetus was in one of his discursive moods. He began with the assertion—by this time familiar to me, but somewhat distasteful now, fresh as I was from the atmosphere of the Jewish writings—that Gods and men alike seek nothing but “their own profit.” As in most of his epigrams, he meant just the opposite of what he seemed to assert. He hated high-flown language as much as he loved high thought and action. Even when he mentioned “the beautiful”—on which most Greeks go off into rhapsodies—he almost always subordinated it to the “logos” or told us that we must look for it in ourselves. So here again. Man, he declared, must give up all things—property, reputation, children, wife, country, if they are incompatible with his true “profit.” Then, of course, he shewed that man’s “profit” is virtue, so that we need not give up these blessings unless their possession is incompatible with virtue.
What he said next was new to me. A father, losing a child in death, must not say “I have lost my child,” but “I have given it back.” When I say “new,” I mean new in his teaching. But I had recently met something like it in my books of Hebrew poems, “The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Later on, I heard Epictetus repeat this almost in the same form. This seemed to me not only beautiful and devout but also consistent with reasonable faith.
But I could not follow him when, in reply to the objection, “He that took away this thing from me is a villain,” he said, “What does it matter to you by whom the Giver asked back the gift?” It seemed to me that a recoil from villainy, as well as delight in virtue, ought to find a place even in the calmest of mankind. No philosopher, he said, can have an “enemy,” because no one can do him any harm or touch anything that really belongs to him. This was true—in a sense. Its reasonableness contrasted with the passionate poetry of the Jews, which I had found full, too full, of talk about enemies. And yet, the more I meditated on the contrast, the more this “What does it matter to you?” seemed to become a cold-blooded, unnatural, and immoral question. Surely it ought to “matter” to us a great deal whether we suffered loss from some neighbour’s forgetfulness or from some enemy’s premeditated and malignant treachery. He went on in the same chilling style. “Desire,” said he, “about that which is happening, that it shall happen. Then you will have a stream of constant peace.” I seemed to see Priam “desiring that which was happening” when he saw Troy burned and the women ravished! His son, Polites, was being butchered by Pyrrhus before his eyes, and the old king was standing by, placidly enjoying “a stream of constant peace”!
Then Epictetus said, “An uneducated man blames others for his own evils. A beginner blames himself. An educated man blames neither others nor himself.” After this, he introduced what he called the law laid down by God. “Right convictions make the will and purpose good. Crooked and perverse convictions make the will bad. This law,” he said, “God has laid down, and He says to each of us, ‘If you will have anything that is good, take it from yourself’.” Then came another mention of the law—“the divine law” he now called it. It was connected with “right convictions,” as to which he asked “What are these?” His reply was, “They are such as a man ought to meditate on all the day long. We must have such a conviction as will prevent us from attaching our feelings to anything that is other than our own—whether companion, or place, or bodily exercise, or even the body itself.We must remember the law and have it always before our eyes.”
This phrase, “meditate all the day long,” reminded me of some words of David, which I had been reading the day before, “Oh how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day.” Other Hebrew expressions also came into my mind concerning the sweetness and fragrance of the Lord’s commandment, how the poet “opened his mouth and drew in his breath” to taste its delight. These I could understand, when they applied to a law of love, a law of the emotions, a “feeling.” But I wondered what Epictetus could produce for us of a nature to kindle such enthusiasm. He continued, “And what is the divine law? It is this. First, Keep the things that are your own. Secondly, Do not claim things not your own; use them, if given; do not desire them, if not given. Thirdly, When anything is being taken from you, give it up at once in a detached spirit, and with gratitude for the time during which one has used it.”
“Keep the things that are your own!”—This he placed first, and on this he laid most emphasis, dwelling on each syllable. I fancied that he knew he was disappointing us and almost took pleasure in it as though he were administering to us a wholesome but bitter medicine. “You find this sour,” he seemed to say: “Sour or not, it is the truth, the only solid and safe truth. It is not the dream of a poet, or the scheme of a student. It is the plan of a man of business, practicable for all—for slaves as well as free men, for individuals in a desert as well as for communities in a city. ‘Love your neighbour’—that is expecting too much. ‘Do not covet what is your neighbour’s’—that is expecting too little. ‘Keep that which belongs to you!’ There you have a rule that makes you independent of all neighbours.” I was miserably disappointed; yet I could not help respecting and admiring our Master’s unflinching frankness, his determination to force us to face the austere truth, and his contempt for anything that seemed incapable of being put into practice at all times and in all circumstances.
He spoke next of “sin” or “error.” Some of his language strangely resembled Paul’s, but with great differences. He made mention of a “conflict,” but he seemed mostly to mean“a conflicting state of things,” “logical contradiction,” or inconsistency. It might be called self-contradiction, taken as including actions, and not words alone. He also used the very same phrase as Paul’s “that which he willeth he doeth not,” but not in the same way, as may be seen from the following extract which I took down exactly: “Every error includes self-contradiction. For since the person erring does not wish to err but to go straight, it is clear that what he wills to do he does not do.… Now every soul endowed with ‘logos’ by nature is disposed to dislike self-contradiction. As long as a man has not followed up the facts and perceived that he is in a state of self-contradiction, he is in no way prevented from doing things that are self-contradictory; but, when he has followed them up, he must necessarily revolt from the self-contradiction.… Here then comes in the need of the teacher skilled in ‘logos’ … but the teacher needs also power to refute what is wrong and to stimulate the pupil to what is right. This teacher will give the erring man a glimpse into the self-contradiction in which he errs, and will make it clear to himthat he is not doing that which he wills to do and that he is doing that which he wills not to do. As soon as this is made clear to the person in error, he will, of himself and of his own accord, depart from his error.”
Then he supposed a case where a man had relapsed from philosophy into a profligate and shameless life. And first he tried to shew the offender how much he had lost in losing modesty and decency and true manliness. “There was a time,” he said, “when you counted this as the only loss worth mentioning.” Next, he shewed each of us how to regain what we had lost. “It is you yourself,” he exclaimed, “you yourself, no other whom you have to blame. Fight against yourself! Tear yourself away to seemliness, decency, and freedom.”
Lastly, he appealed—as I had never heard him do before—to the feelings of loyalty and affection that we might entertain for himself. I thought he must be recalling his old days in Rome, when he, a boy and a slave, in the house of Epaphroditus, might be exposed to the temptations and coercions to which such slaves were subject; and he asked his pupils to imagine their feelings if someone came to them reporting that their Master, Epictetus, had been forced to succumb.
“If,” said he, very slowly and deliberately, with emphasis on each syllable, “if someone were to come and tell you that a certain man was compellingme”—here he hurried onward—“to lead the sort of life that you are now leading, to wear the sort of dress that you wear, to perfume myself as you perfume yourself, would you not go off straightway and lay violent hands on the man that was thus abusing me? Rescue yourself, then, as you would have rescued me. You need not kill anyone, strike anyone, go anywhere. Talk to yourself! Persuade (who else should do it better?)—persuade yourself.”
Never, in my experience, had Epictetus more nearly fulfilled the promise made in his behalf by Arrian—that he would always make his hearers feel, for the moment, precisely what he wished them to feel. There were two or three in the class notorious for their profligacy; but the appeal went home to others as well, conscious of minor derelictions. “Persuade yourself!” There was no need of it. We were all, to a man, already persuaded. Infants and babies though we were, we could all stand up and walk—for the moment. He proceeded in the same spirit-stirring tone, as though—now that we had all resolved to go on this arduous journey with him as a guide—he would go first and shew us how to push our way through the forest.
“First of all,” said he, “give sentence against the present state of things.” He did not say “against yourselves.” That would have been too discouraging. We were to condemn “the present state of things”; that is, our present self. “In the next place,” he continued, “do not give up hope of yourself. Do not behave like the poor-spirited creatures who, because of one defeat, give themselves up altogether and let themselves be carried downward by the stream. Take a lesson from the wrestling-ring. That young fellow yonder has had a fall. ‘Get up,’ says the trainer, ‘Wrestle again, and go on till you get your full strength.’ Act you in the same spirit. For, mark you, there is nothing more pliable than the human soul. You mustwill. Then the thing is done, and the crooked is made straight. On the other hand, go to sleep; and then all is ruined. From your own heart comes either your destruction or your help.”
He concluded with a word of warning. Perhaps some of us might appeal to his owndictumabout seeking our own “profit,” as being the only right and wise course. He met it as follows: “After this, do you say ‘What good shall I get by it?’ What greater ‘good’ do you look for than this? Whereas you once were shameless, you will now have received again the faculty of an honourable shame. From the orgies of vice you will have passed into the ranks of virtue. Formerly faithless and licentious, you will now be faithful and temperate. If you seek any other objects better than these, go on doing still the things you are doing now. Not even a God can any longer save you.”
When we came out from the crowded room, as Arrian was nowhere to be seen, I went at once to his lodging. To my surprise, he was busy packing, amid books and papers, and a student’s other belongings. “Thanks, many thanks,” he said, “for this timely visit. This is my last day in Nicopolis. I was just coming round to wish you good-bye. You know I had to go to Corinth. Well, when I got there, I found a letter from my father bidding me wait a few days for further news from him; and on the fourth day came a message that I was to conclude my studies at once and return to Bithynia, as his health had quite given way and his affairs required all my attention. I had intended to start to-day at the fifth hour; but I have just learned that the vessel will not sail till the eighth. So sit down. Epictetus there is not time to call upon. When I write to you I shall ask you to deliver him a letter from me. Sit down, and begin by telling me about the lecture I have just missed, while it is fresh in your memory.”
When I had finished, he said, turning over the papers he was sorting, “I remember another of his lectures in which he warned us against a licentious and effeminate life. Here it is, and these are his exact words: ‘Do not, in the name of the Gods, do not you, young man, fall back again! Nay, rather go back to your home and say, now that you have once heard this warning,It is not Epictetus that has said this. How should he? It is some God wishing well to me and speaking through him. It would never have come into the mind of Epictetus tosay this, for it is never his custom to make personal appeals. Come, then; let us obey the voice of God, lest we fall under God’s wrath.’ I have never forgotten these words, and I trust I never shall. I think a God speaks through Epictetus. Do you not agree with me?”
“I do indeed,” said I, “but I am not convinced that God speaks all that Epictetus says, and that there is not more to be spoken. For example, he says, ‘You have but to will and it is done.’ Is that a common experience? Is it yours? He says, ‘Take from yourself the help you need.’ Do you find in yourself all the help you need? When you fall, he says, ‘Get up,’ as though we were boys in the wrestling-ring. But what if we have been stunned? What if one’s ankle is sprained or a leg broken? Do you remember what you said to me at the end of my first lecture, ‘Will it last?’ You also said that Epictetus could make us feel just what he wished us to feel—as long as he was speaking. Well, while I was sitting on the bench in the lecture-room, I felt that getting up from vice was as easy as sitting on that bench. When I walked out, it began to seem less easy. Now that I am quite away from the enchanter, talking the matter quietly over with you, the feeling has almost vanished; and I am obliged to repeat your question about this, and about much more of our Master’s doctrine, ‘Will it last?’”
“Some of it will last,” said Arrian, “We must not expect impossibilities. I have heard him admit that it is impossible to be sinless already, but he bade us remember that it is possible to be always intent on not sinning.” “Did he mean,” asked I, “by ‘already,’ that we could not be sinless in this life, but that we might be sinless at what he calls the feast of the Gods, after death?” Arrian did not at once reply. Presently he said, “I do not think so. I believe he meant that we must not expect to be sinless as soon as we have reached the intermediate stage of what he calls ‘the half-educated man.’ We must wait till we have reached the further stage, that of complete education, where, as you said just now, a man never blames himself, because he does not find in himself any fault that he could blame.”
Here Arrian made a still longer pause. Then he continued, in his usual slow, deliberate way, but with a touch of hesitation that was not usual with him, “I have here a few duplicates of my notes. Among them are some on the subject on which your remarks bear, and about which (I gather) you would like to question me—the immortality of the soul. In my hearing, he has seldom used that precise phrase. And, when he has used the epithet ‘immortal,’ it has generally applied to life like that of Tithonus—I mean, a deathless life in this present world. To desire such a life, deathless and free from disease, he thinks unreasonable. But I remember his saying once, that he was prepared for death, ‘whether it were the death of the whole or of a certain part’—that was his expression. And I think he may possibly believe that the Logos within us is reabsorbed, after death, into some kind of quintessential or divine fire from which it sprang. But I cannot say that this satisfies me.”
Neither did it satisfy me. But I said nothing. Arrian, too, was silent, turning over some of his papers and marking passages for my perusal. But presently, rousing himself, “Did you agree with me,” he said, “about the passage you transcribed, when we last met, concerning that sect of the Jews which he called the Galilæans?” I could see that Arrian wished to divert the conversation to “the Galilæans,” as being a subject of a less serious character than the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. But the subject of the Galilæans or Jews had become much more serious for me now than it had been when we last conversed together. How much more, I shrank from telling him, in the few minutes at our disposal. He was good, just, a truthful scholar, a gentleman, and a kind friend. Given a few days more—even a few hours—in one another’s company, and I should not have kept my secret from him. But how could I hope, in so brief an interval, and amid so many preoccupations, to make him understand what a vast continent of new history, religion, literature—and, above all, “feeling” as opposed to “logic”—had emerged before my mind’s eye, during my recent voyages of exploration in the scriptures and in Paul’s epistles? So I replied briefly that I agreed with his view.Epictetus, I said, seemed to me to be speaking, not of the Galilæan “custom,” but of their “feeling,” as also in the case of the Jews. “And indeed,” I added, “the force of this ‘feeling’ in producing courage appears to me most remarkable.” With these words I rose to go.
“Well,” said he, “I fear we shall hardly meet again in Nicopolis. But I shall always cherish the recollection of the hours we have spent together here, and of our common respect for our common Master, whom you already love, and whom, if you come to know him as I do—in his home, and in his kindness to those who need kindness—you will (I trust) love still more.” “I do love him,” said I. “But tell me, do you love all his teaching about indifference to what is happening? You know how our Master scoffs at the agony of Priam looking on the ruin of Troy. Well, suppose you were a Roman citizen, as I am sure you will be before long. Or, rather, suppose you were our new Emperor Hadrian, and saw the northern barbarians not only at our gates but inside our walls, and the City in flames, and the Dacians doing in Rome what the Greeks did in Troy to the Trojan men and women, would you, our Emperor Hadrian, feel it right to say, ‘All this is nothing to me’?” “By the immortal Gods,” exclaimed Arrian, “I should not.” “And if Epictetus were in Hadrian’s place, or Priam’s place, do you think he could say it?”
I had to wait for an answer. “What I am going to say,” he replied at last, “may seem to you monstrous. But I really cannot reply No. I cannot tell what he would say. I am not able to judge him as I should judge others.” Then he proceeded, with an animation quite unusual in him, “Of any other Hadrian or Priam I should say that such an utterance stamped him as either liar, or beast, or stone. But Epictetus—absorbed in Zeus, devoted to His will, resolved to believe that His will is good, and seeing no way out of the belief that all things happen in accordance with His will—might not Epictetus conceivably feel, in moments of ecstasy, that all these fires and furies, massacres and outrages, cannot prevent him from believing in Zeus and being one with Zeus, so that he himself, Epictetus, might be, nay, must be, in the bosom of Zeus (so to speak) atthe very moment when not only Rome, but all the cities, villages, and hamlets of the world—nay, when the universe itself was being cast into destruction? Well, I am out of my depth. I confess it. But will you not agree with me thus far, thatifEpictetus said that he felt thus, he would really feel thus?”
“Yes,” replied I, “I am sure that he would not say it unless he felt it. But I am not sure that he might not feel it merely because he had forced himself to feel it. However, let us say no more now on such subtle matters. It is no small help to have been lifted up by such a teacher above the mere life of the flesh. We part, do we not, in full agreement that Epictetus has been, for both of us, a guide to that which is good?” And thus we did part. I accompanied him to the quay. “May we meet again,” were my last words. “May it be soon,” were his.
But we never met. The death of his father plunged him almost immediately into domestic cares and matters of business. When the pressure of private affairs relaxed, it was soon followed by affairs of state. This was due in part perhaps to his having been a pupil of Epictetus. The new emperor, long before he became emperor, had always admired our Master; whose recommendation (I am inclined to think) had something to do with Arrian’s subsequent promotions. At all events, when I was on service in the north, I heard without any surprise, and with a great deal of pleasure, that my former fellow-student—known now to literary circles as Flavianus, a Roman citizen, and author of the Memoirs of Epictetus—had been appointed governor of Cappadocia.
From time to time we corresponded. But it was not upon the topics that used to engross us in old days. He took a great interest in geography. Military service, at one time in the north and then in the east, gave me some knowledge of this subject, which I was glad to place at his disposal. He also studied military affairs with a view to writing on Alexander. Here again I was of use to him. But we never resumed in our letters that subject about which he had once said to me, “More of this to-morrow.” Our paths had branched off, leading us far away from each other in everything except mutual good willand respect. He had become a Roman magistrate. Subsequently he was a priest of Demeter. I had become a Roman soldier, but—a Christian. Many of my friends knew this and I have little doubt that Arrian guessed it. Privately I feel sure he always loved me. Officially he must have been forced to disapprove. Hadrian, it is true, discouraged informations against the Christians, and I had been hitherto connived at: but could I condemn my old friend if he shrank from opening up old speculations that might lead him into unofficial, suspected, and dangerous results? Much more might I myself rather feel condemned for keeping silence. Sometimes I have felt thus. But not often. More often I feel that it was better for him not to know what I know, than to know it, in a sense, and to reject it. Presented in mere writing, I felt sure that it would have been rejected. Writings and books brought me on the way to Christ, but something more was needed to make me receive Christ.
Arrian, I think, avoided such opportunities as presented themselves for meeting. I am sure I did. If we had met, surely I should have been constrained to open my mind to him. Once, at least, I touched (in a letter) on our old conversation about “logos” and “pathos.” He replied that, in his new career, both “logos” and “pathos” had to give place topragmata, “business,” which, he thought, was likely to take up all his energies during the rest of his life.
Even if I had opened my mind, I cannot help thinking that his would have remained unchanged. One thing, however, I do not think about, but know—namely, that, if we had met, Arrian and I would still have had common ground, as of old, in our love of truth and justice, and that we should still have esteemed, respected, and loved each other. For myself, love him I always shall, not for his own sake alone, but also because he helped me directly and immediately to understand Epictetus, and indirectly and ultimately to perceive the existence of something beyond any truth that Epictetus could teach.
Returning to my rooms, I sat down to think out my problems alone. Presently, on taking up the lecture-notes Arrian had given me, I found that the title of the first was, “What is meant by being in desolation or deserted? And who can call himself deserted?” The subject suited my mood, and I began to read it, as follows: “Desolation is the condition of a man unhelped. To be alone is not necessarily to be deserted. To be in the midst of a multitude is not always to be undeserted. A man may be in the centre of a crowd of his own slaves. But still, if he has just lost a brother, he may be deserted. We may travel alone, yet never feel deserted till we fall into the midst of a band of robbers. It is not the face of a man that delivers us from desolation; it is the presence of someone faithful and trustworthy, thoughtful and kind, good and helpful.”
I liked this. But afterwards the lecture strayed into what seemed to me controversial theology or metaphysics, “If being alone suffices to make you deserted, then say that Zeus Himself is deserted when the final fire comes round in its cycle, consuming the universe. Say that He bewails His loneliness exclaiming ‘Alas, me miserable! I have no Hera now! No Athene! No Apollo! Not a single brother, son, or relation!’ Some people actually do assert that Zeus behaves like this in the final fire!” I gathered that he was attacking some philosophic tenet. But it did not interest me any more than his subsequent assertion—or rather assumption—that “Zeusassociates with Himself, reposes on Himself, and contemplates the nature of His own administration.” I have never felt drawn towards the conception of a self-admiring, or a solitary God.
Arrian’s next note bore on the peace of the universe, a peace proclaimed by the Logos, a peace resembling, but far surpassing, the peace proclaimed by the Emperor, such a peace that every man can say, even when he is alone, “Henceforth no evil can befall me. For me, robbers and earthquakes have no existence. All things are full of peace, full of tranquillity. Whether I am travelling on the high road, or living in the city, whether in public assemblies or among private friends and neighbours, nothing can harm me. There is Another, not myself, who makes it His care to supply me with food. He it is that clothes me. He, not myself, gave me the perceptions of my body. He, not myself, bestowed on me the conceptions of my mind.”
Then followed a passage about death, which Arrian, during our last conversation, had marked for my special attention: “But if at any moment He ceases to supply you with the things needful for your existence, then take heed! In that moment He is sounding the bugle for you to cease the conflict. He is saying to you, ‘Come!’ And whither? Into no land of terrors. Simply into that same region from which you entered into being. Into the company of such existences as are friendly and akin to you. Into the elements. Such part as was fire in you will depart into fire; such part of earth as was in you, into earth; such part of air or wind as was in you, into air or wind; of water, into water. No Hades! No Acheron! No Cocytus! No Pyriphlegethon! All things are full of Gods and dæmons!” By this I think he meant “good Gods and guardian angels.” He concluded thus, “Having such thoughts as these in his heart, looking up to the sun, the moon, and the stars, and enjoying the earth and the sea, man has no more right to call himself deserted than to call himself unhelped.”
It was not clear to me how I could continue to call myself “helped” when I was on the point of being dissolved into the four elements. If I were a criminal, successful in escapingpunishment on earth, I might deem it “help” (after a fashion) to know that I should be equally successful after quitting the earth, because I need not fear Hades and its three rivers as enemies. But where were the “friends”? The four elements promised but cold friendship! Arrian’s comment rose to my mind, and a second time I assented to it, “I cannot say that this satisfies me.” Epictetus was so averse from anything like cant or insincerity of expression that I was amazed—as I still am—that he could use, in such a context, the words “friendly and akin.” Surely Sappho’s cry was truer, when she wandered alone through the woods where she had once been loved by Phaon—