The Obsolesence of Oracles (14-16)

Regarding the rites of the Mysteries, in which it is possible to gain the clearest reflections and adumbrations of the truth about the demigods, let my lips be piously sealed, as Herodotus[*] says; but as for festivals and sacrifices, which may be compared with ill-omened and gloomy days, in which occur the eating of raw flesh, rending of victims, fasting, and beating of breasts, and again in many places scurrilous language at the shrines, and

Frenzy and shouting of throngs in excitement

With tumultuous tossing of heads in the air,[*]

I should say that these acts are not performed for any god, but are soothing and appeasing rites for the averting of evil spirits. Nor is it credible that the gods demanded or welcomed the human sacrifices of ancient days, nor would kings and generals have endured giving over their children and submitting them to the preparatory rites and cutting their throats to no purpose save that they felt they were propitiating and offering satisfaction to the wrath and sullen temper of some harsh and implacable avenging deities, or to the insane and imperious passions of some who had not the power or desire to seek satisfaction in a natural and normal way. But as Heracles laid siege to Oechalia for the sake of a maiden,[*] so powerful and impetuous divinities, in demanding a human soul which is incarnate within a mortal body, bring pestilences and failures of crops upon States and stir up wars and civil discords, until they succeed in obtaining what they desire. To some, however, comes the opposite; for example, when I was spending a considerable time in Crete, I noted an extraordinary festival being celebrated there in which they exhibit the image of a man without a head, and relate that this used to be Molus,[*] father of Meriones, and that he violated a young woman; and when he was discovered, he was without a head.

As for the various tales of rapine and wanderings of the gods, their concealments and banishment and servitude, which men rehearse in legend and in song, all these are, in fact, not things that were done to the gods or happened to them, but to the demigods; and they are kept in memory because of the virtues and power of these beings; nor did Aeschylus[*] speak devoutly when he said

Holy Apollo, god from heaven banned;

nor Admetus in Sophocles,[*]

My cock it was that sent him to the mill.

But the greatest error in regard to the truth is that of the theologians of Delphi who think that the god once had a battle here with a serpent for the possession of the oracle, and they permit poets and prose-writers to tell of this in their competitions in the theatres, whereby they bear specific testimony against the most sacred of the rites that they perform.

At this Philip the historian, who was present, expressed surprise, and inquired against what hallowed rites Cleombrotus thought that the competition bore testimony. These, said Cleombrotus, which have to do with the oracle here, and in which the city recently initiated all the Greeks west of Thermopylae and extended the rites as far as Tempê. For the structure which is erected here near the threshing-floor[*] every eight years[*] is not a nest-like serpent’s den, but a copy of the dwelling of a despot or king.[*] The onset upon it, which is made in silence through the way called Dolon’s Way, by which the Labyadae with lighted torches conduct the boy, who must have two parents living, and, after, applying fire to the structure and upsetting the table, flee through the doors of the temple without looking back; and finally the wanderings and servitude of the boy and the purifications that take place at Tempê — all prompt a suspicion of some great and unholy deed of daring. For it is utterly ridiculous, my good friend, that Apollo, after slaying a brute creature, should flee to the ends of Greece in quest of purification and, after arriving there, should offer some libations and perform those ceremonies which men perform in the effort to placate and mollify the wrath of spirits whom

men call the unforgetting avengers, as if they followed up the memories of some unforgotten foul deeds of earlier days. And as for the story which I have heard before about this flight and the removal to another place, it is dreadfully strange and paradoxical, but if it has any vestige of truth in it, let us not imagine that what was done in those days about the oracle was any slight or common affair. But that I may not seem to be doing what is described by Empedocles[*] as

Putting the heads of myths together,

Bringing no single path to perfection,

permit me to add to what was said at the outset the proper conclusion, for we have already come to it. Let this statement be ventured by us, following the lead of many others before us, that coincidently with the total defection of the guardian spirits assigned to the oracles and prophetic shrines, occurs the defection of the oracles themselves; and when the spirits flee or go to another place, the oracles themselves lose their power, but when the spirits return many years later, the oracles, like musical instruments, become articulate, since those who can put them to use are present and in charge of them.

When Cleombrotus had expounded these matters, Heracleon said, There is no unsanctified or irreligious person present, or anyone who holds opinions about the gods that are out of keeping with ours; but let us ourselves be stringently on our guard lest we unwittingly try to support the argument with extraordinary and presumptuous hypotheses. That is a very good suggestion, said Philip,

but which of the theses of Cleombrotus makes you the most uncomfortable?

That it is not the gods, said Heracleon, who are in charge of the oracles, since the gods ought properly to be freed of earthly concerns; but that it is the demigods, ministers of the gods, who have them in charge, seems to me not a bad postulate; but to take, practically by the handful, from the verses of Empedocles[*] sins, rash crimes, and heaven-sent wanderings, and to impose them upon the demigods, and to assume that their final fate is death, just as with men, I regard as rather too audacious and uncivilized.

Cleombrotus was moved to ask Philip who the young man was and whence he carne; and after learning his name and his city he said, It is not unwittingly, Heracleon, that we have become involved in strange arguments; but it is impossible, when discussing important matters, to make any progress in our ideas toward the probable truth without employing for this purpose important principles. But you unwittingly take back what you concede; for you agree that these demigods exist, but by your postulating that they are not bad nor mortal you no longer keep them; for in what respect do they differ from gods, if as regards their being they possess immortality and as regards their virtues freedom from all emotion or sin ?