cynics:oenomaus_of_gadara
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| ===== Suda, Omicroniota 123 ===== | ===== Suda, Omicroniota 123 ===== | ||
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| ===== Julian, Orations 6 & 7 ===== | ===== Julian, Orations 6 & 7 ===== | ||
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| - | For **Oenomaus** | + | For **Oenomaus** would make many people hold this view of it. If you had taken any trouble to study the subject, you would have learned this from that Cynic' |
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| ===== Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospels ===== | ===== Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospels ===== | ||
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| BUT since the matters which have been mentioned are not known to all, it seems to me well to pass from this point to subjects which are self-evident to all the learned, and to examine the oracular responses of most ancient date which are repeated in the mouth of all Greeks, and are taught in the schools of every city to those who resort to them for instruction. | BUT since the matters which have been mentioned are not known to all, it seems to me well to pass from this point to subjects which are self-evident to all the learned, and to examine the oracular responses of most ancient date which are repeated in the mouth of all Greeks, and are taught in the schools of every city to those who resort to them for instruction. | ||
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| CHAPTER XIX | CHAPTER XIX | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'WHAT then? When the Athenians had caused the death of Androgeus, and suffered a pestilence for it, would they not have said that they repented? Or if they did not say so, would it not have been proper for thee to say " | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'WHAT then? When the Athenians had caused the death of Androgeus, and suffered a pestilence for it, would they not have said that they repented? Or if they did not say so, would it not have been proper for thee to say " |
| //"Of plague and famine there shall be an end, | //"Of plague and famine there shall be an end, | ||
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| CHAPTER XX | CHAPTER XX | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'BUT since I happen to have mentioned this subject, let me now relate the incidents of the narrative concerning the Heracleidae. For they once set out to invade the Peloponnese by way of the Isthmus, but failed in the attempt. So Aristomachus the son of Aridaeus, because his father had perished in the invasion, comes to thee to learn about the way: for he was eager as his father had been. And thou tellest him, | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'BUT since I happen to have mentioned this subject, let me now relate the incidents of the narrative concerning the Heracleidae. For they once set out to invade the Peloponnese by way of the Isthmus, but failed in the attempt. So Aristomachus the son of Aridaeus, because his father had perished in the invasion, comes to thee to learn about the way: for he was eager as his father had been. And thou tellest him, |
| //" | //" | ||
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| CHAPTER XXI | CHAPTER XXI | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'IT seems then that thou dost verily know all things that are worth no more than sand, but knowest nothing that is excellent. For example, that "the smell of a strong-shelled tortoise boiling should strike on thy senses," | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'IT seems then that thou dost verily know all things that are worth no more than sand, but knowest nothing that is excellent. For example, that "the smell of a strong-shelled tortoise boiling should strike on thy senses," |
| 'For he relying upon the trial (of the oracles), intended soon after to ask thee whether he should make an expedition against the Persians, and to make thee his adviser concerning his insane and grasping policy. And thou didst not shrink from telling him, that | 'For he relying upon the trial (of the oracles), intended soon after to ask thee whether he should make an expedition against the Persians, and to make thee his adviser concerning his insane and grasping policy. And thou didst not shrink from telling him, that | ||
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| 'If, however, he was thus playing with him not from ignorance but from insolence and malice, heavens! how strange are the playthings of the gods. And if it was not this, but that the things must of necessity so happen, this is of all deceitful speeches the most wicked. For if it must so happen, why nevertheless dost thou, unhappy god, sit at Delphi chanting empty and useless prophecies? And of what use art thou to us? And why are we so mad, who run to thee from all quarters of the earth? And what right hast thou to the savour of sacrifices?' | 'If, however, he was thus playing with him not from ignorance but from insolence and malice, heavens! how strange are the playthings of the gods. And if it was not this, but that the things must of necessity so happen, this is of all deceitful speeches the most wicked. For if it must so happen, why nevertheless dost thou, unhappy god, sit at Delphi chanting empty and useless prophecies? And of what use art thou to us? And why are we so mad, who run to thee from all quarters of the earth? And what right hast thou to the savour of sacrifices?' | ||
| - | This plain speaking of Oenomaus in the Detection of Impostors is not free from cynical bitterness. For he will not admit that the oracles which are admired among all the Greeks proceed from a daemon, much less from a god, but says that they are frauds and tricks of human impostors, cunningly contrived to deceive the multitude. And since I have once mentioned these matters, there can be no objection to hearing other refutations also; and first, that in which the same author says that he had been himself deceived by the Clarian Apollo: he writes as follows: | + | This plain speaking of **Oenomaus** in the Detection of Impostors is not free from cynical bitterness. For he will not admit that the oracles which are admired among all the Greeks proceed from a daemon, much less from a god, but says that they are frauds and tricks of human impostors, cunningly contrived to deceive the multitude. And since I have once mentioned these matters, there can be no objection to hearing other refutations also; and first, that in which the same author says that he had been himself deceived by the Clarian Apollo: he writes as follows: |
| CHAPTER XXII | CHAPTER XXII | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'BUT forsooth I too must take some part in the comedy, and not pride myself on not having fallen into the common derangement; | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'BUT forsooth I too must take some part in the comedy, and not pride myself on not having fallen into the common derangement; |
| //"In the land of Trachis lieth | //"In the land of Trachis lieth | ||
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| CHAPTER XXIII | CHAPTER XXIII | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'But since my business was now so forward, and I wanted only a man to act as a stranger' | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'But since my business was now so forward, and I wanted only a man to act as a stranger' |
| //"On Eupelians and Achaeans obligation he will lay, | //"On Eupelians and Achaeans obligation he will lay, | ||
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| CHAPTER XXIV | CHAPTER XXIV | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] ' | + | [**OENOMAUS**] ' |
| //" | //" | ||
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| CHAPTER XXV | CHAPTER XXV | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'BUT, thou wilt say, one must not give the same advice to the Lacedaemonians. That is true. For thou knewest not, O sophist, as in the case of Attica, what course the affairs of Sparta would take. Therefore thou wast afraid lest thou shouldest bid them flee, and then they should flee, and the enemy never invade them. | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'BUT, thou wilt say, one must not give the same advice to the Lacedaemonians. That is true. For thou knewest not, O sophist, as in the case of Attica, what course the affairs of Sparta would take. Therefore thou wast afraid lest thou shouldest bid them flee, and then they should flee, and the enemy never invade them. |
| 'Since therefore it was necessary to say something, this is what thou saidst to the Lacedaemonians: | 'Since therefore it was necessary to say something, this is what thou saidst to the Lacedaemonians: | ||
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| CHAPTER XXVI | CHAPTER XXVI | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'THE Cnidians also suffered something like this, when Harpagus made an expedition against them. For when they tried to cut through the Isthmus there and make their city an island, at first they stuck close to the work; but when they had to face the labour, they were for giving up and consulting the oracle. And thou saidst to them: | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'THE Cnidians also suffered something like this, when Harpagus made an expedition against them. For when they tried to cut through the Isthmus there and make their city an island, at first they stuck close to the work; but when they had to face the labour, they were for giving up and consulting the oracle. And thou saidst to them: |
| //" | //" | ||
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| CHAPTER XXVII | CHAPTER XXVII | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'WHEN wisdom is associated with divination she will review such answers as these, and will permit no random discourse, inasmuch as she makes all things sure by their moorings to herself, and assigns their degrees of precedence. Nor will she permit the Pythian prophet, in his folly, to prophecy either to these, or to the Lacedaemonians about the Messenians, and the land which the Messenians held after defeating the Lacedaemonians by a stratagem. | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'WHEN wisdom is associated with divination she will review such answers as these, and will permit no random discourse, inasmuch as she makes all things sure by their moorings to herself, and assigns their degrees of precedence. Nor will she permit the Pythian prophet, in his folly, to prophecy either to these, or to the Lacedaemonians about the Messenians, and the land which the Messenians held after defeating the Lacedaemonians by a stratagem. |
| //"Set not thy hand to deeds of war alone, | //"Set not thy hand to deeds of war alone, | ||
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| CHAPTER XXVIII | CHAPTER XXVIII | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'BUT when the precursor and model of Tyrtacus once came to thee, thou saidst he had come from hollow Laccdaemon, "a friend of Zeus and all who in Olympus dwell," | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'BUT when the precursor and model of Tyrtacus once came to thee, thou saidst he had come from hollow Laccdaemon, "a friend of Zeus and all who in Olympus dwell," |
| 'But, if he was a god, how was it that the " | 'But, if he was a god, how was it that the " | ||
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| CHAPTER XXIX | CHAPTER XXIX | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] 'THOU art ready to speak of marriage also: | + | [**OENOMAUS**] 'THOU art ready to speak of marriage also: |
| //" | //" | ||
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| CHAPTER XXXIII | CHAPTER XXXIII | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] | + | [**OENOMAUS**] |
| //'" | //'" | ||
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| BUT since this wonderful god by his own responses has deified not only poets but even boxers and athletes, the author before mentioned seems to me to pass an appropriate censure on this also in the following words: | BUT since this wonderful god by his own responses has deified not only poets but even boxers and athletes, the author before mentioned seems to me to pass an appropriate censure on this also in the following words: | ||
| - | [OENOMAUS] | + | [**OENOMAUS**] |
| //'O thou who knowest to number the sands and to measure the ocean | //'O thou who knowest to number the sands and to measure the ocean | ||
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| 'But as the top of the log was like a head (Apollo! what a strange contrivance!), | 'But as the top of the log was like a head (Apollo! what a strange contrivance!), | ||
| - | So far Oenomaus. But now, after what has been stated, pass again to The Philosophy to be derived from Oracles of the author who has made the compilation against us, and read from the responses of the Pythian god concerning Fate, and see whether it will not occur to you also that the account of the celebrated oracles is still more inconsistent with any divine power. </ | + | So far **Oenomaus**. But now, after what has been stated, pass again to The Philosophy to be derived from Oracles of the author who has made the compilation against us, and read from the responses of the Pythian god concerning Fate, and see whether it will not occur to you also that the account of the celebrated oracles is still more inconsistent with any divine power. |
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| + | [**OENOMAUS**] 13 'To think then that thou should' | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'But that is not likely nor just, if at least we may conjecture from these responses following: | ||
| + | |||
| + | //" | ||
| + | Sit thou still, with thy lance drawn inward, patiently watching."// | ||
| + | |||
| + | '" | ||
| + | |||
| + | //" | ||
| + | Forsake thy native Pelion, and seek | ||
| + | Euboea' | ||
| + | A sacred home. But haste, and tarry not."// | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'Is there then anything really dependent on man, O Apollo, and have I power to will to " | ||
| + | |||
| + | //" | ||
| + | I bid thee found in the Aerian isle | ||
| + | A city fair to view."// | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'Yes, surely' | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'I know not therefore whether thou sayest these things without knowing what thou sayest. But since we seem to be at leisure to hold even a long conversation, | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'Are we, I and thou, anything? You will say, Yes. But whence do we know this? Whereby did we determine that we do know it? Is it not the fact that nothing else is so satisfactory a proof (of our existence) as our conscious sensation and apprehension of ourselves? | ||
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| + | ' What again? How did we ever find out that we are animals ? And how that among animals we are, as I should say, men, and among men one an impostor, and another an exposer of impostors; but as thou would' | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'But how do we know that we are conversing at the present moment? What sayest thou? Did we not rightly judge our apprehension of ourselves by that which is most immediate, the fact itself? Evidently so. For we found nothing else either higher than it, or prior to it, or more trustworthy. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'For if this is not to be so, then let not hereafter one named Alcmaeon come to thee at Delphi, after he has slain his mother, and been driven from home, and is longing to return home. For he knows not either whether he himself is anything at all, nor whether he is driven from home, nor whether he is longing for home. But even if Alcmaeon is mad, and imagines things that do not exist, yet the Pythian god at least is not mad. And thou must not speak to him thus: | ||
| + | |||
| + | //"How to return to thy home thou seek' | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'For even thou knowest not yet whether any son of Amphiaraus is consulting thee, nor whether thou, the consulted, art anything at all, and able to answer concerning the matters on which he consults thee. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ' | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'For what Arcesilaus is, and what Epicurus, or what the Porch is, or what the young men, or what the Nobody, he neither knows nor can know; for he knows not even, what comes far earlier, whether he himself is anything. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'But neither will you gods nor Democritus endure that any one should talk thus: for there is no more trustworthy criterion than that of which I speak; nor if there seem to be any others, could they be made equal to this, or, if made equal, could not surpass it. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'So then, some one may say, since thou, O Democritus, and thou, O Chrysippus, and thou, O prophet, are indignant if any one should wish to deny your consciousness of yourselves----for of those many books of yours it is no longer possible to deny the existence----come, | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'How, pray? Is this self-consciousness to be the most trustworthy and primary evidence wherever it pleases you? but where it pleases you not, is there some occult power, Fate, or Destiny, to tyrannize over it?----a power having for each of you a different meaning, proceeding according to one from god, and according to another from those minute bodies which are carried down, and tossed up, and twirled round, and broken up, and separated, and combined by necessity? | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'For lo! the manner of our self-consciousness is the same in which we are also conscious of our voluntary or enforced actions. And we are not unconscious of the great difference between walking and being carried, or between choosing and being compelled. | ||
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| + | 'But do you ask the reasons for which I bring these matters into the discussion? Because thou, O prophet, hast failed to perceive things over which we have power, and thou that knowest all things seemest not to know these which are fast moored to our own will. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'And it was evident that this would be the source of no little trouble: for he who knows not the source, which was the cause of the consequences, | ||
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| + | ' | ||
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| + | 'For surely the most ridiculous of all things is this, the mixture and combination of the two notions, that there is something in men's own power, and that there is nevertheless a fixed chain of causation. For, as the wiser sort say, it is like the account in Euripides. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'For that Laius should choose to beget a child, was in the power of Laius himself, and this had escaped the notice of Apollo: but after he had begotten a son, there lay upon him an inevitable necessity of dying by his son's hand. In this way therefore the necessity dependent on the future event supplied to the prophet his presentiment of what would take place. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'But I suppose the son also, as well as the father, was master of his own will: and as the latter had the power of begetting or not, so the son had the power of slaying or not. Now this is the character of all your oracular answers: and this was that which the Apollo of Euripides said: | ||
| + | |||
| + | //"And all thy house shall wade through streams of blood:"// | ||
| + | |||
| + | ' | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'For if on the contrary Oedipus being his own master had not wished to reign, or, having wished and accomplished this, had not chosen to marry Jocasta, or after marrying had not been puffed up with pride, nor been desponding and disagreeable, | ||
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| + | 'In what way too could the events which followed these have taken place, if there were no causes existing before thou could' | ||
| + | |||
| + | //"How foolishly thou com'st thine home to sack;"// | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'or if, not this one, but the other had listened to those other Euripidean subtleties: | ||
| + | |||
| + | //"Are sun and night content to serve man's need, | ||
| + | And wilt thou bear no equal in the house?"// | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'how in any such case could they have joined battle, "and all the house of Laius waded through blood"? | ||
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| + | ' | ||
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| + | 'Yet thou wilt say that thou knowest the last links of the supposed case. Yes, but the whole case has been regulated by the force of our interruption of the chain. | ||
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| + | 'Or perhaps thou dost not understand what I mean? Yet in every supposed case, O prophet, there are the living beings often making either few or many fresh beginnings therein. And these beginnings having cut across the events preceding them always themselves bring others on: and these latter may proceed as long as no other beginning supervenes from any source, commanding the events which come after it to conform not to those which went before but to itself. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'Now such afresh beginning may be either an ass, or a dog, or a flea. For surely, by Apollo! thou wilt not rob even the flea of his free will: but the flea will act upon a certain impulse of his own, and being sometimes mixed up with human affairs will make himself the commencement of some new course; and thou art unconsciously consulting this kind of animal. | ||
| + | |||
| + | //" | ||
| + | Thou hast destroyed, O Locrian ; and on thee | ||
| + | Zeus hath sent curses, and shall yet send more."// | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'What sayest thou? Had it not then been destined by you gods to be destroyed? And why are we mortals to blame, and not that necessity of yours? Thou doest not justice, O Apollo, nor art right in laying the punishment upon us who do no wrong. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'And this Zeus of yours, I mean the necessity of your necessity, why does he take vengeance upon us, and not upon himself (if he must punish some one), for having shown the necessity to be of such a character? And why too does he threaten us? Or why, as if we were the masters of this event, do we suffer famine for it? Moreover it will either be rebuilt by us, or not; and whichever it may be, this has been fixed by fate. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'Cease therefore from thy wrath, O Zeus, the lord of famine: for that which has been destined will be, and that is what thy chain has been appointed to do: and we are nothing compared to it. And thou too cease, Apollo, from uttering vain oracles: for just that which will be, will be, even though thou keep silence. And what is to be done to us, O Zeus and Apollo, who are not at all the causes of your enactment of law, enactment, that is, of necessity. Or what have we to do with your threatened curses, which yourselves deserve to bear for what we were compelled by necessity to do? " | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'Why, Apollo, we are not " | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'And how is it, O Apollo, that thou praisest that famous Lycurgus, who was not virtuous either willingly or by choice, but unwillingly? | ||
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| + | 'For the wicked might justly say to you, You did not permit us, O ye gods, to become virtuous; and not only so, but you even forced us to be wicked. And as to the virtuous, if they walk about with their elbows stuck out, one will not permit it, but will say to them, O Chrysippus and Cleanthes and the rest of your band, since you have been made to be virtuous, I give praise to virtue, but no praise to you in whom virtue resides. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 'Nay, even Epicurus, against whom you, Chrysippus, so often railed, I acquit of the charges, so far at least as you can judge. For how is he to blame, who was not of his own accord luxurious or unjust, as you so often reproached him? | ||
| + | |||
| + | //" | ||
| + | And welcome holy offerings of the just."// | ||
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| + | 'Now it seems to me that you gods would not say this, unless you were persuaded that men seek the objects of their pursuit not involuntarily but with a will: and after what has been already proved, no sophist either divine or human will dare to say that whatever men will is ordained by fate: or else we shall no longer use reasoning with him, but take a stout strap, as for an unruly boy, and curry his ribs right well.' | ||
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| + | Thus did **Oenomaus** inveigh, against the soothsayer. And if you do not like this kind of argument, yet take and read the extracts from the other philosophers concerning fate, which are fit to overthrow not only the oracles that have already been quoted, but also generally all the other contrivances in defence of the dogma. | ||
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| + | For since not only unlearned and simple persons, but also many who prided themselves greatly upon education and philosophy, have e'er now been dragged into agreement with the dogma, I think it absolutely necessary to set forth the mutual contradictions of the philosophers themselves, for an accurate examination of the problem. First then I will quote for you from Diogenianus the arguments concerning fate, which he urged against Chrysippus as follows: | ||
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cynics/oenomaus_of_gadara.1334708583.txt.gz · Last modified: 2014/01/14 22:46 (external edit)