Volume I Part 24 (2/2)

602 The saying of Mme. Dudeffand about Helvetius is well known: ”C'est un homme qui a dit le secret de tout le monde.” How truly Helvetius represented this fas.h.i.+onable society appears very plainly from the vivid portrait of it in the _Nouvelle Helose_, part ii. letter xvii., a masterpiece of its kind.

603 Musonius tried to stop this custom of applauding the lecturer. (Aul.

Gell. _Noct._ v. i.) The habits that were formed in the schools of the rhetoricians were sometimes carried into the churches, and we have notices of preachers (especially St. Chrysostom) being vociferously applauded.

604 Thus Gellius himself consulted Favorinus about a perplexing case which he had, in his capacity of magistrate, to determine, and received from his master a long dissertation on the duties of a judge (xiv. 2).

605 i. 10.

_ 606 Noct. Att._ vi. 13. They called these questions _symposiacae_, as being well fitted to stimulate minds already mellowed by wine.

607 xviii. 2.

608 We have a curious example of this in a letter of Marcus Aurelius preserved by Gallica.n.u.s in his _Life of Avidius Ca.s.sius_.

609 ”Senserunt hoc Stoici qui servis et mulieribus philosophandum esse dixerunt.”-Lact. _Nat. Div._ iii. 25. Zeno was often reproached for gathering the poorest and most sordid around him when he lectured.

(Diog. Laert. _Zeno_.)

610 This decadence was noticed and rebuked by some of the leading philosophers. See the language of Epictetus in Arrian, ii. 19, iv.

8, and of Herod Atticus in Aul. Gell. i. 2, ix. 2. St. Augustine speaks of the Cynics as having in his time sunk into universal contempt. See much evidence on this subject in Friedlaender, _Hist.

des Murs Romaines_, tome iv. 378-385.

611 This movement is well treated by Vacherot, _Hist. de l'ecole d'Alexandrie_.

_ 612 De Superst.i.tione._

_ 613 Dissertations_, x. -- 8 (ed. Davis, London, 1740). In some editions this is _Diss._ xxix.

_ 614 Dissert._ x.x.xviii.

_ 615 De Daemone Socratis._

_ 616 De Daemone Socratis._ See, on the office of daemons or genii, Arrian i. 14, and a curious chapter in Ammia.n.u.s Marcell. xxi. 14. See, too, Plotinus, 3rd _Enn._ lib. iv.

_ 617 De Daemone Socratis._

618 I should except Plotinus, however, who was faithful in this point to Plato, and was in consequence much praised by the Christian Fathers.

619 ”Omnium malorum maximum voluptas, qua tanquam clavo et fibula anima corpori nect.i.tur; putatque vera quae et corpus suadet, et ita spoliatur rerum divinarum aspectu.”-Iamblichus, _De Secta Pythagor._ (Romae, 1556), p. 38. Plotinus, 1st _Enn._ vi. 6.

_ 620 De Sect. Pyth._ pp. 36, 37.

621 Porphyry, _Life of Plotinus_.

622 Iamblichus, _De Mysteriis._ 1.

623 See, on this doctrine of ecstasy, Vacherot, _Hist. de l'ecole d'Alexandrie_, tome i. p. 576, &c.

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