Plut. Mor., Oracles Ceasing 12 — Why the Oracles Cease to Give Answers

Plut. Mor., Oracles Ceasing 12 — Why the Oracles Cease to Give Answers, Plutarch; served verbatim

I have heard, says Cleombrotus, this alleged by several, and find that the Stoical conflagration hath intruded itself not only upon the works of Heraclitus and Orpheus, but also upon Hesiod’s, imposing such meanings on their words as they never thought of. But I cannot approve of the consummation of the world which they maintain, nor of the other impossible matters; and especially what they say about the crow and the stag would force us to believe in the most excessive numbers. Moreover, the year, containing in itself the beginning and end of all things which the seasons bring and the earth produces, may, in my opinion, be not impertinently called the age of man. For you yourselves confess that Hesiod does somewhere call the life of man γενεά (age). What say you, does he not? Which Demetrius confessing, he proceeded in this manner: It is also certain that we call the vessels whereby we measure things by the names of the things measured in them; as a pint, a quart, or a bushel. As we then call a unit a number, though it be but the least part and measure and the beginning of a number; so has he called a year the age of man, because it is the measure wherewith it is measured. As for those numbers which those others describe, they be not of such singularity and importance. But the sum of 9920 is thus composed. The four numbers arising in order from one, being added together and multiplied by four, amount to forty; this forty being tripled five times makes up the total of the forecited number. But as to that it is not necessary to enter into a debate with Demetrius; for whether it be a short or a long time, certain or uncertain, wherewith Hesiod limits the soul of a Daemon and the life of a Demi-god, either of those will prove, by ancient and evident testimonies, that there are natures neuter and mean, and as it were in the confines of the Gods and men, subject to mortal passions and necessary changes; which natures, according to the tradition and example of our predecessors, it is fitting we should call Daemons, giving them all due honor.

The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.

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Filed here — the addresses this episode attests; counted by the house’s first pass

Cleombrotus — a candidate entry Daemon — a candidate entry Demetrius — a life Heraclitus — a candidate entry Hesiod — a candidate entry Orpheus — a candidate entry

Why the Oracles Cease to Give Answers, Plutarch — translated by Robert Midgley (rev. W. W. Goodwin), 1874
Apparatus shelf + pinned Perseus TEI — Plutarch's Morals (the Moralia), ed. William W. Goodwin, five volumes · 'Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by William W. Goodwin, Ph. D.', with an introduction by R. W. Emerson; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874 (five volumes; a minority of the TEI transcriptions were keyed from the same publisher's 1878 reprint)
license: public-domain (US: the Goodwin edition is an 1874 Boston publication of a 1684-1694 translation — title pages verified on all five shelf scans at acquisition; Perseus digital editions CC BY-SA 4.0, attribution recorded per ops/corpus-staging/SOURCES.md pattern)