Immortality in Athens. Unamuno, Life 3.12

Unamuno finds intellectuals willing to discuss many things. Immortality, curiously, is not one of them. Why not?

Cuenta el libro de los Hechos de los Apóstoles que adonde quiera que fuese Pablo se concitaban contra él los celosos judíos para perseguirle. Apedreáronle en Iconio y en Listra, ciudades de Licaonia, a pesar de las maravillas que en la última obró; le azotaron en Filipos de Macedonia y le persiguieron sus hermanos de raza en Tesalónica y en Berea. Pero llegó a Atenas, a la noble ciudad de los intelectuales, sobre la que velaba el alma excelsa de Platón, el de la hermosura del riesgo de ser inmortal, y allí disputó Pablo con epicúreos y estoicos, que decían de él, o bien: ¿qué quiere decir este charlatán (σπερμολόγος)? o bien: ¡parece que es predicador de nuevos dioses! (Hechos, XVII, 18), y «tomándole le llevaron al Areópago, diciendo: ¿podremos saber qué sea esta nueva doctrina que dices?, porque traes a nuestros oídos cosas peregrinas, y queremos saber qué quiere ser eso» (versículos 19-20), añadiendo el libro esta maravillosa caracterización de aquellos atenienses de la decadencia, de aquellos lamineros y golosos de curiosidades, pues «entonces los atenienses todos y sus huéspedes extranjeros no se ocupaban en otra cosa sino en decir o en oir algo de más nuevo» (v. 21). ¡Rasgo maravilloso, que nos pinta a qué habían venido a parar los que aprendieron en la Odisea que los dioses traman y cumplen la destrucción de los mortales para que los venideros tengan algo que contar!

Ya está, pues, Pablo ante los refinados atenienses, ante los graeculos, los hombres cultos y tolerantes que admiten toda doctrina, toda la estudian y a nadie apedrean ni azotan ni encarcelan por profesar estas o las otras, ya está donde se respeta la libertad de conciencia y se oye y se escucha todo parecer. Y alza la voz allí, en medio del Areópago, y les habla como cumplía a los cultos ciudadanos de Atenas, y todos, ansiosos de la última novedad, le oyen; mas cuando llega a hablarles de la resurrección de los muertos, se les acaba la paciencia y la tolerancia, y unos se burlan de él y otros le dicen: «¡ya oiremos otra vez de esto!», con propósito de no oirle. Y una cosa parecida le ocurrió en Cesarea con el pretor romano Félix, hombre también tolerante y culto, que le alivió de la pesadumbre de su prisión, y quiso oirle y le oyó disertar de la justicia y de la continencia; mas al llegar al juicio venidero, le dijo espantado (ἔμφοβος γενομένος): ¡Ahora vete, que te volveré a llamar cuando cuadre! (Hechos, XXIV, 22-25.) Y cuando hablaba ante el rey Agripa, al oirle Festo, el gobernador, decir de resurrección de muertos exclamó: «Estás loco, Pablo; las muchas letras te han vuelto loco». (Hechos XXVI, 24.)

Sea lo que fuere de la verdad del discurso de Pablo en el Areópago, y aun cuando no lo hubiere habido, es lo cierto que en ese relato admirable se ve hasta dónde llega la tolerancia ática y dónde acaba la paciencia de los intelectuales. Os oyen todos en calma, y sonrientes, y a las veces os animan diciéndoos: ¡es curioso! o bien: ¡tiene ingenio! o ¡es sugestivo! o ¡qué hermosura! o ¡lástima que no sea verdad tanta belleza! o ¡eso hace pensar!; pero así que les habláis de resurrección y de vida allende la muerte, se les acaba la paciencia y os atajan la palabra diciéndoos: ¡déjalo! ¡otro día hablarás de esto!; y es de esto, mis pobres atenienses, mis intolerantes intelectuales, es de esto de lo que voy a hablaros aquí.

Y aun si esa creencia fuese absurda, ¿por qué se tolera menos el que se les exponga que otras muchas más absurdas aún? ¿Por qué esa evidente hostilidad a tal creencia? ¿Es miedo? ¿Es acaso pesar de no poder compartirla?

The book of Acts recounts that wherever the apostle Paul went, zealous Jews roused themselves against him, stirring up persecution. They stoned him in Iconium and Lystra (†), cities of Lycaonia, in spite of the miracles he wrought in the latter. They whipped him in Philippi of Macedon, and persecuted him in Thessalonica and Berea. But still he came to Athens (‡), the noble city of the intellectuals, over which the exalted soul of Plato watched—Plato, who found beauty in the risk of immortality—and there Paul disputed with Epicureans and Stoics. The philosophers had things to say about him: "What is this charlatan (seed-picker or gossip in Greek) saying?" or "It seems that he is preaching something about new gods!" (Acts 17.18). And so, "taking him with them, they brought him to the hill of Ares (*), saying, 'Can we know more about this new doctrine you mention? For you bring strange news to our ears, and we want to know what it means'" (verses 19-20). The book here adds some delightful color describing these decadent Athenians, greedy to sate their curiosity: "For at that time all the Athenians and their foreign guests were constantly occupied in saying or listening to some new thing" (verse 21). A remarkable passage, which shows vividly the final resting place of those who learned from Homer's Odyssey (⁑) that the gods plot and carry out the destruction of mortals so that those who come after them may have stories to tell!

So Paul arrives to stand before the refined Athenians—the dear little Greeks, as Romans called them: tolerant and cultured men who admit any and all doctrine, study everything, and threaten nobody with stones or whips or prisons for holding one idea rather than another. At last he is in a place where liberty of conscience is respected, where any opinion can find a hearing. So he raises his voice here, in the midst of Ares' court, and addresses them in a fashion befitting citizens of Athens. They listen to him, anxious to lay hold of the latest novelty, but when he begins to discuss the resurrection of the dead, their patience and tolerance give out. Some mock him, while others beg off: "We will listen to this another time!" they say, with no intention of listening. Paul met a similar reception in Cesarea (⸸), from the Roman praetor Felix, another cultured and tolerant man, who saved the apostle from prison, asked to hear him, and listened to him speak about justice and continence. But when he arrived at the subject of final judgment, Felix cut him off in fear (becoming terrified, in Greek): "Get out! I will summon you when you are required" (Acts 24.22-25). And once again, as Paul was speaking before king Agrippa, when the governor Festus heard him mention the resurrection of the dead, he exclaimed, "Paul, you're crazy! Too much book-learning has driven you mad!" (Acts 26.24). 

Whatever the truth about Paul's speech on the hill of Ares, whether it even happened or not, our admirable account of it shows the extent of Attic tolerance, the limits of the patience of intellectuals. They hear you calmly, with a smile, and occasionally encourage you. "How curious!" they say. "What wit!" "That's interesting!" "How lovely!" "What a pity such beauty lacks truth!" "There's some food for thought!" But the moment you speak to them of resurrection or another life beyond death, their patience ends, and they cut you off. "Leave that! You'll discuss that another day!" Today is that day, my poor Athenians. Today I shall discuss this matter with you, intolerant intellectuals though you be.

And even if we grant that belief in immortality is absurd, why should we extend to it less tolerance than we offer to other beliefs even more ridiculous? Why the evident hostility to this particular belief? Is it fear? Is it perchance sadness, arising from inability to share the belief?

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(†) Ancient cities located in central Anatolia. Today the city Konya still stands, in modern Turkey, but its neighbor Lystra has not survived the ravages of time. The region known to Greeks and Romans as Lycaonia may derive its name from an old Anatolian toponym Lukkawanna, meaning "land of the Lukka folk." This region is historically high mesa: dry and inhospitable, though fertile if irrigated, and it naturally provided enough provender for wild asses and sheep. Its inhabitants were independent, resisting the rule of law and speaking their own languages (including eventually a unique form of Greek, which became prevalent after many converted to Christianity). Acts 14.8-10 recounts that Paul commanded a cripple in Lystra to walk; he did, and folk responded by hailing Paul as Hermes, and his fellow traveler Barnabas as Zeus. It was common in antiquity to identify strangers with gods: compare the legend recounted in Genesis 18-19.

(‡) Paul's journey took him along urban trade-routes, heading north from Anatolia to the land of Macedon, homeland of Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE), who was already becoming ancient in Paul's time (the first century CE). There he visited the cities of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea, before heading south to Athens. Philippi was originally a Thasian colony, founded by immigrants from that island in the fourth century BCE; it was conquered and renamed in 356 BCE by Philip II of Macedon, Alexander's father, who wanted to control northern trade routes and the local gold-mines. Thessalonica was founded in 315 BCE by Cassander, one of the diadochs or successors of Alexander, who named it after his wife, Thessalonike, Alexander's half-sister. Her name means "Thessalian victory" in Greek and commemorates Philip II's victory over that tribe at the battle of Crocus Field (353/2 BCE). That victory made him king of Thessaly, paving the way for Alexander's inheritance of power sufficient to dominate the Persians. When the Romans conquered the region in 148 BCE, they made Thessalonica capital of the first province of Macedonia, and it has remained prominent, strategically and culturally, ever since (cf. its role in the first World War). Berea (modern Veria) lies inland and south relative to Thessalonica and Philippi. It was founded early: myth makes its founder Beres the son of Macedon, a son of Zeus who gave his name to the land he ruled. In the kingdom inherited by Alexander, it was the second most important city, after the capital Pella. Athens lies far to the south of Macedon, in Attica, which connects continental Europe to the Peloponnesus. Its foundation lies far in the past. Ancient historians inherited myths that made the first Athenians offspring of the local earth, autochthones, and modern research has found evidence of human habitation there (in the cave of Schist, on the slopes of Mount Egaleo) going back as far as the period between the 11th and 7th millennia BCE (11,000 to 7000 years before Paul, roughly speaking). Its political power reached apogee in the fifth century BCE, when it vied with Sparta for control of the Greek world in the eastern Mediterranean. While that bid for dominance ultimately failed, the city retained significant cultural importance to subsequent regimes, who admired especially the schools it produced in the tradition of Plato's Academy (founded c. 387 BCE).

(*) The hill of Ares was a large rock north and west of the Athenian acropolis (the highest part of the city, fortified as a citadel and famous for the Parthenon, its most prominent building). Elders who had served in positions of significant public power met here in council to hear and decide various difficult cases, notably those involving murder but also, by Paul's time, some that involved moral corruption. Most famous among these, before Paul, was perhaps the courtesan Phryne or Mnesarete, who was narrowly acquitted of the charge that she profaned the Eleusinian mysteries (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 13.59; Plutarch, Vitae decem oratorum 849d-e). Legend recounts that the council took pity on her after she bared her breasts; Paul was not so immediately persuasive.

(⁑) This epic poem recounts the tale of Odysseus, one of the Greek heroes of the Trojan War. In the story, most of the characters die, and this dire outcome is often a result of divine connivance.

(⸸) A city on the Palestinian coast, built by king Herod the Great in the last century BCE. By Paul's time, it served as capital of the Roman province of Judaea.