“I don’t understand,” said Constantine. “Lucian says this man Alexander was a fraud, a deceiver, but it sounds as if he thinks that Delphi and the rest of the oracles are just as bad.”
“You must take the statement in context,” Atticus said soothingly. “It is true that Lucian was one of the leading Sophists of the last century, and naturally prefers to base his conclusions on reason rather than superstition, but what has aroused his ire in this essay is the fact that Alexander intentionally set out to trick people, pretending to discover the snake in the egg, and substituting another, big one, with its head hidden by a mask in the ritual. Then he told everyone it was Aesclepius reborn and said it gave him the oracles that he had written himself. But it is true that he sent clients to the great shrines to keep the priests from denouncing him.”
I remembered now hearing something of the story. Alexander had been quite famous at one time, and Lucian had not only written about him, but actively tried to unmask him as well.
“Do you mean to tell me that none of the oracles are true?” Constantine said suspiciously.
“No, no—my point is that you must learn critical thinking, so that you will be able to judge for yourself whether something is reasonable, rather than accepting blindly what you are told,” Atticus responded.
I nodded: that was more or less what we had been taught at Avalon. It was as foolish to deny that oracles could be faked as to blindly believe in them.
“That doesn’t make sense,” protested Constantine. “Those who are wise should decide what is true and be done with it.”
“Ought not every man be allowed to decide for himself?” Atticus said reasonably. “Learning how to think should be a part of everyone’s education, just as everyone must learn to care for a horse or use numbers.”
“For simple things, yes,” answered Constantine. “But when the horse falls sick you call in a healer and you employ a mathematicus for higher computations. Surely in the realm of the holy, which is so much more important, it should be the same.”
“Very good, Constantine, but consider this—the flesh is tangible, and its ills can be perceived by the senses. Numbers are symbolic of items that can be physically counted, and they are always and everywhere the same. But each man experiences the world differently. His nativity is ruled by different stars, and he has a unique history… Is it so unreasonable to allow him his own perception of the gods? This world is so rich and varied—surely we need myriad ways to understand it. Thus, there are the Sophists, who doubt everything, and the followers of Plato, who believe that only archetypes are real, the mystical Pythagoreans and the Aristotelian logicians. Each philosophy gives us a different tool with which to understand the world.”
“But the world stays the same,” objected Constantine, “and so do the gods!”
“Do they?” Atticus sounded amused. He had been sold into slavery by his uncle, and I suspected he found it more comfortable to believe in no gods at all. “How then, do we reconcile all the stories about them, or the claims of all the different cults, each of which declares that its deity is supreme?”
“We find out which is the most powerful, and teach everyone how to worship Him,” Constantine said forthrightly.
I shook my head. How simple it all seemed to a child. When I was his age, there had been no truth but that of Avalon.
“Come now,” Atticus was replying, “even the Jews, whose god permits them to worship no other, do not pretend the other gods do not exist.”
“My father is beloved of the greatest of gods whose face is the sun, and if I prove worthy, He will extend that blessing to me.”
I lifted an eyebrow. I knew that Constantine had been impressed by the solar cult of Dalmatia, to which most of the officers Constantius had served with belonged, but I did not realize how far his attempt to model himself on his father had gone. I must find some way to teach him about the Goddess as well.