BOOK IV. VIII. 13-17
and then, if that be the case, blame his way of acting? But as it is, when you yourself are behaving decently, you say, on the basis of the evil that he seems to you to be doing, "Look at the philosopher," just as though it were proper to call a man who acts like that a philosopher; and again, "Is that what a philosopher is?" But you do not say, "Look at the carpenter," when you know that a man is an adulterer, or see a man eating greedily, nor do you say, under similar circumstances, "Look at the musician." Thus to a certain degree you too realize what the philosopher's profession is, but you backslide and get confused through carelessness.
15But even those who are styled philosophers pursue their calling with means which are sometimes good and sometimes bad. For example, when they have taken a rough cloak and let their beards grow, they say, "I am a philosopher." But nobody will say, "I am a musician," if he buys a plectrum and a cithara; nor, "I am a smith," if he puts on a felt cap and an apron; but the guise is fitted to the art, and they get their name from the art, but not from the guise. That is why Euphrates[1] was right when he used to say: "For a long time I tried not to let people know that I was a philosopher, and this," he says, "was useful to me. For, in the first place, I knew that whatever I did well, I did so, not on account of the spectators, but on my own account; it was for my own sake that I ate well, and kept my countenance
- ↑ See on III. 15, 8, and compare for the uncertainty in men's minds how to classify Euphrates, Apollonius of Tyana, Epistles, 1.
