{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39092/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39092","id":"gutenberg_39092","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39092","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Ancient","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity and other religions","Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600","Rome -- Religion"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Cover art]\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE\n\nCONFLICT OF RELIGIONS\n\nIN THE\n\nEARLY ROMAN EMPIRE\n\n\n\nBY\n\nT. R. GLOVER\n\n\n  FELLOW AND CLASSICAL LECTURER OF\n  ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE\n  HON. LL.D., QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, CANADA\n\n\n\n\nFOURTH EDITION\n\n\n\n\nMETHUEN & CO. LTD.\n\n36 ESSEX STREET W.C.\n\nLONDON\n\n\n\n\n  First Published . . March 18th, 1909\n  Second Edition  . . June 1909\n  Third Edition   . . August 1909\n  Fourth Edition  . . October 1910\n\n\n\n\nBY THE SAME AUTHOR\n\n\nLIFE AND LETTERS IN THE FOURTH CENTURY\n\nSTUDIES IN VIRGIL\n\n\n\n\n{v}\n\nPREFACE\n\nA large part of this book formed the course of Dale Lectures delivered\nin Mansfield College, Oxford, in the Spring of 1907.  For the\nlecture-room the chapters had to be considerably abridged; they are now\nrestored to their full length, while revision and addition have further\nchanged their character.  They are published in accordance with the\nterms of the Dale foundation.\n\nTo see the Founder of the Christian movement and some of his followers\nas they appeared among their contemporaries; to represent Christian and\npagan with equal goodwill and equal honesty, and in one perspective; to\nrecapture something of the colour and movement of life, using\nimagination to interpret the data, and controlling it by them; to\nfollow the conflict of ideals, not in the abstract, but as they show\nthemselves in character and personality; and in this way to discover\nwhere lay the living force that changed the thoughts and lives of men,\nand what it was; these have been the aims of the writer,--impossible,\nbut worth attempting.  So far as they have been achieved, the book is\nrelevant to the reader.\n\nThe work of others has made the task lighter.  German scholars, such as\nBousset, von Dobschuetz, Harnack, Pfleiderer and Wernle; Professor F. C.\nBurkitt and others nearer home who have written of the beginnings of\nChristianity; Boissier, Martha and Professor Samuel Dill; Edward Caird,\nLecky, and Zeller; with the authors of monographs, Croiset, de Faye,\nGreard, Koziol, Oakesmith, Volkmann; these and others have been laid\nunder contribution.  In another way Dr Wilhelm Herrmann, of Marburg,\nand Thomas Carlyle have helped the {vi} book.  The references to\nancient authorities are mostly of the writer's own gathering, and they\nhave been verified.\n\nLastly, there are friends to thank, at Cambridge and at Woodbrooke, for\nthe services that only friends can render--suggestion, criticism,\napproval, correction, and all the other kindly forms of encouragement\nand enlightenment.\n\nST JOHN'S COLLEGE,\n  CAMBRIDGE,\n    _February 1909_.\n\n\n\n\n{vii}\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAP.                                             PAGE\n\n    I. ROMAN RELIGION  . . . . . . . . . . . . .     1\n   II. THE STOICS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    33\n  III. PLUTARCH  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    75\n   IV. JESUS OF NAZARETH . . . . . . . . . . . .   113\n    V. THE FOLLOWERS OF JESUS  . . . . . . . . .   141\n   VI. THE CONFLICT OF CHRISTIAN AND JEW . . . .   167\n  VII. \"GODS OR ATOMS?\"  . . . . . . . . . . . .   196\n VIII. CELSUS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   239\n   IX. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA . . . . . . . . . .   262\n    X. TERTULLIAN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   305\n       INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   349\n\n\n\n\n{1}\n\n  THE CONFLICT OF RELIGIONS\n  IN THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nROMAN RELIGION\n\nOn the Ides of March in the year 44 B.C. Julius Caesar lay dead at the\nfoot of Pompey's statue.  His body had twenty three wounds.  So far the\nconspirators had done their work thoroughly, and no farther.  They had\nmade no preparation for the government of the Roman world.  They had\nnot realized that they were removing the great organizing intelligence\nwhich stood between the world and chaos, and back into chaos the world\nswiftly rolled.  They had hated personal government; they were to learn\nthat the only alternative was no government at all.  \"Be your own\nSenate yourself\"[1] wrote Cicero to Plancus in despair.  There was war,\nthere were faction fights, massacres, confiscations, conscriptions.\nThe enemies of Rome came over her borders, and brigandage flourished\nwithin them.\n\nAt the end of his first _Georgic_ Virgil prays for the triumph of the\none hope which the world saw--for the preservation and the rule of the\nyoung Caesar, and he sums up in a few lines the horror from which\nmankind seeks to be delivered.  \"Right and wrong are confounded; so\nmany wars the world over, so many forms of wrong; no worthy honour is\nleft to the plough; the husbandmen are marched away and the fields grow\ndirty; the hook has its curve straightened into the sword-blade.  In\nthe East, Euphrates is stirring up war, in the West, Germany: nay,\nclose-neighbouring cities break their mutual league and draw the sword,\nand the war-god's unnatural fury rages over the whole world; even as\nwhen in the Circus the chariots burst {2} from their floodgates, they\ndash into the course, and pulling desperately at the reins the driver\nlets the horses drive him, and the car is deaf to the curb.\"[2]\n\nVirgil's hope that Octavian might be spared to give peace to the world\nwas realized.  The foreign enemies were driven over their frontiers and\nthoroughly cowed; brigandage was crushed, and finally, with the fall of\nAntony and Cleopatra, the government of the whole world was once more,\nafter thirteen years of suffering, disorder and death, safely gathered\ninto the hands of one man.  There was peace at last and Rome had\nleisure to think out the experience through which she had passed.\n\nThe thirteen years between the murder of Caesar and the battle of Actium\nwere only a part of that experience; for a century there had been\ncontinuous disintegration in the State.  The empire had been increased,\nbut the imperial people had declined.  There had been civil war in Rome\nover and over again--murder employed as a common resource of politics,\nreckless disregard of the sacredness of life and property, and thorough\ncarelessness of the State.  The impression that England made upon\nWordsworth in 1802 was precisely that left upon the mind of the serious\nRoman when he reflected upon his country.  All was \"rapine, avarice,\nexpense.\"\n\n  Plain living and high thinking are no more:\n  The homely beauty of the good old cause\n  Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,\n  And pure religion breathing household laws.\n\n\nSuch complaints, real or conventional, are familiar to the readers of\nthe literature of the last century before Christ.  Everyone felt that a\nprofound change had come over Rome.  Attempts had been made in various\nways to remedy this change; laws had been passed; citizens had been\nbanished and murdered; armies had been called in to restore ancient\nprinciples; and all had resulted in failure.  Finally a gleam of\nrestoration was seen when Julius began to set things in order, when he\n\"corrected the year by the Sun\" and gave promise of as true and\ndeep-going a correction of everything else.  His murder put an end to\nall this at the time, and it took thirteen years to regain the lost\nopportunity--and the years were not {3} altogether loss for they proved\nconclusively that there was now no alternative to the rule of the\n\"Prince.\"\n\n[Sidenote: The cause of Rome's decline]\n\nAccordingly the Prince set himself to discover what was to be done to\nheal the hurt of his people, and to heal it thoroughly.  What was the\nreal disease? was the question that men asked; where was the root of\nall the evil? why was it that in old days men were honest, governed\nthemselves firmly, knew how to obey, and served the State?  A famous\nline of Ennius, written two centuries before, said that the Roman\nCommonwealth stood on ancient character, and on men.--\n\n  _Moribus antiquis stat res Romano, virisque._\n\nBoth these bases of the national life seemed to be lost--were they\nbeyond recall? could they be restored?  What was it that had made the\n\"ancient character\"?  What was the ultimate difference between the old\nRoman and the Roman of the days of Antony and Octavian?  Ovid\ncongratulated himself on the perfect congruity of the age and his\npersonal character--\n\n  _haec aetas moribus apta meis--_\n\nand he was quite right.  And precisely in the measure that Ovid was\nright in finding the age and his character in agreement, the age and\nnational character were demonstrably degenerate.  It was the great\nquestion before the nation, its statesmen, patriots and poets, to find\nwhy two hundred years had wrought such a change.\n\nIt was not long before an answer was suggested.  A reason was found,\nwhich had a history of its own.  The decline had been foreseen.  We are\nfortunately in possession of a forecast by a Greek thinker of the\nsecond century B.C., who knew Rome well--Polybius, the intimate of the\nyounger Scipio.  In the course of his great summary of the Rome he\nknew, when he is explaining her actual and future greatness to the\nGreek world, he says:--\"The most important difference for the better,\nwhich the Roman Commonwealth appears to me to display, is in their\nreligious beliefs, for I conceive that what in other nations is looked\nupon as a reproach, I mean a scrupulous fear of the gods, is the very\nthing which keeps the Roman Commonwealth together; (_synechein ta\nrhomaion praumata_).  To such an extraordinary height is this carried\namong them (_ektetragoetai {4} kai pareisektai_) both in private and\npublic business, that nothing could exceed it.  Many people might think\nthis unaccountable, but in my opinion their object is to use it as a\ncheck upon the common people.  If it were possible to form a state\nwholly of philosophers, such a custom would perhaps be unnecessary.\nBut seeing that every multitude is fickle and full of lawless desires,\nunreasoning anger and violent passion, the only resource is to keep\nthem in check by mysterious terrors and scenic effects of this sort\n(_tois adelois phobois kai te toiaute tragodia_).  Wherefore, to my\nmind, the ancients were not acting without purpose or at random, when\nthey brought in among the vulgar those opinions about the gods and the\nbelief in the punishments in Hades: much rather do I think that men\nnowadays are acting rashly and foolishly in rejecting them.  This is\nthe reason why, apart from anything else, Greek statesmen, if entrusted\nwith a single talent, though protected by ten checking-clerks, as many\nseals and twice as many witnesses, yet cannot be induced to keep faith;\nwhereas among the Romans, in their magistracies and embassies, men have\nthe handling of a great amount of money, and yet from pure respect to\ntheir oath keep their faith intact.\"[3]  Later on Polybius limits his\nassertion of Roman honesty to \"the majority\"--the habits and principles\nof Rome were beginning to be contaminated.[4]\n\n[Sidenote: The political value of religion]\n\nThis view of the value of religion is an old one among the Greeks.\nCritias, the friend of Socrates, embodied it in verses, which are\npreserved for us by Sextus Empiricus.  In summary he holds that there\nwas a time when men's life knew no order, but at last laws were\nordained to punish; and the laws kept men from open misdeeds, \"but they\ndid many things in secret; and then, I think, some shrewd and wise man\ninvented a terror for the evil in case secretly they should do or say\nor think aught.  So he introduced the divine, alleging that there is a\ndivinity (_daimon_), blest with eternal life, who with his mind sees\nand hears, thinks, and marks these things, and bears a divine nature,\nwho will hear all that is said among men and can see all that is done,\nand though in silence thou plan some evil, yet this shall not escape\nthe gods.\"  This was a most pleasant {5} lesson which he introduced,\n\"with a false reason covering truth\"; and he said the gods abode in\nthat region whence thunder and lightning and rain come, and so \"he\nquenched lawlessness with laws.\"[5]\n\nThis was a shallow judgement upon religion.  That \"it utterly abolished\nreligion altogether\" was the criticism of Cicero's Academic.[6]  But\nmost of the contemporary views of the origin of religion were shallow.\nEuhemerism with its deified men, and inspiration with its distraught\nvotaries were perhaps nobler, a little nobler, but in reality there was\nlittle respect for religion among the philosophic.  But the practical\npeople of the day accepted the view of Critias as wise enough.  \"The\nmyths that are told of affairs in Hades, though pure invention at\nbottom, contribute to make men pious and upright,\" wrote the Sicilian\nDiodorus at this very time.[7]  Varro[8] divided religion into three\nvarieties, mythical, physical (on which the less said in public, he\nowned, the better) and \"civil,\" and he pronounced the last the best\nadapted for national purposes, as it consisted in knowing what gods\nstate and citizen should worship and with what rites.  \"It is the\ninterest,\" he said, \"of states to be deceived in religion.\"\n\nSo the great question narrowed itself to this:--Was it possible for\nanother shrewd and wise man to do again for Rome what the original\ninventor of religion had done for mankind? once more to establish\neffective gods to do the work of police?  Augustus endeavoured to show\nthat it was still possible.\n\nOn the famous monument of Ancyra, which preserves for us the Emperor's\nofficial autobiography, he enumerates the temples he built--temples in\nhonour of Apollo, of Julius, of Quirinus, of Juppiter Feretrius, of\nJove the Thunderer, of Minerva, of the Queen Juno, of Juppiter\nLiberalis, of the Lares, of the Penates, of Youth, of the Great Mother,\nand the shrine known as the Lupercal; he tells how he dedicated vast\nsums from his spoils, how he restored to the temples of Asia the\nornaments of which they had been robbed, and how he {6} became Pontifex\nMaximus, after patiently waiting for Lepidus to vacate the office by a\nnatural death.  His biographer Suetonius tells of his care for the\nSibylline books, of his increasing the numbers, dignities and\nallowances of the priests, and his especial regard for the Vestal\nVirgins, of his restoration of ancient ceremonies, of his celebration\nof festivals and holy days, and of his discrimination among foreign\nreligions, his regard for the Athenian mysteries and his contempt for\nEgyptian Apis.[9]  His private feelings and instincts had a tinge of\nsuperstition.  He used a sealskin as a protection against thunder; he\ncarefully studied his dreams, was \"much moved by portents,\" and\n\"observed days.\"[10]\n\n[Sidenote: Rome's debt to the gods]\n\nThe most lasting monument (_aere perennius_) of the restoration of\nreligion by Augustus consists of the odes which Horace wrote to forward\nthe plans of the Emperor.  They were very different men, but it is not\nunreasonable to hold that Horace felt no less than Augustus that there\nwas something wrong with the state.  His personal attitude to religion\nwas his own affair, and to it we shall have to return, but in grave and\ndignified odes, which he gave to the world, he lent himself to the\ncause of reformation.  He deplored the reckless luxury of the day with\nmuch appearance of earnestness, and, though in his published\ncollections, these poems of lament are interleaved with others whose\nburden is _sparge rosas_, he was serious in some degree; for his own\ntaste, at least when he came within sight of middle life, was all for\nmoderation.  He spoke gravely of the effect upon the race of its\ndisregard of all the virtues necessary for the continuance of a\nsociety.  Like other poets of the day, he found Utopias in distant ages\nand remote lands.  His idealized picture of the blessedness of savage\nlife is not unlike Rousseau's, and in both cases the inspiration was\nthe same--discontent with an environment complicated, extravagant and\ncorrupt.\n\n  Better with nomad Scythians roam,\n  Whose travelling cart is all their home,\n  Or where the ruder Getae spread\n  From steppes unmeasured raise their bread.\n\n{7}\n\n  There with a single year content\n  The tiller shifts his tenement;\n  Another, when that labour ends,\n  To the self-same condition bends.\n\n  The simple step-dame there will bless\n  With care the children motherless:\n  No wife by wealth command procures,\n  None heeds the sleek adulterer's lures.[11]\n\n\nOther poets also imagined Golden Ages of quiet ease and idleness, but\nthe conclusion which Horace drew was more robust.  He appealed to the\nEmperor for laws, and effective laws, to correct the \"unreined license\"\nof the day, and though his poem declines into declamation of a very\nidle kind about \"useless gold,\" as his poems are apt to decline on the\nfirst hint of rhetoric, the practical suggestion was not rhetorical--it\nwas perhaps the purpose of the piece.  In another famous poem, the last\nof a sequence of six, all dedicated to the higher life of Rome and all\nreaching an elevation not often attained by his odes, he points more\nclearly to the decline of religion as the cause of Rome's\nmisfortunes.[12]\n\nThe idea that Rome's Empire was the outcome of her piety was not first\nstruck out by Horace.  Cicero uses it in one of his public speeches\nwith effect and puts it into the mouth of his Stoic in the work on the\nNature of the Gods.[13]  Later on, one after another of the Latin\nApologists for Christianity, from Tertullian[14] to Prudentius, has to\ncombat the same idea.  It was evidently popular, and the appeal to the\nruined shrine and the neglected image touched--or was supposed to\ntouch--the popular imagination.\n\nMankind are apt to look twice at the piety of a ruler, and the old\nquestion of Satan comes easily, \"Doth Job serve God for naught?\"  Why\ndoes an Emperor wish to be called \"the eldest son of the church?\"  We\nmay be fairly sure in the case of Augustus that, if popular sentiment\nhad been strongly against {8} the restoration of religion, he would\nhave said less about it.  We have to go behind the Emperor and Horace\nto discover how the matter really stood between religion and the Roman\npeople.\n\nWe may first of all remark that, just as the French Revolution was in\nsome sense the parent of the Romantic movement, the disintegration of\nthe old Roman life was accompanied by the rise of antiquarianism.\nCicero's was the last generation that learnt the Twelve Tables by heart\nat school _ut carmen necessarium_; and Varro, Cicero's contemporary,\nwas the first and perhaps the greatest of all Roman antiquaries.  So at\nleast St Augustine held.  Sixteen of his forty-one books of Antiquities\nVarro gave to the gods, for \"he says he was afraid they would perish,\nnot by any hostile invasion, but by the neglect of the Roman citizens,\nand from this he says they were rescued by himself, as from a fallen\nhouse, and safely stored and preserved in the memory of good men by\nbooks like his; and that his care for this was of more service than\nthat which Metellus is said to have shown in rescuing the sacred\nemblems of Vesta from the fire or AEneas in saving the penates from the\nFall of Troy.\"[15]  He rescued a good deal more than a later and more\npious age was grateful for; Augustine found him invaluable, but\nServius, the great commentator on Virgil, called him \"everywhere the\nfoe of religion.\"[16]  The poets, too, felt to the full the charm of\nantiquity.  Propertius[17] and Ovid both undertook to write of olden\ndays--of sacred things (\"rooted out of ancient annals\"[18]), and of the\nnames of long ago.  Virgil himself was looked upon as a great\nantiquary.  Livy wrote of Rome's early history and told how Numa \"put\nthe fear of the gods\" upon his people \"as the most effective thing for\nan ignorant and rough multitude\";[19] his history abounds in portents\nand omens, but he is not altogether a believer.  As early as a\ngeneration before Rome was burnt by the Gauls it was remarked, he says,\nthat foreign religion had invaded the city, brought by prophets who\nmade money out of the superstitions they roused and the alien and\nunusual means they employed to procure the peace of the gods.[20]\n\n{9}\n\n[Sidenote: Primitive Roman ritual]\n\nNowhere perhaps is antiquarianism more fascinating than in the sphere\nof religion.  The _Lupercalia_ had once a real meaning.  The sacrifice\nof goats and young dogs, and of sacred cakes that the Vestals made of\nthe first ears of the last year's harvest; the _Luperci_, with blood on\ntheir brows, naked but for the skins of the slaughtered goats; the\n_februa_ of goatskin, the touch of which would take sterility from a\nwoman--all this is intelligible to the student of primitive religion;\nbut when Mark Antony, Consul though he was, was one of the runners at\nthe Lupercalia, it was not in the spirit of the ancient Latin.  It was\nan antiquarian revival of an old festival of the countryside, which had\nperhaps never died out.  At all events it was celebrated as late as the\nfifth century A.D., and it was only then abolished by the substitution\nof a Christian feast by Pope Gelasius.[21] Augustus took pains to\nrevive such ceremonies.  Suetonius mentions the \"augury of safety,\" the\n\"flaminate of Juppiter,\" the \"Lupercal rite,\" and various sacred\ngames.[22]  Varro in one of his books, speaks of the Arval Brothers;\nand Archaeology and the spade have recovered for us the _acta_ of\nninety-six of the annual meetings which this curious old college held\nat the end of May in the grove of Dea Dia.  It is significant that the\noldest of these _acta_ refer to the meeting in 14 A.D., the year of\nAugustus' death.  The hymn which they sang runs as follows:--\n\n  _Enos Lases iuvate\n  Neve lue rue Marmar sins incurrere in pleores\n  Satur fu fere Mars limen sali sta berber\n  Semunis Alternis advocapit conctos\n  Enos Marmor iuvato\n  Triumpe._\n\nThe first five lines were repeated thrice, and _Triumpe_ five\ntimes.[23]  Quintilian tells us that \"the hymns of the Salii were\nhardly intelligible to the priests themselves,\"[24] yet they found\nadmirers who amused Horace with their zeal for mere age and\nobscurity.[25]\n\n{10}\n\nBut an antiquarian interest in ritual is not inconsistent with\nindifference to religion.  Varro, as we have seen, was criticized as an\nactual enemy of religion in spite of the services he claimed to have\nrendered to the gods--and the very claim justifies the criticism.  So\nfar as the literature of the last century B.C. and the stories current\nabout the leading men in Rome allow us to judge, it is hard to suppose\nthere has ever been an age less interested in religion.  Cicero, for\nexample, wrote--or, perhaps, compiled--three books \"On the Nature of\nthe Gods.\"  He casts his matter into the form of a dialogue, in which\nin turn an Epicurean and a Stoic give their grounds for rejecting and\nfor accepting the gods, and an Academic points out the inadequacy of\nthe reasoning in both cases.  He has also written on the immortality of\nthe soul.  But Cicero's correspondence is a more reliable index to his\nown beliefs and those of the society in which he moved.  No society\ncould be more indifferent to what we call the religious life.  In\ntheory and practice, in character and instinct, they were thoroughly\nsecular.  One sentence will exhibit Cicero's own feeling.  He wrote to\nhis wife from Brundusium on 30th April 58 B.C., when he was on his way\nto foreign exile: \"If these miseries are to be permanent, I only wish,\nmy dearest (_mea vita_), to see you as soon as possible and to die in\nyour arms, since neither gods, whom _you_ have worshipped with such\npure devotion, nor men, whom _I_ have always served, have made us any\nreturn.\"[26]  Even when his daughter Tullia died, no sign of any hope\nof re-union escaped him in his letters, nor did Servius Sulpicius, who\nwrote him a beautiful letter of consolation, do more than merely hint\nat such a thing.  \"If the dead have consciousness, would she wish you\nto be so overcome of sorrow?\"  Horace, whose odes, as we have seen, are\nnow and then consecrated to the restoration of religion, was every whit\nas secular-minded.  He laughed at superstition and ridiculed the idea\nof a divine interest in men, when he expressed his own feeling.  No one\nwas ever more thoroughly Epicurean in the truest sense of the word; no\none ever urged more pleasantly the Epicurean theory _Carpe diem_; no\none ever had more deeply ingrained in him the belief _Mors ultima linea\nrerum est_.  His candour, his humour, his friendliness, combine to give\nhim a very human charm, but in all that is associated with the {11}\nreligious side of man's thought and experience, he is sterile and\ninsufficient.  And Horace, like Cicero, represents a group.  Fuscus\nAristius, it is true, declined to rescue the poet from the bore on the\nground that \"it was the thirtieth Sabbath--and Horace could not wish to\noffend the Jews?\" but we realize that this scruple was dramatic.\nFuscus is said to have been a writer of comedies.[27]\n\n[Sidenote: The childhood of a pagan]\n\nBut the jest of Fuscus was the earnest of many.  If men were conscious\nof decay in the sanction which religion had once given to morality,\nthere was still a great deal of vague religious feeling among the\nuneducated and partially educated classes.  Again and again we read\ncomplaints of the folly of grandmothers and nurses, and it was from\nthem that the first impressions of childhood came.  Four centuries\nlater than the period now under discussion it was still the same.\n\"When once vain superstition obsessed the heathen hearts of our\nfathers, unchecked was its course through a thousand generations.  The\ntender hope of the house shuddered, and worshipped whatever venerable\nthing his hoary grandsires showed him.  Infancy drank in error with its\nmother's milk.  Amid his cries the sacred meal was put between the\nbaby's lips.  He saw the wax dripping upon the stones, the black\n_Lares_ trickling with unguent.  A little child he saw the image of\nFortune with her horn of wealth, and the sacred stone that stood by the\nhouse, and his mother pale at her prayers before it.  Soon himself too,\nraised high on his nurse's shoulders, he pressed his lips to the stone,\npoured forth his childish prayers, and asked riches for himself from\nthe blind rock, and was sure that, whatever one wished, that was where\nto ask.  Never did he lift his eyes and his mind to turn to the citadel\nof reason, but he believed, and held to the foolish custom, honouring\nwith blood of lambs the gods of his family.  And then when he went\nforth from his home, how he marvelled at the public festivals, the holy\ndays and the games, and gazed at the towering Capitol, and saw the\nlaurelled servants of the gods at the temples while the Sacred Way\nechoed to the lowing of the victims.\"  So wrote Prudentius.[28]  So too\nwrote Tibullus--\"Keep me, _Lares_ of my fathers; for ye bred me to\nmanhood when a tender child I played at your feet.\"[29]\n\n{12}\n\nHow crowded the whole of life was with cult and ritual and usage, how\nfull of divinities, petty, pleasing or terrible, but generally vague\nand ill-defined, no one will readily realize without special study, but\nsome idea of the complexity of the Roman's divine environment can be\ngained from even a cursory survey of Ovid's _Fasti_, for example, or\nTertullian's _Apology_, or some of the chapters of the fourth book of\nAugustine's _City of God_.  \"When,\" asks Augustine, \"can I ever mention\nin one passage of this book all the names of gods and goddesses, which\nthey have scarcely been able to compass in great volumes, seeing that\nthey allot to every individual thing the special function of some\ndivinity?\"  He names a few of the gods of agriculture--Segetia,\nTutilina, Proserpina, Nodutus, Volutina, Patelana, Lacturnus, Matuta,\netc.  \"I do not mention all.\"[30]  \"Satan and his angels have filled\nthe whole world,\" said Tertullian.[31]\n\n[Sidenote: Fauns, trees, and wells]\n\nGods of this type naturally make little figure in literature though\nProserpina, in consequence of her identification with the Greek\nPersephone, achieved a great place and is indeed the subject of the\nlast great poem written under the Roman Empire.  But there were other\ngods of countryside and woodland, whom we know better in art and\npoetry.  \"Faunus lover of fugitive Nymphs\" is charming enough in\nHorace's ode, and Fauns, Pans and Satyrs lend themselves readily to\ngrotesque treatment in statue and gem and picture.  But the country\npeople took them seriously.  Lucretius, speaking of echoes among the\nhills, says:--\"These spots the people round about fancy that\ngoat-footed Satyrs and nymphs inhabit; they say that they are the\nFauns, whose noise and sportive play breaks the still silence of the\nnight as they move from place to place....  They tell us that the\ncountry people far and wide full oft hear Pan, when, nodding the\npine-cap on his half-bestial head, he runs over the gaping reeds with\ncurved lip....  And of other like monsters and marvels they tell us,\nthat they may not be thought to inhabit lonely places, abandoned even\nby the gods.\"[32]  Cicero {13} makes his Stoic say their voices are\noften to be heard.[33]  Pliny, in his _Natural History_, says that\ncertain dogs can actually see Fauns; he quotes a prescription,\nconcocted of a dragon's tongue, eyes and gall, which the Magi recommend\nfor those who are \"harassed by gods of the night and by Fauns\";[34] for\nthey did not confine themselves to running after nymphs, but would\nchase human women in the dark.\n\nPlutarch has a story of King Numa drugging a spring from which \"two\ndaemons, Picus and Faunus,\" drank--\"creatures who must be compared to\nSatyrs or Pans in some respects and in others to the Idaean Dactyli,\"\nbeings of great miraculous power.[35]  A countryside haunted by\ninhabitants of more or less than human nature, part beasts and part\nfairies or devils, is one thing to an unbeliever who is interested in\nart or folk-lore, but quite another thing to the uneducated man or\nwoman who has heard their mysterious voices in the night solitude and\nhas suffered in crop, or house, or herd from their ill-will.[36]  What\nthe Greek called \"Panic\" fears were attributed in Italy to Fauns.[37]\n\n\"Trees,\" says Pliny, \"were temples of divinities, and in the old way\nthe simple country folk to this day dedicate any remarkable tree to a\ngod.  Nor have we more worship for images glittering with gold and\nivory than for groves and the very silence that is in them.\"[38]  The\ncountry people hung rags and other offerings on holy trees--the hedge\nround the sacred grove at Aricia is specially mentioned by Ovid as thus\nhonoured.[39]  The river-god of the Tiber had his sacred oak hung with\nspoils of fallen foes.[40]\n\nHoly wells too were common, which were honoured with models of the\nlimbs their waters healed, and other curious gifts, thrown into\nthem--as they are still in every part of the Old World.  Horace's fount\nof Bandusia is the most famous of these in literature.[41]  It was an\nold usage to throw garlands into springs and to crown wells on October\n13th.[42]  Streams and {14} wells alike were haunted by mysterious\npowers, too often malevolent.[43]\n\nOvid describes old charms to keep off vampires, _striges_, from the\ncradles of children.[44]\n\nIn fact the whole of Nature teemed with beings whom we find it hard to\nname.  They were not pleasant enough, and did not appeal enough to the\nfancy, to merit the name \"fairies\"--at least since _The Midsummer\nNight's Dream_ was written.  Perhaps they are nearer \"The little\nPeople\"--the nameless \"thim ones.\"[45] They were neither gods nor\ndemons in our sense of the words, though Greek thinkers used the old\nHomeric word _daimon_ to describe them or the diminutive of it, which\nallowed them to suppose that Socrates' _daimonion_ was something of the\nkind.\n\n[Sidenote: The genius]\n\nBut these Nature-spirits, whatever we may call them, were far from\nbeing the only superhuman beings that encompassed man.  Every house had\nits _Lares_ in a little shrine (_lararium_) on the hearth, little twin\nguardian gods with a dog at their feet, who watched over the family,\nand to whom something was given at every meal, and garlands on great\ndays.  Legend said that Servius Tullius was the son of the family\n_Lar_.[46]  The _Lares_ may have been spirits of ancestors.  The\nEmperor Alexander Severus set images of Apollonius, Christ, Abraham and\nOrpheus, \"and others of that sort\" in his _lararium_.[47]  Not only\nhouses but streets and cross-roads had _Lares_; the city had a\nthousand, Ovid said, besides the _genius_ of the Prince who gave\nthem;[48] for Augustus restored two yearly festivals in their honour in\nSpring and Autumn.  There were also the _Penates_ in every home, whom\nit would perhaps be hard to distinguish very clearly from the _Lares_.\nHorace has a graceful ode to \"Phidyle\" on the sufficiency of the\nsimplest sacrifices to these little gods of home and hearth.[49]  The\nworship of these family gods was almost the only {15} part of Roman\nreligion that was not flooded and obscured by the inrush of Oriental\ncults.\n\n\"The Ancients,\" said Servius, \"used the name _Genius_ for the natural\ngod of each individual place or thing or man,\"[50] and another\nantiquary thought that the _genius_ and the _Lar_ might be the same\nthing.  For some reason men of letters laid hold upon the _genius_, and\nwe find it everywhere.  Why there should be such difference even\nbetween twin brothers,\n\n  _He_ only knows whose influence at our birth\n  O'errules each mortal's planet upon earth,\n  The attendant genius, temper-moulding pow'r,\n  That stamps the colour of man's natal hour.[51]\n\nThe idea of this spiritual counterpart pervades the ancient world.  It\nappears in Persia as the _fravashi_.[52]  It is in the Syrian Gnostic's\nHymn of the Soul, as a robe in the form and likeness of a man.--\n\n  It was myself that I saw before me as in a mirror;\n  Two in number we stood, but only one in appearance.[53]\n\nIt is also probable that the \"Angel\" of Peter and the \"Angels of the\nlittle children\" in the New Testament represent the same idea.  The\nreader of Horace hardly needs to be reminded of the birthday feast in\nhonour of the _genius_,--_indulge genio_.  December, as the month of\nLarentalia and Saturnalia, is the month welcome to every _genius_, Ovid\nsays.[54]\n\nThe worship of all or most of these spirits of the country and of the\nhome was joyful, an affair of meat and drink.  The primitive sacrifice\nbrought man and god near one another in the blood and flesh of the\nvictim, which was of one race with them both.[55]  It was on some such\nground that the Jews would not \"eat with blood,\" lest the soul of the\nbeast should pass into the {16} man.  There were feasts in honour of\nthe dead, too, which the church found so dear to the people that it\nonly got rid of them by turning them into festivals of the Martyrs.  It\nwas not idly that St Paul spoke of \"meat offered to idols\" and said\nthat the Kingdom of God was not eating or drinking.\n\nIn addition to all these spirits of living beings, of actions and of\nplaces, we have to reckon the dead.  There were _Manes_--a name\nsupposed to mean \"the kindly ones,\" a caressing name given with a\npurpose and betraying a real fear.  There were also ghosts, _larvae_ and\n_lemures_.[56]  It was the thought of these that made burial so serious\na thing, and all the ritual for averting the displeasure of the dead.\nThe Parentalia were celebrated on the 13th of February in their\nhonour,[57] and in May the _Lemuria_.  It is, we are told, for this\nreason that none will marry in May.[58]  Closely connected with this\nfear of ghosts and of the dead is that terror of death which Lucretius\nspends so much labour in trying to dissipate.\n\n\"I see no race of men,\" wrote Cicero, \"however polished and educated,\nhowever brutal and barbarous, which does not believe that warnings of\nfuture events are given and may be understood and announced by certain\npersons,\"[59] and he goes on to remark that Xenophanes and Epicurus\nwere alone among philosophers in believing in no kind of\nDivination.[60]  \"Are we to wait till beasts speak?  Are we not content\nwith the unanimous authority of mankind?\"[61]  The Stoics, he says,\nsummed up the matter as follows:--\n\n\"If there are gods and they do not declare the future to men; then\n_either_ they do not love men; _or_ they are ignorant of what is to\nhappen; _or_ they think it of no importance to men to know it; _or_\nthey do not think it consistent with their majesty to tell men; _or_\nthe gods themselves are unable to indicate it.  But _neither_ do they\nnot love men, for they are benefactors and friends to mankind; _nor_\nare they ignorant of what they themselves appoint and ordain; _nor_ is\nit of no importance to us to know the future--for we shall be more\ncareful if we do; _nor_ do they count it alien to their majesty, for\nthere is nothing nobler than kindness; _nor_ are they unable to\nforeknow.  _Therefore_ no {17} gods, no foretelling; but there are\ngods; therefore they foretell.  Nor, if they foretell, do they fail to\ngive us ways to learn what they foretell; nor, if they give us such\nways, is there no divination; therefore, there is divination.\"[62]\n\n[Sidenotes: Omens]\n\nAll this reasoning comes after the fact.  The whole world believed in\ndivination, and the Stoics found a reason for it.[63] The flight of\nbirds, the entrails of beasts, rain, thunder, lightning, dreams,\neverything was a means of Divination.  Another passage from the same\nDialogue of Cicero will suffice.  Superstition, says the speaker,\n\"follows you up, is hard upon you, pursues you wherever you turn.  If\nyou hear a prophet, or an omen; if you sacrifice; if you catch sight of\na bird; if you see a Chaldaean or a _haruspex_; if it lightens, if it\nthunders, if anything is struck by lightning; if anything like a\nportent is born or occurs in any way--something or other of the kind is\nbound to happen, so that you can never be at ease and have a quiet\nmind.  The refuge from all our toils and anxieties would seem to be\nsleep.  Yet from sleep itself the most of our cares and terrors\ncome.\"[64]  How true all this is will be seen by a moment's reflexion\non the abundance of signs, omens and dreams that historians so\ndifferent as Livy and Plutarch record.  Horace uses them pleasantly\nenough in his Odes--like much else such things are charming, if one\ndoes not believe in them.[65]  But it is abundantly clear that it took\nan effort to be rid of such belief.  A speaker in Cicero's _Tusculans_\nremarks on the effrontery of philosophers, who _boast_ that by\nEpicurus' aid \"they are freed from those most cruel of tyrants, eternal\nterror and fear by day and by night.\"[66] When a man boasts of moral\nprogress, of his freedom from avarice, what, asks Horace, of other like\nmatters?\n\n  You're not a miser.  Good--but prithee say,\n  Is every vice with avarice flown away? ...\n  Does Superstition ne'er your heart assail\n  Nor bid your soul with fancied horrors quail?\n\n{18}\n\n  Or can you smile at magic's strange alarms,\n  Dreams, witchcraft, ghosts, Thessalian spells and charms?[67]\n\n\nHorace's \"conversion\" is recorded in one of his odes, but it may be\ntaken too seriously.\n\nThat superstition so gross was accompanied by paralysing belief in\nmagic, enchantment, miracle, astrology[68] and witchcraft generally, is\nnot surprising.  The historians of the Early Empire have plenty to say\non this.  It should be remembered that the step between magic and\npoisoning is a very short one.  Magic, says Pliny, embraces the three\narts that most rule the human mind, medicine, religion and\nmathematics--a triple chain which enslaves mankind.[69]\n\nWe have thus in Roman society a political life of a highly developed\ntype, which has run through a long course of evolution and is now\ndegenerating; we have a literature based upon that of Greece and\nimplying a good deal of philosophy and of intellectual freedom; and,\nside by side with all this, a religious atmosphere in which the\ngrossest and most primitive of savage conceptions and usages thrive in\nthe neighbourhood of a scepticism as cool and detached as that of\nHorace.  It is hard to realize that a people's experience can be so\nuneven, that development and retardation can exist at once in so\nremarkable a degree in the mind of a nation.  The explanation is that\nwe judge peoples and ages too much by their literature, and by their\nliterature only after it has survived the test of centuries.  In all\nimmortal literature there is a common note; it deals with the deathless\nand the vital; and superstition, though long enough and tenacious\nenough of life, is outlived and outgrown by \"man's unconquerable mind.\"\nBut the period before us is one in which, under a rule that robbed men\nof every liberating interest in life, and left society politically,\nintellectually and morally sterile and empty, literature declined, and\nas it declined, it sank below the level of that flood of vulgar\nsuperstition, which rose higher and higher, as in each generation men\nwere less wishful to think and less capable of thought.\n\n{19}\n\n[Sidenote: Universal religions]\n\nBut our theme is religion, and so far we have discussed nothing but\nwhat we may call superstition--and even Plutarch would hardly quarrel\nwith the name.  That to people possessed by such beliefs in non-human\npowers, in beings which beset human life with malignity, the\nrestoration of ancient cult and ritual would commend itself, is only\nnatural.  To such minds the purpose of all worship is to induce the\nsuperhuman being to go peaceably away, and sacrifice implies not human\nsin, but divine irritation, which may be irrational.  To the religious\ntemperament, the essential thing is some kind of union, some communion,\nwith the Divine; and sacrifice becomes the means to effect the relation\nof life to a higher will,--to a holier will, we might say, if we allow\nto the word \"holy\" a width of significance more congenial to ancient\nthan to modern thought.  And this higher will implies a divinity of\nwider reach than the little gods of primitive superstition, a power\nwhich may even be less personal if only it is great.  Religion asks for\nthe simplification of man's relations with his divine environment, for\nescape from the thousand and one petty marauders of the spirit-world\ninto the empire of some strong and central authority, harsh, perhaps,\nor even cruel, but at least a controlling force in man's experience.\nIf this power is moral, religion is at once fused with morality; if it\nis merely physical, religion remains non-moral, and has a constant\ntendency to decline into superstition, or at least to make terms with\nit.\n\nIn the hereditary religion of Rome, the only power that could possibly\nhave been invested with any such character was Jupiter Capitolinus, but\nhe had too great a likeness to the other gods of Italy--the gods with\nnames, that is, for some of the more significant had none--Bona Dea and\nDea Dia for example.  Jupiter had his functions, but on the whole they\nwere local, and there was very little or nothing in him to quicken\nthought or imagination.  It was not till the Stoics made him more or\nless the embodiment of monotheism, that he had a chance of becoming the\ncentre of a religion in the higher sense of the word, and even then it\nwas impossible; for first, he was at best little more than an\nimpersonal dogma, and, secondly, the place was filled by foreign\ngoddesses of far greater warmth and colour and activity.  _Stat magni\nnominis umbra_.\n\n{20}\n\n[Sidenote: Cybele and her priests]\n\nIt was during the second Punic War that Cybele was brought from Asia\nMinor to Rome and definitely established as one of the divinities of\nthe City.[70]  The Great Mother of the gods, she represented the\nprinciple of life and its reproduction, and her worship appealed to\nevery male and female being in the world.  It inspired awe, and it\nprompted to joy and merriment; it was imposing and it was mysterious.\nLucretius has a famous description of her pageant:--\n\n\"Adorned with this emblem (the mural crown), the image of the divine\nMother is carried nowadays through wide lands in awe-inspiring state.\nDifferent nations after old-established ritual name her Idaean Mother,\nand give for escort Phrygian bands....  Tight-stretched tambourines and\nhollow cymbals thunder all round to the stroke of their open hands, and\nhorns menace with hoarse-sounding music, and the hollow pipe stirs\ntheir minds with its Phrygian strain.  They carry weapons before them,\nemblems of furious rage, meet to fill the thankless souls and godless\nbreasts of the rabble with terror for the Divinity of the Goddess.  So,\nwhen first she rides in procession through great cities and mutely\nenriches mortals with a blessing not expressed in words, they straw all\nher path with brass and silver, presenting her with bounteous alms, and\nscatter over her a snow-shower of roses, over-shadowing the mother and\nher troops of attendants.  Here an armed band, to which the Greeks give\nthe names of Phrygian Curetes, join in the game of arms and leap in\nmeasure, all dripping with blood, and the awful crests upon their heads\nquiver and shake.\"[71]\n\nThe invariable features of the worship of Cybele are mentioned here,\nthe eunuch priests, the tambourines, the shouting and leaping and\ncutting with knives, and the collection of money.[72]  There is no\nindication of any control being exercised over these priests of Cybele\nby a central authority, and little bands of them strolled through the\nMediterranean lands, making their living by exhibiting themselves and\ntheir goddess and gathering petty offerings.  They had a bad name and\nthey seem to have deserved it.  In the book called _The Ass_, {21} once\nascribed to Lucian, is a short account of such a band.  The ass, who is\nreally a man transformed, is the speaker.  \"The next day they packed up\nthe goddess and set her on my back.  Then we drove out of the city and\nwent round the country.  When we entered any village, I, the god-bearer\n(a famous word, _theophoretos_[73]) stood still, and the crowd of\nflutists blew like mad, and the others threw off their caps and rolled\ntheir heads about, and cut their arms with the swords and each stuck\nhis tongue out beyond his teeth and cut it too, so that in a moment\neverything was full of fresh blood.  And, I, when I saw this for the\nfirst time, stood trembling in case the goddess might need an ass'\nblood too.  When they had cut themselves about in this way, they\ncollected from the bystanders obols and drachmas; and one or another\nwould give them figs and cheeses and a jar of wine, and a medimnus of\nwheat and barley for the ass.  So they lived upon these and did service\nto the goddess who rode on my back.\"[74]\n\nThe _Attis_ of Catullus gives a vivid picture of the frenzy which this\nworship could excite.  Juvenal complains of the bad influence which the\npriests of Cybele, among others, had upon the minds of Roman ladies.\nSt Augustine long afterwards says that \"till yesterday\" they were to be\nseen in the streets of Carthage \"with wet hair, whitened face and\nmincing walk.\"  It is interesting to note in passing that the land\nwhich introduced the Mother of the Gods to the Roman world, also gave\nthe name _Theotokos_ (Mother of God) to the church.\n\nEgypt also contributed gods to Rome, who forced themselves upon the\nstate.  The Senate forbade them the Capitol and had their statues\nthrown down, but the people set them up again with violence.[75]\nGabinius, the Consul of 58 B.C., stopped the erection of altars to\nthem, but eight years later the Senate had to pass a decree for the\ndestruction of their shrines.  No {22} workman dared lay hand to the\nwork, so the consul Paullus stripped off his consular toga, took an axe\nand dealt the first blow at the doors.[76]  Another eight years passed,\nand the Triumvirs, after the death of Caesar, built a temple to Isis and\nSerapis to win the goodwill of the masses.[77]  The large foreign and\nEastern element in the city populace must be remembered.  When Octavian\ncaptured Alexandria, he forgave the guilty city \"in honour of Serapis,\"\nbut on his return to Rome he destroyed all the shrines of the god\nwithin the city walls.  In time Isis laid hold of the month of\nNovember, which had otherwise no festivals of importance.\n\n[Sidenote: Isis and Serapis]\n\nIsis seems to have appealed to women.  Tibullus complains of Delia's\ndevotion to her, and her ritual.  There were baths and purifications;\nthe worshippers wore linen garments and slept alone.  Whole nights were\nspent sitting in the temple amid the rattling of the sistrum.  Morning\nand evening the votary with flowing hair recited the praises of the\ngoddess.[78] Isis could make her voice heard on occasion, or her snake\nof silver would be seen to move its head, and penance was required to\navert her anger.  She might bid her worshippers to stand in the Tiber\nin the winter, or to crawl, naked and trembling, with blood-stained\nknees, round the Campus Martius--the Iseum stood in the Campus as it\nwas forbidden within the City Walls; or to fetch water from Egypt to\nsprinkle in the Roman shrine.  They were high honours indeed that\nAnubis claimed, as, surrounded by shaven priests in linen garments, he\nscoured the city and laughed at the people who beat their breasts as he\npassed.[79]  The \"barking\" Anubis might be despised by Virgil and\nothers, but the vulgar feared him as the attendant of Isis and\nSerapis.[80]  Isis began to usurp the functions of Juno Lucina, and\nwomen in childbed called upon her to deliver them.[81]  She gave\noracles, which were familiar perhaps even so early as Ennius' day,[82]\nand men and women slept in the temples of Isis and Serapis, as they did\nin those of AEsculapius, to obtain in dreams the knowledge they needed\nto appease the god, or to {23} recover their health, or what not.[83]\nIt is not surprising that the shrines of Isis are mentioned by Ovid and\nJuvenal as the resorts of loose women.[84]\n\nThe devotion of the women is proved by the inscriptions which are found\nrecording their offerings to Isis.  One woman, a Spaniard, may be taken\nas an illustration.  In honour of her daughter she dedicated a silver\nstatue to Isis, and she set forth how the goddess wore a diadem\ncomposed of one big pearl, six little pearls, emeralds, rubies, and\njacinths; earrings of emeralds and pearls; a necklace of thirty-six\npearls and eighteen emeralds (with two for clasps); bracelets on her\narms and legs; rings on her fingers; and emeralds on her sandals.[85]\nThere is evidence to show that the Madonna in Southern Italy is really\nIsis re-named.  Isis, like the Madonna, was painted and sculptured with\na child in her arms (Horus, Harpocrates).  Their functions coincide as\nclosely as this inscription proves that their offerings do.[86]\n\n  Die Mutter Gottes zu Kevlaar\n    Traegt heut' ihr bestes Kleid.\n\n\nAt first, it is possible that Egyptian religion, as it spread all over\nthe world, was little better than Phrygian, but it had a better future.\nWith Plutarch's work upon it we shall have to deal later on.  Apuleius,\nat the end of the second century worshipped an Isis, who identified all\nthe Divinities with herself and was approached through the most\nimposing sacraments.  She was the power underlying all nature, but\nthere was a spiritual side to her worship.  Two centuries or so later,\nJulian \"the Apostate\" looks upon Serapis as Catholics have done upon St\nPeter--he is \"the kindly and gentle god, who set souls utterly free\nfrom becoming or birth (_geneseos_) and does not, when once they are\nfree, nail them down to other bodies in punishment, but conveys them\nupward and brings them into the {24} ideal world.\"[87]  It is possible\nthat some hint of this lurked in the religion from the first, and, if\nit did, we need not be surprised that it escaped Juvenal's notice.\n\nIt was not merely gods that came from the East, but a new series of\nreligious ideas.  Here were religions that claimed the whole of life,\nthat taught of moral pollution and of reconciliation, that gave anew\nthe old sacramental value to rituals,--religions of priest and devotee,\nequalizing rich and poor, save for the cost of holy rites, and giving\nto women the consciousness of life in touch with the divine.  The\neunuch priests of Cybele and the monks of Serapis introduced a new\nabstinence to Western thought.  It is significant that Christian\nmonasticism and the coenobite life began in Egypt, where, as we learn\nfrom papyri found in recent years, great monasteries of Serapis existed\nlong before our era.  Side by side with celibacy came vegetarianism.\n\nNo polytheistic religion can exclude gods from its pantheon; all\ndivinities that man can devise have a right there.  Thus Cybele and\nIsis made peace with each other and with all the gods and goddesses\nwhom they met in their travels--and with all the _daemonia_ too.  Their\ncults were steeped in superstition, and swung to and fro between\ncontinence and sensuality.  They orientalized every religion of the\nWest and developed every superstitious and romantic tendency.  In the\nlong run, they brought Philosophy to its knees, abasing it to be the\napologist of everything they taught and did, and dignifying themselves\nby giving a philosophic colouring to their mysticism.  But this is no\nstrange thing.  A religion begins in magic with rites and symbols that\nbelong to the crudest Nature-worship--to agriculture, for instance, and\nthe reproductive organs--and gradually develops or absorbs higher\nideas, till it may reach the unity of the godhead and the immortality\nof the soul; but the ultimate question is, will it cut itself clear of\nits past?  And this the religions of Cybele and Isis never\nsatisfactorily achieved.\n\nIn the meantime they promised little towards a moral regeneration of\nsociety.  They offered men and women emotions, but they scarcely\ntouched morality.  To the terrors of life, already many enough, they\nadded crowning fears, and cramped and dwarfed the minds of men.\n\n{25}\n\n[Sidenote: Lucretius]\n\n\"O hapless race of men!\" cried Lucretius, \"when they attributed such\ndeeds to the gods and added cruel anger thereto! what groanings did\nthey then beget for themselves, what wounds for us, what tears for our\nchildren's children!  No act of piety is it to be often seen with\nveiled head turning toward a stone, to haunt every altar, to lie\nprostrate on the ground with hands outspread before the shrines of\ngods, to sprinkle the altars with much blood of beasts and link vow to\nvow--no! rather to be able to look on all things with a mind at\npeace.\"[88] And a mind at peace was the last thing that contemporary\nreligion could offer to any one.  \"Human life,\" he says, \"lay visibly\nbefore men's eyes foully crushed to earth under the weight of Religion,\nwho showed her head from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect\nlowering upon men,\" till Epicurus \"dared first to uplift mortal eyes\nagainst her face and first to withstand her....  The living force of\nhis soul gained the day; on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of\nthe world and traversed in mind and spirit the immeasurable universe.\nAnd thence he returns again a conqueror, to tell us what can and what\ncannot come into being; in short on what principle each thing has its\npowers defined, its deep-set boundary mark.  So Religion is put under\nour feet and trampled upon in its turn; while as for us, his victory\nsets us on a level with heaven.\"[89]\n\nIt was the establishment of law which brought peace to Lucretius.  In\nthe ease of mind which we see he gained from the contemplation of the\nfixity of cause and effect, in the enthusiasm with which he emphasizes\nsuch words as _rationes_, _faedera_, _leges_, with which he celebrates\n_Natura gubernans_, we can read the horrible weight upon a feeling soul\nof a world distracted by the incalculable caprices of a myriad of\ndivine or daemonic beings.[90]  The force with which he flings himself\nagainst the doctrine of a future life shows that it is a fight for\nfreedom.  If men would rid themselves of \"the dread of something after\ndeath\"--and they could if they would, for reason will do it--they could\nlive in \"the serene temples of the wise\"; the gods would pass from\ntheir minds; bereavement would lose its sting, and life would no longer\nbe brutalized by the cruelties of terror.  Avarice, treachery, murder,\ncivil war, suicide--all these things are the fruit of this fear of\ndeath.[91]\n\n{26}\n\nReligion, similarly, \"often and often has given birth to sinful and\nunholy deeds.\"  The illustration, which he uses, is the sacrifice of\nIphigenia, and it seems a little remote.  Yet Pliny says that in 97\nB.C. in the consulship of Lentulus and Crassus, a decree of the Senate\nforbade human sacrifice--_ne homo immolaretur_.  \"It cannot be\nestimated,\" he goes on, \"what a debt is owed to the Romans who have\ndone away (in Gaul and Britain) with monstrous rites, in which it was\ncounted the height of religion to kill a man, and a most healthful\nthing to eat him.\"[92]  Elsewhere he hints darkly at his own age having\nseen something of the kind, and there is an obscure allusion in\nPlutarch's life of Marcellus to \"unspeakable rites, that none may see,\nwhich are performed (?) upon Greeks and Gauls.\"[93]  \"At the temple of\nAricia,\" says Strabo, \"there is a barbarian and Scythian practice.  For\nthere is there established a priest, a runaway slave, who has killed\nwith his own hand his predecessor.  There he is, then, ever sword in\nhand, peering round about, lest he should be attacked, ready to defend\nhimself.\"  Strabo's description of the temple on the lake and the\nprecipice overhanging it adds to the impressiveness of the scene he\nthus pictures.[94]  If human sacrifice was rare in practice, none the\nless it was in the minds of men.\n\n  _Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum_\n\nconcludes Lucretius, and yet it was not perhaps his last thought.\n\nM. Patin has a fine study of the poet in which he deals with \"the\nanti-Lucretius in Lucretius.\"  Even in the matter of religion, his keen\nobservation of Nature frequently suggests difficulties which are more\npowerfully expressed and more convincing than the arguments with which\nhe himself tries to refute them.  \"When we look up to the heavenly\nregions of the great universe, the aether set on high above the\nglittering stars, and the {27} thought comes into our mind of the sun\nand moon and their courses; then indeed in hearts laden with other woes\nthat doubt too begins to wake and raise its head--can it be perchance,\nafter all, that we have to do with some vast Divine power that wheels\nthose bright stars each in his orbit?  Again who is there whose mind\ndoes not shrink into itself with fear of the gods, whose limbs do not\ncreep with terror, when the parched earth rocks under horrible blow of\nthe thunderbolt, and the roar sweeps over the vast sky? ... When too\nthe utmost fury of the wild wind scours the sea and sweeps over its\nwaters the admiral with his stout legions and his elephants, does he\nnot in prayer seek peace with the gods? ... but all in vain, since,\nfull oft, caught in the whirlwind, he is driven, for all his prayers,\non, on to the shoals of death.  Thus does some hidden power trample on\nmankind....  Again, when the whole earth rocks under their feet, and\ntowns fall at the shock or hang ready to collapse, what wonder if men\ndespise themselves, and make over to the gods high prerogative and\nmarvellous powers to govern all things?\"[95]\n\nThat Lucretius should be so open to impressions of this kind, in spite\nof his philosophy, is ra measure of his greatness as a poet.  It adds\nweight and worth to all that he says--to his hatred of the polytheism\nand superstition round about him, and to his judgment upon their effect\nin darkening and benumbing the minds of men.  He understands the\nfeelings which he dislikes--he has felt them.  The spectacle of the\nunguessed power that tramples on mankind has moved him; and he has\nsuffered the distress of all delicate spirits in times of bloodshed and\ndisorder.  He knows the effect of such times upon those who still\nworship.  \"Much more keenly in evil days do they turn their minds to\nreligion.\"[96]\n\n{28}\n\nWe have now to consider another poet, a disciple of Lucretius in his\nearly years, who, under the influence of Nature and human experience,\nmoved away from Epicureanism, and sought reconciliation with the gods,\nthough he was too honest with himself to find peace in the systems and\nideas that were yet available.\n\n[Sidenote: Virgil]\n\nVirgil was born in the year 70 B.C.--the son of a little self-made man\nin a village North of the Po.  He grew up in the country, with a spirit\nthat year by year grew more sensitive to every aspect of the world\naround him.  No Roman poet had a more gentle and sympathetic love of\nNature; none ever entered so deeply and so tenderly into the sorrows of\nmen.  He lived through forty years of Civil War, veiled and open.  He\nsaw its effects in broken homes and aching hearts, in coarsened minds\nand reckless lives.  He was driven from his own farm, and had, like\nAEneas, to rescue an aged and blind father.  Under such experience his\nearly Epicureanism dissolved--it had always been too genial to be the\ntrue kind.  The Epicurean should never go beyond friendship, and Virgil\nloved.  His love of the land in which he was born showed it to him more\nworthy to be loved than men had yet realized.  Virgil was the pioneer\nwho discovered the beauty, the charm and the romance of Italy.  He\nloved the Italians and saw poetry in their hardy lives and quiet\nvirtues, though they were not Greeks.  His love of his father and of\nhis land opened to him the significance of all love, and the deepening\nand widening of his experience is to be read in the music, stronger and\nprofounder, that time reveals in his poetry.\n\nHere was a poet who loved Rome more than ever did Augustus or Horace,\nand he had no such speedy cure as they for \"the woes of sorrowful\nHesperia.\"  The loss of faith in the old gods meant more to him than to\nthem, so his tone in speaking of them is quieter, a great deal, than\nthat of Horace.  He took the decline of morals more seriously and more\ninwardly, and he saw more deeply into the springs of action; he could\nnever lightly use the talk of rapid and sweeping reformation, as his\nfriend did in the odes which the Emperor inspired.  He had every belief\nin Augustus, who was dearer to him personally than to Horace, and he\nhoped for much outcome from the new movement in the State.  But with\nall his absorbing interest in {29} his own times--and how deep that\ninterest was, only long and minute study of his poems will reveal--he\nwas without scheme or policy.  He came before his countrymen, as\nprophets and poets do in all ages--a child in affairs, but a man in\ninward experience; he had little or nothing to offer but the\nimpressions left upon his soul by human life.  He had the advantage\nover most prophets in being a \"lord of language\"; he drew more music\nfrom Latin words than had ever been achieved before or was ever reached\nagain.\n\nHe told men of a new experience of Nature.  It is hardly exaggeration\nto say that he stands nearer Wordsworth in this feeling than any other\npoet.  He had the same \"impulses of deeper birth\"; he had seen new\ngleams and heard new voices; he had enjoyed what no Italian had before,\nand he spoke in a new way, unintelligible then, and unintelligible\nstill, to those who have not seen and heard the same things.  The gist\nof it all he tried to give in the language of Pantheism, which the\nStoics had borrowed from Pythagoras:--\"The Deity, they tell us,\npervades all, earth and the expanse of sea, and the deep vault of\nheaven; from Him flocks, herds, men, wild beasts of every sort, each\ncreature at its birth draws the bright thread of life; further, to Him\nall things return, are restored and reduced--death has no place among\nthem; but they fly up alive into the ranks of the stars and take their\nseats aloft in the sky.\"  So John Conington did the passage into\nEnglish.  But in such cases it may be said with no disrespect to the\ncommentator who has done so much for his poet, the original words stand\nto the translation, as Virgil's thought did to the same thought in a\nStoic's brain.\n\n        _Deum namque ire per omnis\n  Terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum;\n  Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum,\n  Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas;\n  Scilicet huc reddi deinde ac resoluta referri\n  Omnia, nec morti esse locum, sed viva volare\n  Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere caelo_.\n                                  (Georgics, iv, 221.)\n\n\nThe words might represent a fancy, or a dogma of the schools and many\nno doubt so read them, because they had no {30} experience to help\nthem.  But to others it is clear that the passage is one of the deepest\nimport, for it is the key to Virgil's mind and the thought is an\nexpression of what we can call by no other name than religion.  Around\nhim men and women were seeking communion with gods; he had had\ncommunion with what he could not name--he had experienced religion in a\nvery deep, abiding and true way.  There is nothing for it--at least for\nEnglishmen--but to quote the \"lines composed a few miles above Tintern\nAbbey\"--\n\n              I have felt\n  A presence that disturbs me with the joy\n  Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime\n  Of something far more deeply interfused,\n  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,\n  And the round ocean, and the living air,\n  And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;\n  A motion and a spirit, that impels\n  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,\n  And rolls through all things.\n\nVirgil's experience did not stop here; like Wordsworth, he found\n\n              Nature's self\n  By all varieties of human love\n  Assisted.\n\nHe had been a son and a brother; and such relations of men to men\nimpressed him--they took him into the deepest and most beautiful\nregions of life; and one of the charms of Italy was that it was written\nall over with the records of human love and helpfulness.  The clearing,\nthe orchard, the hilltop town, the bed of flowers, all spoke to him\n\"words that could not be uttered.\"  His long acquaintance with such\nscripts brought it about that he found\n\n            in man an object of delight,\n  Of pure imagination and of love--\n\nand he came to the Roman people with a deep impression of human\nworth--something unknown altogether in Roman poetry before or after.\nLucretius was impressed with man's insignificance in the universe;\nHorace, with man's folly.  Virgil's {31} poetry throbbed with the sense\nof man's grandeur and his sanctity.\n\nThis human greatness, which his poetry brought home to the sympathetic\nreader, was not altogether foreign to the thought of the day.  _Homo\nsacra res homini_[97] was the teaching of the Stoics, but man was a\nmore sacred thing to the poet than to the philosopher, for what the\nphilosopher conceived to be a flaw and a weakness in man, the poet\nfound to be man's chief significance.  The Stoic loudly proclaimed man\nto be a member of the universe.  The poet found man knit to man by a\nmyriad ties, the strength of which he realized through that pain\nagainst which the Stoic sought to safeguard him.  Man revealed to the\npoet his inner greatness in the haunting sense of his limitations--he\ncould not be self-sufficient (_autarkes_) as the Stoic urged; he\ndepended on men, on women and children, on the beauty of grass and\nliving creature, of the sea and sky.  And even all these things could\nnot satisfy his craving for love and fellowship; he felt a \"hunger for\nthe infinite.\"  Here perhaps is the greatest contribution of Virgil to\nthe life of the age.\n\nHe, the poet to whom man and the world were most various and meant\nmost, came to his people, and, without any articulate expression of it\nin direct words, made it clear to them that he had felt a gap in the\nheart of things, which philosophy could never fill.  Philosophy could\nremove this sense of incompleteness, but only at the cost of love; and\nlove was to Virgil, as his poetry shows, the very essence of life.  Yet\nhe gave, and not altogether unconsciously, the impression that in\nproportion as love is apprehended, its demands extend beyond the\npresent.  The sixth book of the _AEneid_ settles nothing and proves\nnothing, but it expresses an instinct, strong in Virgil, as the result\nof experience, that love must reach beyond the grave.  Further, the\nwhole story of AEneas is an utterance of man's craving for God, of the\nsense of man's incompleteness without a divine complement.  These are\nthe records of Virgil's life, intensely individual, but not peculiar to\nhimself.  In the literature of his century, there is little indication\nof such instincts, but the history of four hundred years shows that\nthey were deep in the general heart of man.\n\nThese impressions Virgil brought before the Roman world.  {32} As such\nthings are, they were a criticism, and they meant a change of values.\nIn the light of them, the restoration of religion by Augustus became a\nlittle thing; the popular superstition of the day was stamped as vulgar\nand trivial in itself, while it became the sign of deep and unsatisfied\ncraving in the human heart; and lastly the current philosophies, in the\nface of Virgil's poetry, were felt to be shallow and cold, talk of the\nlip and trick of the brain.  Of course this is not just to the\nphilosophers who did much for the world, and without whom Virgil would\nnot have been what he was.  None the less, it was written in Virgil's\npoetry that the religions and philosophies of mankind must be thought\nover anew.\n\nThis is no light contribution to an age or to mankind.  In this case it\ncarries with it the whole story that lies before us.  Such an\nexpression of a common instinct gave new force to that instinct; it\nadded a powerful impulse to the deepest passion that man knows; and, in\nspite of the uncertainties which beset the poet himself, it gave new\nhope to mankind that the cry of the human heart for God was one that\nshould receive an answer.\n\n\nChapter I Footnotes:\n\n[1] Cic. _ad fam._ x, 16, 2, _Ipse tibi sis senatus_.\n\n[2] _Georgic_ i, 505-514 (Conington's translation, with alterations).\n\n[3] Polybius, vi, 56, Shuckburgh's Translation.\n\n[4] Polybius, xviii, 35.\n\n[5] Sextus Empiricus, _Adv. mathematicos_, ix, 54.\n\n[6] Cicero, _N.D._ i, 42, 118.\n\n[7] Diodorus Siculus, i, 2.\n\n[8] Quoted by Augustine, _C.D._ iv, 27; vi, 5; also referred to by\nTertullian, _ad Natt._ ii, 1.\n\n[9] Suetonius, _Augustus_, 31, 75, 93; Warde Fowler, _Roman Festivals_,\np. 344.\n\n[10] Suet. Aug. 90, 92.\n\n[11] Horace, _Odes_, iii, 24, 9-20, Gladstone's version.\n\n[12] Horace, _Odes_, iii, 6, Delicta maiorum.\n\n[13] _De Haruspicum Responsis_, 9, 19; _N.D._ ii, 3, 8.\n\n[14] E.g. _Apol._ 25, with a serious criticism of the contrast between\nRoman character before and after the conquest of the world,--before and\nafter the invasion of Rome by the images and idols of Etruscans and\nGreeks.\n\n[15] _Augustine C.D._ vi, 2.\n\n[16] On _AEneid_, xi, 785.\n\n[17] Propertius, v, 1, 69.\n\n[18] Ovid, _Fasti_, i, 7.\n\n[19] Livy, i, 19.\n\n[20] Livy, iv, 30.\n\n[21] Plutarch, _Romulus_, 21; _Caesar_, 61, Warde Fowler, _Roman\nFestivals_, p. 310 f.\n\n[22] Suetonius, _Aug._ 31, Warde Fowler, _op. cit._ p. 190.\n\n[23] Mommsen, _History_, i, p. 231, who translates the hymn.\n\n[24] Quintilian, i, 6, 40.  See specimen in Varro, _L.L._ vii, 26.\n\n[25] _Epp._ ii, 1, 20-27, 86.\n\n[26] Cicero, _ad fam._ xiv, 4, 1.\n\n[27] Hor. _Sat._ i, 9, 69: Porphyrion is the authority for the comedies.\n\n[28] Prudentius, _contra Symmachum_, i, 197-218.\n\n[29] Tibullus, i, 10, 15.\n\n\n[30] _C.D._ iv, 8.  \"To an early Greek,\" says Mr Gilbert Murray, \"the\nearth, water and air were full of living eyes: of _theoi_, of\n_daimones_, of _Keres_.  One early poet says emphatically that the air\nis so crowded full of them that there is no room to put in the spike of\nan ear of corn without touching one.\"--_Rise of Greek Epic_, p. 82.\n\n[31] _de Spect._ 5; cf. _de Idol._ 16; _de cor. mil._ 13, gods of the\ndoor; _de Anima_, 39, goddesses of child-birth.\n\n[32] Lucr. iv, 580 f.  Virg. _AEn._ viii, 314.\n\n[33] Cic. _N.D._ ii, 2, 6: cf. _De Div._ i, 45, 101.  Warde Fowler,\n_Roman Festivals_, pp. 256 ff. on the Fauni.\n\n[34] Pliny, _N.H._ viii, 151; xxx, 84.\n\n[35] Plutarch, _Numa_, 15; _de facie in orbe lunae_, 30; Ovid, _Fasti_,\niii, 291.\n\n[36] Horace's ode attests the power of the Fauns over crops and herds.\n\n[37] Dionys.  Hal. v, 16.\n\n[38] Pliny, _N.H._ xii, 3.\n\n[39] Ovid, _Fasti_, iii, 267.  _Licia dependent longas velantia saepes,\net posita est meritae multa tabella deae_.\n\n[40] Virgil, AEn. x, 423.\n\n[41] Horace, _Odes_, iii, 13.\n\n[42] W. Warde Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, p. 240.\n\n[43] Cf. Tertullian, _de Baptismo_, 5.  _Annon et alias sine ullo\nSacramento immundi spiritus aquis incubant, adfectantes illam in\nprimordio divini spiritus gestationem?  Sciunt opaci quique fontes, et\navii quique rivi, et in balneis piscinae et euripi in domibus, vel\ncisternae et putei, qui rapere dicuntur, scilicet per vim spiritus\nnocentis.  Nympholeptos et lymphaticos et hydrophobos vocant quos aquae\nnecaverunt aut amentia vel formidine exercuerunt.  Quorsum ista\nretulimus?  Ne quis durius credat angelum dei sanctum aquis in salutem\nhominis temperandis adesse._\n\n[44] Ovid, _Fasti_, vi, 155 f.\n\n[45] Cf. (Lucian) _Asinus_, 24.  _poi badixeis aoria talaipore; oude ta\ndaimonia dedoikas_.\n\n[46] Pliny, _N.H._ xxxvi, 204.\n\n[47] Lampridius, _Alex. Sev._ 29. 2.\n\n[48] _Fasti_, v. 145.  Cf. Prudentius, _adv. Symm_, ii, 445 f.\n\n[49] _Odes_, iii, 23.  _Farre pio_.\n\n[50] On _Georgic_ i, 302, See Varro, _ap._ Aug. _C.D._ vii, 13.  Also\n_Tert. de Anima_, 39, _Sic et omnibus genii deputantur, quod daemonum\nnomen est.  Adeo nulla ferme nativitas munda, utique ethnicorum_.\n\n[51] Hor. _Ep._ ii. 2, 187 f. Howes' translation.  Cf. _Faerie Queene_,\nII, xii, 47.\n\n[52] See J. H. Moulton in _Journal of Theological Studies_, III, 514.\n\n[53] Burkitt, _Early Eastern Christianity_, p. 222.\n\n[54] _Fasti_, iii, 57; Seneca, _Ep._ 18. 1, _December est mensis: cum\nmaxime civitas sudat, ius luxuries publicae datum est ... ut non\nvideatur mihi errasse qui dixit: olim mensem Decembrem fuisse nunc\nannum_.\n\n[55] Cf. Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, lect. xi.\n\n[56] Warde Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, pp. 106 f.\n\n[57] Ovid, _Fasti_, ii, 409 f.  Warde Fowler, _op. cit._ pp. 306 f.\n\n[58] Ovid, _Fasti_, v, 490.\n\n[59] _De Divinatione_, i, 1, 2.\n\n[60] _ib._ i, 3, 5.\n\n[61] _ib._ i, 39, 84.\n\n[62] _De Divinatione_, i, 38, 82, 83.  Cf. Tertullian, _de Anima_, 46.\n_Sed et Stoici deum malunt providentissimum humanae institutioni inter\ncetera praesidia divinatricum artium et disciplinarum somnia quoque\nnobis indidisse, peculiare solatium naturalis oraculi_.\n\n[63] Panaetius and Seneca should be excepted from this charge.\n\n[64] Cic. _de Div._ ii, 72, 149, 150.  Cf. _de Legg._ ii, 13, 32.\nPlutarch also has the same remark about sleep and superstition.\n\n[65] Cf. _Odes_, iii, 27.\n\n[66] _Tusculans_, i, 21, 48.\n\n[67] Hor. _Ep._ ii, 2, 208; Howes.\n\n[68] Tertullian, de _Idol._ 9, _seimus magiae et astrologiae inter se\nsocietatem_.\n\n[69] Pliny the elder on Magic, _N.H._ xxx, opening sections; _N.H._\nxxviii, 10, on incantations, _polleantne aliquid verba et incantamenta\ncarminum_.\n\n[70] Livy, xxix, 11, 14; Ovid, fasti, iv, 179 f.  The goddess was\nembodied in a big stone.\n\n[71] Lucretius, ii, 608 f.\n\n[72] Cf. Strabo, c. 470; Juvenal, vi, 511 f.\n\n[73] See Ramsay, _Church in the Roman Empire_, p. 397.  The Latins used\nthe word _divinus_ in this way--Seneca, _de teata vita_, 26, 8.\n\n[74] (Lucian) Asinus, 37.  The same tale is amplified in Apuleius'\n_Golden Ass_, where the episode of these priests is given with more\ndetail, in the eighth book.  Seneca hints that a little blood might\nmake a fair show; see his picture of the same, _de beata vita_, 26, 8.\n\n[75] Tertullian, _ad Natt._ i, 10; Apel. 6.  He has the strange fancy\nthat Serapis was originally the Joseph of the book of Genesis, _ad\nNatt._ ii, 8.\n\n[76] Valerius Maximus, i, 3, 4.\n\n[77] Dio C. xlvii, 15.\n\n[78] Tibullus, i, 3, 23 f.  Cf. Propertius, ii, 28, 45; Ovid, _A.A._\niii, 635.\n\n[79] Juvenal, vi, 522 f.\n\n[80] Lucan, viii, 831, _Isin semideosque canes_.\n\n[81] Ovid, _Am._ ii, 13, 7.\n\n[82] Unless _Isiaci coniectores_ is Cicero's own phrase, _de Div._ i,\n58, 132.\n\n[83] Cicero, _Div._ ii, 59, 121.  For _egkolmesis_ or _incubatio_ see\nMary Hamilton, _Incubation_ (1906)\n\n[84] Clem. Alex. Paedag. iii, 28, to the same effect.  Tertullian on the\ntemples, _de Pud._ c. 5.  Reference may be made to the hierodules of\nthe temples in ancient Asia and in modern India.\n\n[85] _Corp. Inscr. Lai._ ii, 3386.  The enumeration of the jewels was a\nsafeguard against theft.\n\n[86] Flinders Petrie, _Religion of Ancient Egypt_, p. 44; Hamilton,\n_Incubation_, pp. 174, 182 f.\n\n[87] Julian, _Or._ iv, 136 B.\n\n[88] Lucr. v, 1194.\n\n[89] Lucr. i, 62-79.\n\n[90] See Patin, _La Poesie Latine_, i, 120.\n\n[91] Lucr. iii, 60 f.\n\n[92] Pliny, _N.H._ xxx, 12, 13.  Warde Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, pp.\n111 f. on the _Argei_ and the whole question of human sacrifice.  For\nPlutarch's explanation of it as due not to gods but to evil demons who\nenforced it, see p. 107.\n\n[93] Pliny, _N.H._ xxviii, 12; Plutarch, _Marcellus_, 3, where,\nhowever, the meaning may only be that the rites are done in symbol; he\nrefers to the actual sacrifice of human beings in the past.  See\nTertullian, _Apol._ 9 on sacrifice of children in Africa in the reign\nof Tiberius.\n\n[94] Strabo, c. 239.  Strabo was a contemporary of Augustus.  Cf. J. G.\nFrazer, _Adonis Attis Osiris_, p. 63, for another instance in this\nperiod.\n\n[95] Lucr. v, 1204-1240.  We may compare Browning's _Bp. Blougram_ on\nthe instability of unbelief:--\n\n  Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch,\n  A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,\n  A chorus-ending from Euripides--\n  And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears\n  As old and new at once as nature's self,\n  To rap and knock and enter in our soul,\n  Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring,\n  Round the ancient idol, on his base again,--\n  The grand Perhaps!  We look on helplessly.\n\n[96] Lucr. iii, 53.\n\n[97] Seneca, _Ep._ 95, 33.\n\n\n\n\n{33}\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE STOICS\n\n\"I am entering,\" writes Tacitus,[1] \"upon the history of a period, rich\nin disasters, gloomy with wars, rent with seditions, nay, savage in its\nvery hours of peace.  Four Emperors perished by the sword; there were\nthree civil wars; there were more with foreigners--and some had both\ncharacters at once....  Rome was wasted by fires, its oldest temples\nburnt, the very Capitol set in flames by Roman hands.  There was\ndefilement of sacred rites; adulteries in high places; the sea crowded\nwith exiles; island rocks drenched with murder.  Yet wilder was the\nfrenzy in Rome; nobility, wealth, the refusal of office, its\nacceptance--everything was a crime, and virtue the surest ruin.  Nor\nwere the rewards of informers less odious than their deeds; one found\nhis spoils in a priesthood or a consulate; another in a provincial\ngovernorship; another behind the throne; and all was one delirium of\nhate and terror; slaves were bribed to betray their masters, freedmen\ntheir patrons.  He who had no foe was destroyed by his friend.\"\n\nIt was to this that Virgil's hope of a new Golden Age had\ncome--_Redeunt Saturnia regna_.  Augustus had restored the Republic; he\nhad restored religion; and after a hundred years here is the outcome.\nTacitus himself admits that the age was not \"barren of virtues,\" that\nit \"could show fine illustrations\" of family love and friendship, and\nof heroic death.  It must also be owned that the Provinces at large\nwere better governed than under the Republic; and, further, that, when\nhe wrote Tacitus thought of a particular period of civil disorder and\nthat not a long one.  Yet the reader of his Annals will feel that the\ndescription will cover more than the year 69; it is essentially true of\nthe reigns of Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius and Nero, and it was to be true\nagain of the reign of Domitian--of perhaps eighty years of the first\ncentury of our era.  If it was not true {34} of the whole Mediterranean\nworld, or even of the whole of Rome, it was true at least of that\nhalf-Rome which gave its colour to the thinking of the world.\n\n[Sidenote: The Imperial court]\n\nThrough all the elaborate pretences devised by Augustus to obscure the\ntruth, through all the names and phrases and formalities, the Roman\nworld had realized the central fact of despotism.[2]  The Emperors\nthemselves had grasped it with pride and terror.  One at least was\ninsane, and the position was enough to turn almost any brain.\n\"Monarchy,\" in Herodotus' quaint sentence,[3] \"would set the best man\noutside the ordinary thoughts.\"  Plato's myth of Gyges was\nfulfilled--of the shepherd, who found a ring that made him invisible,\nand in its strength seduced a queen, murdered a king and became a\ntyrant.  Gaius banished his own sisters, reminding them that he owned\nnot only islands but swords; and he bade his grandmother remember that\nhe could \"do anything he liked and do it to anybody.\"[4]  Oriental\nprinces had been kept at Rome as hostages and had given the\nweaker-minded members of the Imperial family new ideas of royalty.  The\nvery word was spoken freely--in his treatise \"On Clemency\" Seneca uses\nagain and again the word _regnum_ without apology.\n\nBut what gave Despotism its sting was its uncertainty.  Augustus had\nheld a curiously complicated set of special powers severally conferred\non him for specified periods, and technically they could be taken from\nhim.  The Senate was the Emperor's partner in the government of the\nworld, and it was always conceivable that the partnership might cease,\nfor it was not a definite institution--prince followed prince, it is\ntrue, but there was an element of accident about it all.  The situation\nwas difficult; Senate and Emperor eyed each other with\nsuspicion--neither knew how far the other could go, or would go;\nneither knew the terms of the partnership.  Tiberius wrote despatches\nto the Senate and he was an artist in concealing his meaning.  The\nSenate had to guess what he wished; if it guessed wrong, he would\nresent the liberty; if it guessed right, he resented the appearance of\nservility.  The solitude of the throne grew more and more uneasy.\n\n{35}\n\nAgain, the republican government had been in the hands of free men, who\nruled as magistrates, and the imperial government had no means of\nreplacing them, for one free-born Roman could not take service with\nanother.  The Emperor had to fall back upon his own household.  His\nSecretaries of State were slaves and freedmen--men very often of great\nability, but their past was against them.  If it had not depraved them,\nnone the less it left upon them a social taint, which nothing could\nremove.  They were despised by the men who courted them, and they knew\nit.  It was almost impossible for such men not to be the gangrene of\ncourt and state.  And as a fact we find that the freedman was\nthroughout the readiest agent for all evil that Rome knew, and into the\nhands of such men the government of the world drifted.  Under a weak,\nor a careless, or even an absent, Emperor Rome was governed by such men\nand such methods as we suppose to be peculiar to Sultanates and the\nEast.\n\nThe honour, the property, the life of every Roman lay in the hands of\neunuchs and valets, and, as these quarrelled or made friends, the\nfortunes of an old nobility changed with the hour.  It had not been so\nunder Augustus, nor was it so under Vespasian, nor under Trajan or his\nsuccessors; but for the greater part of the first century A.D. Rome was\ngoverned by weak or vicious Emperors, and they by their servants.  The\nspy and the informer were everywhere.\n\nTo this confusion fresh elements of uncertainty were added by the\nastrologer and mathematician, and it became treason to be interested in\n\"the health of the prince.\"  Superstition ruled the\nweakling--superstition, perpetually re-inforced by fresh hordes of\nOrientals, obsequious and unscrupulous.  Seneca called the imperial\ncourt, which he knew, \"a gloomy slave-gaol\" (_triste ergastulum_).[5]\n\nReduced to merely registering the wishes of their rulers, the Roman\nnobility sought their own safety in frivolity and extravagance.  To be\nthoughtful was to be suspected of independence and to invite danger.\nWe naturally suppose moralists and satirists to exaggerate the vices of\ntheir contemporaries, but a sober survey of Roman morals in the first\ncentury--at any rate before 70 A.D.--reveals a great deal that {36} is\nhorrible.  (Petronius is not exactly a moralist or a satirist, and\nthere is plenty of other evidence.)  Marriage does not thrive alongside\nof terror, nor yet where domestic slavery prevails, and in Rome both\nmilitated against purity of life.  The Greek girl's beauty, her charm\nand wit, were everywhere available.  For amusements, there were the\ngladiatorial shows,--brutal, we understand, but their horrible\nfascination we fortunately cannot know.  The reader of St Augustine's\n_Confessions_ will remember a famous passage on these games.  The\ngladiators were the popular favourites of the day.  They toured the\ncountry, they were modelled and painted.  Their names survive scratched\nby loafers on the walls of Pompeii.  The very children played at being\ngladiators, Epictetus said--\"sometimes athletes, now monomachi, now\ntrumpeters.\"  The Colosseum had seats for 80,000 spectators of the\ngames, \"and is even now at once the most imposing and the most\ncharacteristic relic of pagan Rome.\"[6]\n\n[Sidenote: \"Despotism tempered by epigrams\"]\n\nLife was terrible in its fears and in its pleasures.  If the poets drew\nAges of Gold in the latter days of the Republic, now the philosophers\nand historians looked away to a \"State of Nature,\" to times and places\nwhere greed and civilization were unknown.  In those happy days, says\nSeneca, they enjoyed Nature in common; the stronger had not laid his\nhand upon the weaker; weapons lay unused, and human hands, unstained by\nhuman blood, turned all the hatred they felt upon the wild beasts; they\nknew quiet nights without a sigh, while the stars moved onward above\nthem and the splendid pageant of Night; they drank from the stream and\nknew no water-pipes, and their meadows were beautiful without art;\ntheir home was Nature and not terrible; while our abodes form the\ngreatest part of our terror.[7]  In Germany, writes Tacitus, the\nmarriage-bond is strict; there are no shows to tempt virtue; adultery\nis rare; none there makes a jest of vice, _nec corrumpere et corrumpi\nseculum vocatur_; none but virgins marry and they marry to bear big\nchildren and to suckle them, _sera invenum venus eoque inexhausta\npubertas_; and the children inherit the sturdy frames of their\nparents.[8]\n\nBut whatever their dreams of the Ideal, the actual was {37} around\nthem, and men had to accommodate themselves to it.  In France before\nthe Revolution, men spoke of the government as \"despotism tempered by\nepigrams,\" and the happy phrase is as true of Imperial Rome.  \"Verses\nof unknown authorship reached the public and provoked\" Tiberius,[9] who\ncomplained of the \"circles and dinner-parties.\"  Now and again the\nauthors were discovered and were punished sufficiently.  The tone of\nthe society that produced them lives for ever in the _Annals_ of\nTacitus.  It is worth noting how men and women turned to Tacitus and\nSeneca during the French Revolution and found their own experience\nwritten in their books.[10]\n\nOthers unpacked their hearts with words in tyrannicide declamations and\nimitations of Greek tragedy.  Juvenal laughs at the crowded class-room\nbusy killing tyrants,--waiting himself till they were dead.  The\ntragedies got nearer the mark.  Here are a few lines from some of\nSeneca's own:--\n\n  Who bids all pay one penalty of death\n  Knows not a tyrant's trade.  Nay, vary it--\n  Forbid the wretch to die, and slay the happy.  (_H.F._ 515.)\n\n  And is there none to teach them stealth and sin?\n  Why! then the throne will!  (_Thyestes_ 313.)\n\n  Let him who serves a king, fling justice forth,\n  Send every scruple packing from his heart;\n  Shame is no minister to wait on kings.  (_Phaedra_ 436.)\n\n\nBut bitterness and epigram could not heal; and for healing and inward\npeace men longed more and more,[11] as they felt their own weakness,\nthe power of evil and the terror of life; and they found both in a\nphilosophy that had originally come into being under circumstances\nsomewhat similar.  They needed some foundation for life, some means of\nlinking the individual to something that could not be shaken, and this\nthey found in Stoicism.  The Stoic philosopher saw a unity in this\nworld of confusion--it was the \"Generative Reason\"--the _spermatikos\nlogos_, the Divine Word, or Reason, that is the seed and vital\nprinciple, whence all things come and in virtue of which they {38}\nlive.  All things came from fiery breath, _pneuma diapuron_, and\nreturned to it.  The whole universe was one polity--_politeia tou\nkosmou_--in virtue of the spirit that was its origin and its life, of\nthe common end to which it tended, of the absolute and universal scope\nof the laws it obeyed--mind, matter, God, man, formed one community.\nThe soul of the individual Roman partook of the very nature of\nGod--_divinae particula aurae_[12]--and in a way stood nearer to the\ndivine than did anything else in the world, every detail of which,\nhowever, was some manifestation of the same divine essence.  All men\nwere in truth of one blood, of one family,--all and each, as Seneca\nsays, sacred to each and all.[13]  (_Unum me donavit_ [_sc. Natura\nrerum_] _omnibus, uni mihi omnes_.)\n\n[Sidenote: Harmony with nature]\n\nTaught by the Stoic, the troubled Roman looked upon himself at once as\na fragment of divinity,[14] an entity self-conscious and individual,\nand as a member of a divine system expressive of one divine idea, which\nhis individuality subserved.  These thoughts gave him ground and\nstrength.  If he seemed to be the slave and plaything of an Emperor or\nan imperial freedman, none the less a divine life pulsed within him,\nand he was an essential part of \"the world.\"  He had two havens of\nrefuge--the universe and his own soul--both quite beyond the reach of\nthe oppressor.  Over and over we find both notes sounded in the\nwritings of the Stoics and their followers--God within you and God\nwithout you.  \"Jupiter is all that you see, and all that lives within\nyou.\"[15]  There is a Providence that rules human and all other\naffairs; nothing happens that is not appointed; and to this Providence\nevery man is related.  \"He who has once observed with understanding the\nadministration of the world, and learnt that the greatest and supreme\nand most comprehensive community is the system (_systema_) of men and\nGod, and that from God come the seeds whence all things, and especially\nrational beings, spring, why should not that man call himself a citizen\nof the world [Socrates' word _kosmios_], why not a son of God?\"[16]\nAnd when we consider the individual, we find that God {39} has put in\nhis power \"the best thing of all, the master thing\"--the rational\nfaculty.  What is not in our power is the entire external world, of\nwhich we can alter nothing, but the use we make of it and its\n\"appearances\"[17] is our own.  Confine yourself to \"what is in your\npower\" (_ta epi soi_), and no man can hurt you.  If you can no longer\nendure life, leave it; but remember in doing so to withdraw quietly,\nnot at a run; yet, says the sage, \"Men! wait for God; when He shall\ngive you the signal and release you from this service, then go to Him;\nbut for the present endure to dwell in this place where He has set\nyou.\"[18]\n\nTo sum up; the end of man's being and his true happiness is what Zeno\nexpressed as \"living harmoniously,\" a statement which Cleanthes\ndeveloped by adding the words \"with Nature.\"  Harmony with Nature and\nwith oneself is the ideal life; and this the outside world of Emperors,\nfreedmen, bereavements and accidents generally, can neither give nor\ntake away.  \"The end,\" says Diogenes Laertius, \"is to act in conformity\nwith nature, that is, at once with the nature which is in us and with\nthe nature of the universe, doing nothing forbidden by that common law\nwhich is the right reason that pervades all things, and which is,\nindeed, the same in the Divine Being who administers the universal\nsystem of things.  Thus the life according to nature is that virtuous\nand blessed flow of existence, which is enjoyed only by one who always\nacts so as to maintain the harmony between the daemon (_daimon_) within\nthe individual and the will of the power that orders the universe.\"[19]\n\nThis was indeed a philosophy for men, and it was also congenial to\nRoman character, as history had already shown.  It appealed to manhood,\nand whatever else has to be said of Stoics and Stoicism, it remains the\nfact that Stoicism inspired nearly all the great characters of the\nearly Roman Empire, and nerved almost every attempt that was made to\nmaintain the freedom and dignity of the human soul.[20]  The government\nwas not slow to realise the danger of men with such a trust in\nthemselves and so free from fear.\n\nOn paper, perhaps, all religions and philosophies may at first glance\nseem equally good, and it is not till we test them in life {40} that we\ncan value them aright.  And even here there is a wide field for error.\nEvery religion has its saints--men recognizable to everyone as saints\nin the beauty, manhood and tenderness of their character--and it is\nperhaps humiliating to have to acknowledge that very often they seem to\nbe so through some happy gift of Nature, quite independently of any\neffort they make, or of the religion to which they themselves generally\nattribute anything that redeems them from being base.  We have to take,\nif possible, large masses of men, and to see how they are affected by\nthe religion which we wish to study--average men, as we call them--for\nin this way we shall escape being led to hasty conclusions by happy\ninstances of natural endowment, or of virtues carefully acquired in\nfavourable circumstances of retirement or helpful environment.  Side by\nside with such results as we may reach from wider study, we have to set\nour saints and heroes, for while St Francis would have been tender and\nThrasea brave under any system of thought, it remains that the one was\nChristian and the other Stoic.  We need the individual, if we are to\navoid mere rough generalities; but we must be sure that he is\nrepresentative in some way of the class and the system under review.\n\nAs representatives of the Stoicism of the early Roman Empire, two men\nstand out conspicuous--men whose characters may be known with a high\ndegree of intimacy.  The one was a Roman statesman, famous above all\nothers in his age, and a man of letters--one of those writers who\nreveal themselves in every sentence they write and seem to leave\nrecords of every mood they have known.  The other was an emancipated\nslave, who lived at Nicopolis in Epirus, away from the main channels of\nlife, who wrote nothing, but whose conversations or monologues were\nfaithfully recorded by a disciple.\n\n\"Notable Seneca,\" writes Carlyle, \"so wistfully desirous to stand well\nwith Truth and yet not ill with Nero, is and remains only our perhaps\nniceliest proportioned half-and-half, the plausiblest Plausible on\nrecord; no great man, no true man, no man at all... 'the father of all\nsuch as wear shovel-hats.'\"  This was in the essay on Diderot written\nin 1833; and we find in his diary for 10th August 1832, when Carlyle\nwas fresh from reading Seneca, an earlier judgment to much the same\neffect--\"He is father of all that work in sentimentality, and, by fine\nspeaking {41} and decent behaviour, study to serve God and mammon, to\nstand well with philosophy and not ill with Nero.  His _force_ had\nmostly oozed out of him, or corrupted itself into _benevolence_,\nvirtue, sensibility.  Oh! the everlasting clatter about virtue!\nvirtue!!  In the Devil's name be virtuous and no more about it.\"\n\nEven in his most one-sided judgments Carlyle is apt to speak truth,\nthough it is well to remember that he himself said that little is to be\nlearnt of a man by dwelling only or mainly on his faults.  That what he\nsays in these passages is in some degree true, every candid reader must\nadmit; but if he had written an essay instead of a paragraph we should\nhave seen that a great deal more is true of Seneca.  As it is, we must\ntake what Carlyle says as representing a judgment which has often been\npassed upon Seneca, though seldom in such picturesque terms.  It is in\nany case truer than Mommsen's description of Cicero.\n\n[Sidenote: Seneca's early life]\n\nSeneca was born at Cordova in Spain about the Christian era--certainly\nnot long before it.  His father was a rich man of equestrian rank, a\nrhetorician, who has left several volumes of rhetorical compositions on\nimaginary cases.  He hated philosophy, his son tells us.[21]  Seneca's\nmother seems to have been a good woman, and not the only one in the\nfamily; for his youth was delicate and owed much to the care of a good\naunt at Rome; and his later years were spent with a good wife Pompeia\nPaulina, who bore him two little short-lived boys.\n\nIn one of his letters (108) Seneca tells us of his early life in Rome.\nHe went to the lectures of Attalus, a Stoic teacher, who laid great\nstress on simplicity of life and independence of character and was also\ninterested in superstition and soothsaying.  The pupil was a\nhigh-minded and sensitive youth, quick then, as he remained through\nlife, to take fire at an idea.[22]  \"I used to be the first to come and\nthe last to go; and as he walked I would lead him on to further\ndiscussions, for he was not only ready for those who would learn, but\nhe would meet them.\"  \"When I heard Attalus declaim against the vices,\nerrors and evils of life, I would often pity mankind; and as for him I\nthought of him as one on high, far above human nature's highest.  He\nhimself used to say he was a king [a Stoic {42} paradox at which Horace\nhad laughed]; but he seemed to me more than king,--the judge of kings.\nWhen he began to commend poverty, and to show that whatever is more\nthan need requires, is a useless burden to him that has it, I often\nlonged to leave the room a poor man.  When he attacked our pleasures\nand praised the chaste body, the sober table, the pure mind, I\ndelighted to refrain, not merely from unlawful pleasures, but from\nneedless ones too.  Some of it has stuck by me, Lucilius, for I made a\ngood beginning.\"  All his life long, in fact, he avoided the luxuries\nof table and bath, and drank water.  He continues, \"Since I have begun\nto tell you how much more keenly I began philosophy in my youth than I\npersevere with it in my old age, I am not ashamed to own what love of\nPythagoras Sotion waked in me.\"  Sotion recommended vegetarianism on\nthe grounds which Pythagoras had laid down.  \"But you do not believe,\"\nhe said, \"that souls are allotted to one body after another, and that\nwhat we call death is transmigration?  You don't believe that in beasts\nand fishes dwells the mind (_animum_) that was once a man's? ... Great\nmen have believed it; so maintain your own opinion, but keep the matter\nopen.  If it is true, then to have abstained from animal food will be\ninnocence; if it is false, it will still be frugality.\"[23]  So for a\nyear Seneca was a vegetarian with some satisfaction and he fancied that\nhis mind was livelier than when he was \"an eater of beef.\"[24]  It is\nas well not to quote some contemporary methods of preparing meat.[25]\nHowever, after a while some scandal arose about foreign religions, and\nvegetarianism was counted a \"proof of superstition,\" and the old\nrhetorician, more from dislike of philosophy than from fear of calumny,\nmade it an excuse to put a little pressure on his philosophic son, who\nobediently gave up the practice.  Such is the ardour of youth, he\nconcludes,--a good teacher finds idealists ready to his hand.  The\nfault is partly in the teachers, who train us to argue and not to live,\nand partly in the pupils too, whose aim is to have the wits trained and\nnot the mind.  \"So what was philosophy becomes philology--the love of\nwords.\"[26]\n\nThere is a certain gaiety and good humour about these {43} confessions,\nwhich is closely bound up with that air of tolerance and that sense of\nbuoyant ease[27] which pervade all his work.  Here the tone is in\nkeeping with the matter in hand, but it is not always.  Everything\nseems so easy to him that the reader begins to doubt him and to wonder\nwhether he is not after all \"The plausiblest Plausible on record.\"  We\nassociate experience with a style more plain, more tense, more\ninevitable; and the extraordinary buoyancy of Seneca's writing suggests\nthat he can hardly have known the agony and bloody sweat of the true\nteacher.  Yet under the easy phrases there lay a real sincerity.  From\nhis youth onward he took life seriously, and, so far as is possible for\na man of easy good nature, he was in earnest with himself.\n\nLike other youths of genius, he had had thoughts of suicide, but on\nreflexion, he tells us, he decided to live, and his reason was\ncharacteristic.  While for himself he felt equal to dying bravely, he\nwas not so sure that his \"kind old father\" would be quite so brave in\ndoing without him.  It was to philosophy, he says, that he owed his\nresolution.[28]\n\nApart from philosophy, he went through the ordinary course of Roman\neducation.  He \"wasted time on the grammarians,\"[29] whom he never\nforgave, and at whom, as \"guardians of Latin speech\"[30] he loved to\njest,--and the greatest of all Roman Grammarians paid him back in the\nfamiliar style of the pedagogue.  Rhetoric came to him no doubt by\nnature, certainly by environment; it conspicuously haunted his family\nfor three generations.[31]  He duly made his appearance at the\nbar--making more speeches there than Virgil did, and perhaps not\ndisliking it so much.  But he did not like it, and, when his father\ndied, he ceased to appear, and by and by found that he had lost the\npower to plead as he had long before lost the wish.[32]\n\nOn the accession of Claudius to the Imperial throne in 41 A.D., Seneca,\nnow in middle life, was for some reason banished to Corsica, and there\nfor eight weary years he remained, till the Empress Messalina fell.  A\nlittle treatise, which he wrote {44} to console his mother,\nsurvives--couched in the rhetoric she knew so well.  If the language is\nmore magnificent than sons usually address to their mothers, it must be\nremembered that he wrote to console her for misfortunes which he was\nhimself enduring.  The familiar maxim that the mind can make itself\nhappy and at home anywhere is rather like a platitude, but it loses\nsomething of that character when it comes from the lips of a man\nactually in exile.  Another little work on the subject, which he\naddressed later on to Polybius, the freedman of Claudius, stands on a\ndifferent footing, and his admirers could wish he had not written it.\nThere is flattery in it of a painfully cringing tone.  \"The Emperor did\nnot hurl him down so utterly as never to raise him again; rather he\nsupported him when evil fortune smote him and he tottered; he gently\nused his godlike hand to sustain him and pleaded with the Senate to\nspare his life....  He will see to his cause....  He best knows the\ntime at which to show favour....  Under the clemency of Claudius,\nexiles live more peacefully than princes did under Gaius.\"[33]  But a\nlittle is enough of this.\n\nIt is clear that Seneca was not what we call a strong man.  A fragile\nyouth, a spirit of great delicacy and sensibility, were no outfit for\nexile.  Nor is it very easy to understand what exile was to the\neducated Roman.  Some were confined to mere rocks, to go round and\nround them for ever and never leave them.  Seneca had of course more\nspace, but what he endured, we may in some measure divine from the\ndiaries and narratives that tell of Napoleon's life on St Helena.  The\nseclusion from the world, the narrow range, the limited number of\nfaces, the red coats, the abhorred monotony, told heavily on every\ntemper, on gaoler and prisoner alike, even on Napoleon; and Seneca's\ntemperament was not of stuff so stern.  We may wish he had not broken\ndown, but we cannot be surprised that he did.  It was human of him.\nPerhaps the memory of his own weakness and failure contributed to make\nhim the most sympathetic and the least arrogant of all Stoics.\n\n[Sidenote: Nero]\n\nAt last Messalina reached her end, and the new Empress, Agrippina,\nrecalled the exile in 49 A.D., and made him tutor of her son, Nero; and\nfrom now till within two years of his death Seneca lived in the circle\nof the young prince.  When Claudius died in 54, Seneca and Burrus\nbecame the guardians of the {45} Emperor and virtually ruled the\nEmpire.  It was a position of great difficulty.  Seneca grew to be\nimmensely rich, and his wealth and his palaces and gardens[34] weakened\nhis influence, while they intensified the jealousy felt for a minister\nso powerful.  Yet perhaps none of his detractors guessed the limits of\nhis power as surely as he came to feel them himself.  Some measure of\nthe situation may be taken from what befell when the freedwoman Claudia\nActe became the mistress of Nero.  \"His older friends did not thwart\nhim,\" says Tacitus, \"for here was a girl, who, without harm to anyone,\ngratified his desires, since he was utterly estranged from his wife\nOctavia.\"[35]  Later on, we learn, Seneca had to avail himself of\nActe's aid to prevent worse scandals.\n\nIn February 55 A.D. the young prince Britannicus was poisoned at Nero's\ntable.  He was the son of Claudius and the brother of Octavia--a\npossible claimant therefore to the Imperial throne.  Nero, not more\nthan eighteen years old, told the company quite coolly that it was an\nepileptic seizure, and the feast went on, while the dead boy was\ncarried out and buried there and then in the rain--in a grave prepared\nbefore he had entered the dining-hall.[36]  Ten months later Seneca\nwrote his tractate on Clemency.  Nero should ask himself \"Am I the\nelected of the gods to be their vice-gerent on earth?  The arbiter of\nlife and death to the nations?\" and so forth.  He is gently reminded of\nthe great light that fronts the throne; that his anger would be as\ndisastrous as war; that \"Kings gain from kindness a greater security,\nwhile their cruelty swells the number of their enemies.\"  Seneca\nwanders a good deal, but his drift is clear--and the wretchedness of\nhis position.\n\nThat Burrus and he had no knowledge of Nero's design to do away with\nhis mother, is the verdict of Nero's latest historian, but to Seneca\nfell the horrible task of writing the explanatory letter which Nero\nsent to the Senate when the murder was done.  Perhaps to judge him\nfairly, one would need to have been a Prime Minister.  It may have been\na necessary thing to do, in order to maintain the world's government,\nbut the letter imposed on nobody, and Thrasea Paetus at once rose from\nhis seat and walked conspicuously out.\n\nFrom the year 59 Nero was more than ever his own master.  {46} His\nguardians' repeated condonations had set him free, and the lad, who had\n\"wished he had never learned writing\" when he had to sign his first\ndeath-warrant, began from now to build up that evil fame for which the\nmurders of his brother and his mother were only the foundation.  For\nthree years Seneca and Burrus kept their places--miserably enough.\nThen Burrus found a happy release in death, and with him died the last\nof Seneca's influence.[37]  Seneca begged the Emperor's leave to retire\nfrom the Court, offering him the greater part of his wealth, and it was\nrefused.  It had long been upon his mind that he was too rich.  In 58 a\nfurious attack was made upon him by \"one who had earned the hate of\nmany,\" Publius Suillius; this man asked in the Senate \"by what kind of\nwisdom or maxims of philosophy\" Seneca had amassed in four years a\nfortune equal to two and a half millions sterling; and he went on to\naccuse him of intrigue with princesses, of hunting for legacies, and of\n\"draining Italy and the provinces by boundless usury.\"[38]  There was\nprobably a good deal of inference in these charges, if one may judge by\nthe carelessness of evidence which such men show in all ages.  Still\nSeneca felt the taunt, and in a book \"On the Happy Life,\" addressed to\nhis brother Gallic, he dealt with the charge.  He did not claim to be a\nsage (17, 3); his only hope was day by day to lessen his vices--he was\nstill in the thick of them; perhaps he might not reach wisdom, but he\nwould at least live for mankind \"as one born for others,\"[39] would do\nnothing for glory, and all for conscience, would be gentle and\naccessible even to his foes; as for wealth, it gave a wise man more\nopportunity, but if his riches deserted him, they would take nothing\nelse with them; a philosopher might have wealth, \"if it be taken\nforcibly from no man, stained with no man's blood, won by no wrong done\nto any, gained without dishonour; if its spending be as honest as its\ngetting, if it wake no envy but in the envious.\"[40]  The treatise has\na suggestion of excitement, and there is a good deal of rhetoric in it.\nNow he proposed to the Emperor to put his words into action, and Nero\nwould not permit him--he was not ready for the odium of despoiling his\nguardian, and the old man's name might still be of use to cover deeds\nin which he had no share.  Seneca was not to resign his {47} wealth nor\nto leave Rome.  Nero's words as given by Tacitus are pleasant enough,\nbut we hardly need to be told their value.[41]\n\n[Sidenote: Seneca's last days]\n\nIt was merely a reservation of the death sentence, and Seneca must have\nknown it.  The only thing now was to wait till he should receive the\norder to die, and Seneca occupied the time in writing.  If what he\nwrote has a flushed and excited air, it is not surprising.  The\nuncertainty of his position had preyed upon him while he was still\nMinister--\"there are many,\" he had written, \"who must hold fast to\ntheir dizzy height; it is only by falling that they can leave it.\"[42]\nHe had fallen, and still he had to live in uncertainty; he had always\nbeen a nervous man.\n\nThe end came in 65, in connexion with the conspiracy of Piso.  Tacitus\nis not altogether distinct as to the implication of Seneca in this\nplot, but modern historians have inclined to believe in his guilt--if\nguilt it was.[43]  Mr Henderson, in particular, is very severe on him\nfor this want of \"gratitude\" to his benefactor and pupil, but it is\ndifficult to see what Nero had done for him that he would not have\npreferred undone.[44]  Perhaps at the time, and certainly later on,\nSeneca was regarded as a possible substitute for Nero upon the\nthrone;[45] but he was well over sixty and frail, nor is it clear that\nthe world had yet decided that a man could be Emperor without being a\nmember of the Julian or Claudian house.  Seneca, in fact any man, must\nhave felt that any one would be better than Nero, but he had himself\nconspicuously left the world, and, with his wife, was living the\nphilosophic life--a vegetarian again, and still a water-drinker.[46]\nSeneca was ready for the death-summons and at once opened his veins.\nDeath came slowly, but it came; and he died, eloquent to the\nlast--_novissimo quoque momenta suppeditante eloquentia_.\n\nSuch is the story of Seneca.  Even in bare outline it shows something\nof his character--his kindliness and sensibility, his weakness and\nvanity; but there are other features revealed in his books and his many\nlong letters to Lucilius.  No Roman, perhaps, ever laid more stress on\nthe duty of gentleness and forgiveness.[47]  \"Look at the City of\nRome,\" he says, \"and the {48} crowds unceasingly pouring through its\nbroad streets--what a solitude, what a wilderness it would be, were\nnone left but whom a strict judge would acquit.  We have all done wrong\n(_peccavimus_), some in greater measure, some in less, some on purpose,\nsome by accident, some by the fault of others; we have not stood\nbravely enough by our good resolutions; despite our will and our\nresistance, we have lost our innocence.  Nor is it only that we have\nacted amiss; we shall do so to the end.\"[48]  He is anxious to make\nStoicism available for his friends; he tones down its gratuitous\nharshness, accommodates, conciliates.  He knows what conscience is; he\nis recognized as a master in dealing with the mind at variance with\nitself, so skilfully does he analyse and lay bare its mischiefs.\nPerhaps he analyses too much--the angel, who bade Hermas cease to ask\nconcerning sins and ask of righteousness, might well have given him a\nword.  But he is always tender with the man to whom he is writing.  If\nhe was, as Quintilian suggests, a \"splendid assailant of the faults of\nmen,\" it is the faults of the unnamed that he assails; his friends'\nfaults suggest his own, and he pleads and sympathizes.  His style\ncorresponds with the spirit in which he thinks.  \"You complain,\" he\nwrites to Lucilius, \"that my letters are not very finished in style.\nWho talks in a finished style unless he wishes to be affected?  What my\ntalk would be, if we were sitting or walking together, unlaboured and\neasy, that is what I wish my letters to be, without anything precious\nor artificial in them.\"[49] And he has in measure succeeded in giving\nthe air of talk to his writing--its ease, its gaiety, even its rambling\nand discursiveness.  He always sees the friend to whom he writes, and\ntalks to him--sometimes at him--and not without some suggestion of\ngesticulation.  He must have talked well--though one imagines that,\nlike Coleridge on Highgate Hill, he probably preferred the listener who\nsat \"like a passive bucket to be pumped into.\"  Happily the reader is\nnot obliged to be quite so passive.\n\nBut we shall not do him justice if we do not recognize his high\ncharacter.  In an age when it was usual to charge every one with\nfoulness, natural and unnatural, Dio Cassius alone among writers\nsuggests it of Seneca; and, quite apart from his particular bias in\nthis case, Dio is not a high authority,--more {49} especially as he\nbelonged to a much later generation.  If his talk is of \"virtue!\nvirtue!\" Seneca's life was deliberately directed to virtue.  In the\nmidst of Roman society, and set in the highest place but one in the\nworld, he still cherished ideals, and practised self-discipline, daily\nself-examination.  \"This is the one goal of my days and of my nights:\nthis is my task, my thought--to put an end to my old faults.\"[50]  His\nwhole philosophy is practical, and directed to the reformation of\nmorals.  The Stoic paradoxes, and with them every part of philosophy\nwhich has no immediate bearing upon conduct, he threw aside.  His\nlanguage on the accumulation of books recalls the amusement of St\nFrancis at the idea of possessing a breviary.  And further, we may note\nthat whatever be charged against him as a statesman, not his own\nmaster, and as a writer, not always quite in control of his rhetoric,\nSeneca was fundamentally truthful with himself.  He never hid his own\nweakness; he never concealed from himself the difficulty of his ideals;\nhe never tried to delude himself with what he could not believe.  The\nStoics had begun long since to make terms with popular religion, but\nSeneca is entirely free from delusions as to the gods of popular\nbelief.  He saw clearly enough that there was no truth in them, and he\nnever sought help from anything but the real.  He is a man, trained in\nthe world,[51] in touch with its problems of government, with the\nindividual and his questions of character, death and eternity,--a man\ntender, pure and true--too great a man to take the purely negative\nstand of Thrasea, or to practise the virtue of the schools in \"arrogant\nindolence.\"  But he has hardly reached the inner peace which he sought.\n\nThe story of Epictetus can be more briefly told, for there is very\nlittle to tell.[52]  He was born at Hierapolis in Phrygia:--he was the\nslave of Nero's freedman Epaphroditus, and somehow managed to hear the\nlectures of the Stoic Musonius.  Eventually he was set free, and when\nDomitian expelled the philosophers from Rome, he went to Nicopolis in\nEpirus,[53] where he lived and taught--lame, neat, poor and old.  How\n{50} he taught is to be seen in the discourses which Arrian took down\nin the reign of Trajan,--\"Whatever I heard him say, I tried to write\ndown exactly, and in his very words as far as I could--to keep them as\nmemorials for myself of his mind and of his outspokenness.  So they\nare, as you would expect, very much what a man would say to another on\nthe spur of the moment--not what he would write for others to read\nafterwards....  His sole aim in speaking was to move the minds of his\nhearers to the best things.  If then these discourses should achieve\nthis, they would have the effect which I think a philosopher's words\nshould have.  But if they do not, let my readers know that, when he\nspoke them, the hearer could not avoid being affected as Epictetus\nwished him to be.  If the discourses do not achieve this, perhaps it\nwill be my fault, or perhaps it may be inevitable.  Farewell.\"\n\n[Sidenote: Epictetus on children and women]\n\nSuch, save for a sentence or two omitted, is Arrian's\npreface,--thereafter no voice is heard but that of Epictetus.  To\nplace, time or persons present the barest allusions only are made.\n\"Someone said ... And Epictetus spoke.\"  The four books of Arrian give\na strong impression of fidelity.  We hear the tones of the old man, and\ncan recognize \"the mind and the outspokenness,\" which Arrian cherished\nin memory--we understand why, as we read.  The high moral sense of the\nteacher, his bursts of eloquence, his shrewdness, his abrupt turns of\nspeech, his apostrophes--\"Slave!\" he cries, as he addresses the\nweakling--his diminutives of derision, produce the most lively sense of\na personality.  There is wit, too, but like Stoic wit in general it is\nhard and not very sympathetic; it has nothing of the charm and delicacy\nof Plato's humour, nor of its kindliness.\n\nHere and there are words and thoughts which tell of his life.  More\nthan once he alludes to his age and his lameness--\"A lame old man like\nme.\"  But perhaps nowhere in literature are there words that speak so\nloud of a man without experience of woman or child.  \"On a voyage,\" he\nsays, \"when the ship calls at a port and you go ashore for water, it\namuses you to pick up a shell or a plant by the way; but your thoughts\nought to be directed to the ship, and you must watch lest the captain\ncall, and then you must throw away all those things, that you may not\nbe flung aboard, tied like the sheep.  So in life, suppose {51} that\ninstead of some little shell or plant, you are given something in the\nway of wife or child (_anti bolbariou kai kochlidiou gynaikarion kai\npaidion_) nothing need hinder.  But, if the captain call, run to the\nship letting them all go and never looking round.  If you are old, do\nnot even go far from the ship, lest you fail to come when called.\"[54]\nHe bids a man endure hunger; he can only die of it.  \"But my wife and\nchildren also suffer hunger, (_ohi emoi peineousi_).  What then? does\ntheir hunger lead to any other place?  Is there not for them the same\ndescent, wherever it lead?  Below, is it not the same for them as for\nyou?\"[55]  \"If you are kissing your child, or brother, or friend, never\ngive full licence to the appearance (_ten phantasian_); check your\npleasure ... remind yourself that you love a mortal thing, a thing that\nis not your own (_ouden ton sautou_)....  What harm does it do to\nwhisper, as you kiss the child, 'To-morrow you will die'?\"  This is a\nthought he uses more than once,[56] though he knows the attractiveness\nof lively children.[57]  He recommends us to practise\nresignation--beginning on a broken jug or cup, then on a coat or puppy,\nand so up to oneself and one's limbs, children, wife or brothers.[58]\n\"If a man wishes his son or his wife not to do wrong, he really wishes\nwhat is another's not to be another's.\"[59]\n\nAs to women, a few quotations will show his detachment.  He seems\nhardly to have known a good woman.  \"Do not admire your wife's beauty,\nand you are not angry with the adulterer.  Learn that a thief and an\nadulterer have no place among the things that are yours, but among\nthose which are not yours and not in your power,\"[60] and he\nillustrates his philosophy with an anecdote of an iron lamp stolen from\nhim, which he replaced with an earthenware one.  From fourteen years\nold, he says, women think of nothing and aim at nothing {52} but lying\nwith men.[61]  Roman women liked Plato's Republic for the licence they\nwrongly supposed it gave.[62]  He constantly speaks of women as a\ntemptation, nearly always using a diminutive _korasion_,\n_korasidion_--little girls--and as a temptation hardly to be resisted\nby young men.  He speaks of their \"softer voices.\"[63]  A young\nphilosopher is no match for a \"pretty girl\"; let him fly\ntemptation.[64]  \"As to pleasure with women, abstain as far as you can,\nbefore marriage; but if you do indulge in it, do it in the way\nconformable to custom.  Do not, however, be disagreeable to those who\ntake such pleasures, nor apt to rebuke them or to say often that you do\nnot.\"[65]  All this may be taken as the impression left by Rome and the\nhousehold of Epaphroditus upon a slave's mind.  It may be observed that\nhe makes nothing like Dio Chrysostom's condemnation of prostitution--an\nutterance unexampled in pagan antiquity.\n\nIt is pleasanter to turn to other features of Epictetus.  He has a very\nstriking lecture on personal cleanliness.[66]  In proportion as men\ndraw near the gods by reason, they cling to purity of soul and body.\nNature has given men hands and nostrils; so, if a man does not use a\nhandkerchief, \"I say, he is not fulfilling the function of a man.\"\nNature has provided water.  \"It is impossible that some impurity should\nnot remain in the teeth after eating.  'So wash your teeth,' says\nNature.  Why?  'That you may be a man and not a beast--a pig.'\"  If a\nman would not bathe and use the strigil and have his clothes\nwashed--\"either go into a desert where you deserve to go, or live alone\nand smell yourself.\"  He cannot bear a dirty man,--\"who does not get\nout of his way?\"  It gives philosophy a bad name, he says; but it is\nquite clear that that was not his chief reason.  He would sooner a\nyoung man came to him with his hair carefully trimmed than with it\ndirty and rough; such care implied \"some conception of the beautiful,\"\nwhich it was only necessary to direct towards the things of the mind;\n\"but if a man comes to me filthy and dirty, with a moustache down to\nhis knees--what _can_ I say to him?\"  \"But whence am I to get a fine\ncloak?  Man! you have water; wash it!\"\n\n{53}\n\n[Sidenote: Fame of Epictetus]\n\nPupils gathered round him and he became famous, as we can see in the\nreminiscences of Aulus Gellius.[67]  Sixty or seventy years after his\ndeath a man bought his old earthenware lamp for three thousand\ndrachmas.[68]  Even in his lifetime men began to come about \"the\nwonderful old man\" who were hardly serious students.  They wished, he\nsays, to occupy the time while waiting to engage a passage on a\nship--they happened to be passing (_parodos estin_) and looked in to\nsee him as if he were a statue.  \"We can go and see Epictetus\ntoo.--Then you go away and say; Oh!  Epictetus was nothing! he talked\nbad Greek--oh! barbarous Greek!\"[69]  Others came to pick up a little\nphilosophic language for use in public.  Why could they not\nphilosophize and say nothing? he asked.  \"Sheep do not vomit up their\ngrass to show the shepherd how much they have eaten--no! they digest it\ninside, and then produce wool and milk outside.\"[70]  He took his\nteaching seriously as a matter of life, and he looked upon it as a\nservice done to mankind--quite equivalent to the production of \"two or\nthree ugly-nosed children.\"[71]  He has a warm admiration for the Cynic\nphilosopher's independence of encumberments--how can he who has to\nteach mankind go looking after a wife's confinement--or \"something to\nheat the water in to give the baby a bath?\"[72]\n\nThese then are the two great teachers of Stoicism, the outstanding\nfigures, whose words and tones survive, whose characters are familiar\nto us.  They are clearly preachers, both of them, intent on the\npractical reformation of their listeners or correspondents.  For them\nconduct is nine-tenths of life.  Much of their teaching is of course\nthe common property of all moral teachers--the deprecation of anger, of\nquarrelsomeness, of self-indulgence, of grumbling, of impurity, is\npeculiar to no school.  Others have emphasized that life is a campaign\nwith a general to be obeyed, if you can by some instinct divine what he\nis signalling.[73]  But {54} perhaps it was a new thing in the Western\nWorld, when so much accent was laid on conduct.  The terror of\ncontemporary life, with its repulsiveness, its brutality and its\nfascination, drove men in search of the moral guide.  The philosopher's\nschool was an infirmary, not for the glad but for the sorry.[74]  \"That\nman,\" says Seneca, \"is looking for salvation--_ad salutem spectat_.\"\n\n[Sidenote: Self-examination]\n\nMen sought the help of the philosopher, and relapsed.  \"He thinks he\nwishes reason.  He has fallen out with luxury, but he will soon make\nfriends with her.  But he says he is offended with his own life!  I do\nnot deny it; who is not?  Men love their vices and hate them at the\nsame time.\"[75]  So writes Seneca of a friend of Lucilius and his\nfugitive thoughts of amendment, and Epictetus is no less emphatic on\nthe crying need for earnestness.  The Roman world was so full of\nglaring vice that every serious man from Augustus onward had insisted\non some kind of reformation, and now men were beginning to feel that\nthe reformation must begin within themselves.  The habit of daily\nself-examination became general among the Stoics, and they recommended\nit warmly to their pupils.  Here is Seneca's account of himself.\n\n\"When the day was over and Sextius had gone to his night's rest, he\nused to ask his mind (_animum_): 'what bad habit of yours have you\ncured to-day? what vice have you resisted? in what respect are you\nbetter?'  Anger will cease and will be more moderate, when it knows it\nmust daily face the judge.  Could anything be more beautiful than this\nhabit of examining the whole day?  What a sleep is that which follows\nself-scrutiny!  How calm, how deep and free, when the mind is either\npraised or admonished, when it has looked into itself, and like a\nsecret censor makes a report upon its own moral state.  I avail myself\nof this power and daily try my own case.  When the light is removed\nfrom my sight, and my wife, who knows my habit, is silent, I survey my\nwhole day and I measure my words again.  I hide nothing from myself; I\npass over nothing.  For why should I be afraid of any of my errors,\nwhen I can say: 'See that you do it no more, now I forgive you.  In\nthat discussion, you spoke too pugnaciously; after this do not engage\nwith the ignorant; they will not learn who have never {55} learned.\nThat man you admonished too freely, so you did him no good; you\noffended him.  For the future, see not only whether what you say is\ntrue, but whether he to whom it is said will bear the truth.'\"[76]\n\nSimilar passages might be multiplied.  \"Live with yourself and see how\nill-furnished you are,\" wrote Persius (iv, 52) the pupil of Cornutus.\n\"From heaven comes that word 'know thyself,'\" said Juvenal.  A rather\nremarkable illustration is the letter of Serenus, a friend of Seneca's,\nof whose life things are recorded by Tacitus that do not suggest\nself-scrutiny.  In summary it is as follows:--\n\n\"I find myself not quite free, nor yet quite in bondage to faults which\nI feared and hated.  I am in a state, not the worst indeed, but very\nquerulous and uncomfortable, neither well nor ill.  It is a weakness of\nthe mind that sways between the two, that will neither bravely turn to\nright nor to wrong.  Things disturb me, though they do not alter my\nprinciples.  I think of public life; something worries me, and I fall\nback into the life of leisure, to be pricked to the will to act by\nreading some brave words or seeing some fine example.  I beg you, if\nyou have any remedy to stay my fluctuation of mind, count me worthy to\nowe you peace.  To put what I endure into a simile, it is not the\ntempest that troubles me, but sea-sickness.\"[77]\n\nEpictetus quotes lines which he attributes to Pythagoras--\n\n  Let sleep not come upon thy languid eyes\n  Ere thou has scanned the actions of the day--\n  Where have I sinned?  What done or left undone?\n  From first to last examine all, and then\n  Blame what is wrong, in what is right, rejoice.[78]\n\nThese verses, he adds, are for use, not for quotation.  Elsewhere he\ngives us a parody of self-examination--the reflections of one who would\nprosper in the world--\"Where have I failed in flattery?  Can I have\ndone anything like a free man, or a noble-minded?  Why did I say that?\nWas it not in my power to lie?  Even the philosophers say nothing\nhinders a man from telling a lie.\"[79]\n\n{56}\n\nBut self-examination may take us further.[80]  We come into the world,\nhe says, with some innate idea (_emphutos ennoia_) of good and evil, as\nif Nature had taught us; but we find other men with different\nideas,--Syrians and Egyptians, for instance.  It is by a comparison of\nour ideas with those of other men that philosophy comes into being for\nus.  \"The beginning of philosophy--with those at least who enter upon\nit aright--by the door--is a consciousness of one's own weakness and\ninsufficiency in necessary things (_astheneias kai adunamias_).\"  We\nneed rules or canons, and philosophy determines these for us by\ncriticism.[81]\n\nThis reference to Syrians and Egyptians is probably not idle.  The\nprevalence of Syrian and Egyptian religions, inculcating ecstatic\ncommunion with a god and the soul's need of preparation for the next\nworld, contributed to the change that is witnessed in Stoic philosophy.\nThe Eastern mind is affecting the Greek, and later Stoicism like later\nPlatonism has thoughts and ideals not familiar to the Greeks of earlier\ndays.  It was with religions, as opposed to city cults, that Stoicism\nhad now to compete for the souls of men; and while it retains its Greek\ncharacteristics in its intellectualism and its slightly-veiled contempt\nfor the fool and the barbarian, it has taken on other features.  It was\navowedly a rule of life rather than a system of speculation; and it was\nmore, for the doctrine of the Spermaticos Logos (the Generative Reason)\ngave a new meaning to conduct and opened up a new and rational way to\nGod.  Thus Stoicism, while still a philosophy was pre-eminently a\nreligion, and even a gospel--Good News of emancipation from the evil in\nthe world and of union with the Divine.\n\n[Sidenote: The true worship of the gods]\n\nStoicism gave its convert a new conception of the relation of God and\nman.  One Divine Word was the essence of both--Reason was shared by men\nand gods, and by pure thought men came into contact with the divine\nmind.  Others sought communion in trance and ritual--the Stoic when he\nwas awake, at his highest and best level, with his mind and not his\nhand, in thoughts, which he could understand and assimilate, rather\nthan in magical formulae, which lost their value when they became {57}\nintelligible.  God and men formed a polity, and the Stoic was the\nfellow-citizen of the gods, obeying, understanding and adoring, as they\ndid, one divine law, one order--a partaker of the divine nature, a\ncitizen of the universe, a free man as no one else was free, because he\nknew his freedom and knew who shared it with him.  He stood on a new\nfooting with the gods, and for him the old cults passed away,\nsuperseded by a new worship which was divine service indeed.\n\n\"How the gods are to be worshipped, men often tell us.  Let us not\npermit a man to light lamps on the Sabbath, for the gods need not the\nlight, and even men find no pleasure in the smoke.  Let us forbid to\npay the morning salutation and to sit at the doors of the temples; it\nis human interest that is courted by such attentions: God, he worships\nwho knows Him.  Let us forbid to take napkins and strigils to Jove, to\nhold the mirror to Juno.  God seeks none to minister to him; nay!\nhimself he ministers to mankind; everywhere he is, at the side of every\nman.  Let a man hear what mode to keep in sacrifices, how far to avoid\nwearisomeness and superstition: never will enough be done, unless in\nhis mind he shall have conceived God as he ought, as in possession of\nall things, as giving all things freely.  What cause is there that the\ngods should do good?  Nature.  He errs, who thinks they _can_ not do\nharm; they _will_ not.  They cannot receive an injury nor do one.  To\nhurt and to be hurt are one thing.  Nature, supreme and above all most\nbeautiful, has exempted them from danger and from being dangerous.  The\nbeginning of worship of the gods is to believe gods are; then to\nattribute to them their own majesty, to attribute to them goodness,\nwithout which majesty is not, to know it is they who preside over the\nuniverse, who rule all things by their might, who are guardians of\nmankind; at times[82] thoughtful of individuals.  They neither give nor\nhave evil; but they chastise, they check, they assign penalties and\nsometimes punish in the form of blessing.  Would you propitiate the\ngods?  Be good!  He has worshipped them enough who has imitated\nthem.\"[83]\n\n{58}\n\nThis is not merely a statement of Stoic dogma; it was a proclamation of\nfreedom.  Line after line of this fine passage directly counters what\nwas asserted and believed throughout the world by the adherents of the\nEastern religions.  Hear Seneca once more.\n\n[Sidenote: Providence]\n\n\"We understand Jove to be ruler and guardian of the whole, mind and\nbreath of the Universe (_animum spiritumque mundi_), lord and artificer\nof this fabric.  Every name is his.  Would you call him fate?  You will\nnot err.  He it is on whom all things depend, the cause of causes.\nWould you call him Providence?  You will speak aright.  He it is whose\nthought provides for the universe that it may move on its course unhurt\nand do its part.  Would you call him Nature? you will not speak amiss.\nHe it is of whom all things are born, by whose breath (_spiritu_) we\nlive.  Would you call him Universe?  You will not be deceived.  He\nhimself is this whole that you see, fills his own parts, sustains\nhimself and what is his.\"[84]\n\nSome one asked Epictetus one day how we can be sure that all our\nactions are under the inspection of God.  \"Do you think,\" said\nEpictetus, \"that all things are a unity?\" (_i.e._ in the polity of the\ncosmos).  \"Yes.\"  \"Well then, do you not think that things earthly are\nin sympathy (_sympathein_) with things heavenly?\"  \"Yes.\"  Epictetus\nreminded his listener of the harmony of external nature, of flowers and\nmoon and sun.  \"But are leaves and our bodies so bound up and united\nwith the whole, and are not our souls much more? and are our souls so\nbound up and in touch with God (_synapheis to theo_) as parts of Him\nand portions of Him, and can it be that God does not perceive every\nmotion of these parts as being His own motion cognate with Himself\n(_symphyous_)?\"[85]  He bade the man reflect upon his own power of\ngrasping in his mind ten thousand things at once under divine\nadministration; \"and is not God able to oversee all things, and to be\npresent with them, and to receive from all a certain communication?\"\nThe man replied that he could not comprehend all these things at once.\n\"And who tells you this--that you have equal power with Zeus?\nNevertheless, he has placed by every man a guardian (_epitropon_), each\nman's {59} Daemon, to whom he has committed the care of the man, a\nguardian who never sleeps, is never deceived.  For to what better and\nmore careful watch (_phylaki_) could He have entrusted each of us?\nWhen then you (plural) have shut your doors and made darkness within,\nremember never to say that you are alone, for you are not; but God is\nwithin and your Daemon (Greek: _ho hymeteros daimon_); and what need\nhave they of light to see what you are doing?\"[86]\n\nHere another feature occurs--the question of the daemons.  Seneca once\nalludes to the idea--\"for the present,\" he writes to Lucilius, \"set\naside the view of some people, that to each individual one of us a god\nis given as a pedagogue, not indeed of the first rank, but of an\ninferior brand, of the number of those whom Ovid calls 'gods of the\nlower order' (_de plebe deos_); yet remember that our ancestors who\nbelieved this were so far Stoics, for to every man and woman they gave\na _Genius_ or a _Juno_.  Later on we shall see whether the gods have\nleisure to attend to private people's business.\"[87]  But before we\npursue a side issue, which we shall in any case have to examine at a\nlater point, let us look further at the central idea.\n\nThe thoughtful man finds himself, as we have seen, in a polity of gods\nand men, a cosmos, well-ordered in its very essence.  \"In truth,\" says\nEpictetus, \"the whole scheme of things (_ta hola_) is badly managed, if\nZeus does not take care of his own citizens, so that they may be like\nhimself, happy.\"[88] The first lesson of philosophy is that \"there is a\nGod and that he provides for the whole scheme of things, and that it is\nnot possible to conceal from him our acts--no, nor our intentions or\nthoughts.\"[89]  \"God,\" says Seneca, \"has a father's mind towards the\ngood, and loves them stoutly--'let them,' he says, 'be exercised in\nwork, pain and loss, that they may gather true strength.'\"  It is\nbecause God is in love with the good (_bonorum amantissimus_) that he\ngives them fortune to wrestle with.  \"_There_ is a match worth God's\nsight (_pardeo dignum_)--a brave man paired with evil\nfortune--especially if he is himself the challenger.\"[90] He goes on to\nshow that what appear to be evils are not so; that misfortunes are at\nonce for the advantage of those whom {60} they befall and of men in\ngeneral or the universe (_universis_), \"for which the gods care more\nthan for individuals\"; that those who receive them are glad to have\nthem--\"and deserve evil if they are not\"; that misfortunes come by fate\nand befall men by the same law by which they are good.  \"Always to be\nhappy and to go through life without a pang of the mind (_sine morsu\nanimi_) is to know only one half of Nature.\"[91]  \"The fates lead us:\nwhat time remains for each of us, the hour of our birth determined.\nCause hangs upon cause....  Of old it was ordained whereat you should\nrejoice or weep; and though the lives of individuals seem marked out by\na great variety, the sum total comes to one and the same\nthing--perishable ourselves we receive what shall perish.\"[92]  \"The\ngood man's part is then to commit himself to fate--it is a great\ncomfort to be carried along with the universe.  Whatever it is that has\nbidden us thus to live and thus to die, by the same necessity it binds\nthe gods.  An onward course that may not be stayed sweeps on human and\ndivine alike.  The very founder and ruler of all things has written\nfate, but he follows it: he ever obeys, he once commanded.\"[93]  To the\ngood, God says, \"To you I have given blessings sure and enduring; all\nyour good I have set within you.  Endure! herein you may even\nout-distance God; he is outside the endurance of evils and you above\nit.[94]  Above all I have provided that none may hold you against your\nwill; the door is open; nothing I have made more easy than to die; and\ndeath is quick.\"[95]\n\nEpictetus is just as clear that we have been given all we need.  \"What\nsays Zeus?  Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made both\nyour little body and your little property free, and not exposed to\nhindrance....  Since I was not able to do this, I have given you a\nlittle portion of us, this faculty of pursuing or avoiding an object,\nthe faculty of desire and {61} aversion and in a word the faculty of\nusing the appearances of things.\"[96]  \"Must my leg then be lamed?\nSlave! do you then on account of one wretched leg find fault with the\ncosmos?  Will you not willingly surrender it for the whole? ... Will\nyou be vexed and discontented with what Zeus has set in order, with\nwhat he and the Moirae, who were there spinning thy nativity\n(_genesin_), ordained and appointed?  I mean as regards your body; for\nso far as concerns reason you are no worse than the gods and no\nless.\"[97]\n\n[Sidenote: The holy spirit within us]\n\nIn language curiously suggestive of another school of thought, Seneca\nspeaks of God within us, of divine help given to human effort.  \"God is\nnear you, with you, within you.  I say it, Lucilius; a holy spirit sits\nwithin us (_sacer intra nos spiritus sedet_), spectator of our evil and\nour good, and guardian.  Even as he is treated by us, he treats us.\nNone is a good man without God.[98]  Can any triumph over fortune\nunless helped by him?  He gives counsel, splendid and manly; in every\ngood man,\n\n  What god we know not, yet a god there dwells.\"[99]\n\n\"The gods,\" he says elsewhere, \"are not scornful, they are not envious.\nThey welcome us, and, as we ascend, they reach us their hands.  Are you\nsurprised a man should go to the gods?  God comes to men, nay! nearer\nstill! he comes _into_ men.  No mind (_mens_) is good without God.\nDivine seeds are sown in human bodies,\" and will grow into likeness to\ntheir origin if rightly cultivated.[100]  It should be noted that the\nascent is by the route of frugality, temperance and fortitude.  To this\nwe must return.\n\nMan's part in life is to be the \"spectator and interpreter\" of\n\"God\"[101] as he is the \"son of God\";[102] to attach himself to\nGod;[103] to be his soldier, obey his signals, wait his call to {62}\nretreat; or (in the language of the Olympian festival) to \"join with\nhim in the spectacle and the festival for a short time\"\n(_sympompeusonta auto kai syneortasonta pros oligon_), to watch the\npomp and the panegyris, and then go away like a grateful and modest\nman;[104] to look up to God and say \"use me henceforth for what thou\nwill.  I am of thy mind; I am thine.\"[105] \"If we had understanding,\nwhat else ought we to do, but together and severally, hymn God, and\nbless him (_euphemein_) and tell of his benefits?  Ought we not, in\ndigging or ploughing or eating, to sing this hymn to God?  'Great is\nGod who has given us such tools with which to till the earth; great is\nGod who has given us hands, the power of swallowing, stomachs, the\npower to grow unconsciously, and to breathe while we sleep.' ... What\nelse can I do, a lame old man, but hymn God?  If I were a nightingale,\nI would do the part of a nightingale ... but I am a rational creature,\nand I ought to hymn God; this is my proper work; I do it; nor will I\nquit my post so long as it is given me; and you I call upon to join in\nthis same song.\"[106] Herakles in all his toils had nothing dearer to\nhim than God, and \"for that reason he was believed to be the son of God\nand he was.\"[107]  \"Clear away from your thoughts sadness, fear,\ndesire, envy, avarice, intemperance, etc.  But it is not possible to\neject all these things, otherwise than by looking away to God alone\n(_pros monon ton theon apobleponta_) by fixing your affections on him\nonly, by being dedicated to his commands.\"[108] This is \"a peace not of\nCaesar's proclamation (for whence could he proclaim it?) but of\nGod's--through reason.\"[109]\n\n[Sidenote: Humanity]\n\nThe man, who is thus in harmony with the Spermaticos, Logos, who has\n\"put his 'I' and 'mine'\"[110] in the things of the will, has no quarrel\nwith anything external.  He takes a part in the affairs of men without\naggression, greed or meanness.  He submits to what is laid upon him.\nHis peace none can take away, and none can make him angry.  There is a\nfine passage in Seneca's ninety-fifth letter, following his account of\nright worship already quoted, in which he proceeds to deduce from this\nthe right attitude to men.  A sentence or two {63} must suffice.  \"How\nlittle it is not to injure him, whom you ought to help!  Great praise\nforsooth, that man should be kind to man!  Are we to bid a man to lend\na hand to the shipwrecked, point the way to the wanderer, share bread\nwith the hungry? ... This fabric which you see, wherein are divine and\nhuman, is one.  We are members of a great body.  Nature has made us of\none blood, has implanted in us mutual love, has made us for society\n(sociabiles).  She is the author of justice and equity....  Let that\nverse be in your heart and on your lip.\n\n  _Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto_\"[111]\n\n\"Unhappy man! will you ever love? (_ecquando amabis_)\" he says to the\nirritable.[112]  A little before, he said, \"Man, a sacred thing to man,\nis slain for sport and merriment; naked and unarmed he is led forth;\nand the mere death of a man is spectacle enough.\"[113]  This was the\nStoic's condemnation of the gladiatorial shows.  Nor was it only by\nwords that Stoicism worked for humanity, for it was Stoic lawyers who\nsoftened and broadened and humanized Roman law.[114]\n\nYet Stoicism in Seneca and Epictetus had reached its zenith.  From now\nonward it declined.  Marcus Aurelius, in some ways the most attractive\nof all Stoics, was virtually the last.  With the second century\nStoicism ceased to be an effective force in occupying and inspiring the\nwhole mind of men, though it is evident that it still influenced\nthinkers.  Men studied the Stoics and made fresh copies of their books,\nas they did for a thousand years; they borrowed and adapted; but they\nwere not Stoics.  Stoicism had passed away as a system first and then\nas a religion; and for this we have to find some reason or reasons.\n\nIt may well be true that the environment of the Stoics was not fit for\nso high and pure a philosophy.  The broad gulf between the common Roman\nlife and Stoic teaching is evident enough.  The intellectual force of\nthe Roman world moreover was ebbing, and Stoicism required more\nstrength of mind and character than was easily to be found.  That a\nreligion or a philosophy {64} fails to hold its own is not a sure sign\nthat it is unfit or untrue; it may only be premature, and it may be\nheld that at another stage of the world's history Stoicism or some\nsimilar scheme of thought,--or, better perhaps, some central idea round\nwhich a system and a life develop--may yet command the assent of better\nmen in a better age.  At the same time, it is clear that when Stoicism\nre-emerges,--if it does,--it will be another thing.  Already we have\nseen in Wordsworth, and (so far as I understand him) in Hegel, a great\ninforming conception which seems to have clear affinity with the\nSpermaticos Logos of the Stoics.  The passage from the \"Lines written\nabove Tintern Abbey\" (quoted in the previous chapter) may be\nsupplemented by many from the \"Prelude\" and other poems to illustrate\nat once the likeness and the difference between the forms the thought\nhas taken.  It is, however, a certain condemnation of a philosophic\nschool when we have to admit that, whatever its apprehension of truth,\nit failed to capture its own generation, either because of some error\nof presentment, or of some fundamental misconception.  When we find,\nmoreover, that there is not only a refusal of Stoicism but a reaction\nfrom it, conscious or unconscious, we are forced to inquire into the\ncause.\n\n[Sidenote: The individual will]\n\nWe shall perhaps be right in saying, to begin with, that the doctrine\nof the Generative Reason, the Spermaticos Logos, is not carried far\nenough.  The immense practical need, which the Stoic felt, of\nfortifying himself against the world, is not unintelligible, but it led\nhim into error.  He employed his doctrine of the Spermaticos Logos to\ngive grandeur and sufficiency to the individual, and then, for\npractical purposes, cut him off from the world.  He manned and\nprovisioned the fortress, and then shut it off from supplies and from\nrelief.  It was a necessary thing to assert the value and dignity of\nthe mere individual man against the despotisms, but to isolate the man\nfrom mankind and from the world of nature was a fatal mistake.  Of\ncourse, the Stoic did not do this in theory, for he insisted on the\npolity of gods and men, the \"one city,\"[115] and the duty of the\n\"citizen of the universe\" (_kosmios_)--a man is not an independent\nobject; like the foot in the body he is essentially {65} a \"part.\"[116]\nIn practice, too, Stoics were human.  Seneca tells us to show clemency\nbut not to feel pity, but we may be sure that the human heart in him\nwas far from observing the distinction--he \"talked more boldly than he\nlived,\" he says--he was \"among those whom grief conquered,\"[117] and,\nthough he goes on to show why he failed in this way, he is endeared to\nus by his failure to be his own ideal Stoic.  Yet it remains that the\nchapters, with which his book on Clemency ends, are a Stoic protest\nagainst pity, and they can be re-inforced by a good deal in Epictetus.\nIf your friend is unhappy, \"remember that his unhappiness is his own\nfault, for God has made all men to be happy, to be free from\nperturbations.\"[118] Your friend has the remedy in his own hands; let\nhim \"purify his dogmata.\"[119]  Epictetus would try to heal a friend's\nsorrow \"but not by every means, for that would be to fight against God\n(_theomachein_),\" and would involve daily and nightly punishment to\nhimself[120]--and \"no one is nearer me than myself.\"[121]  In the\n_Manual_ the same thought is accentuated.  \"Say to yourself 'It is the\nopinion about this thing that afflicts the man.'  So far as words go,\ndo not hesitate to show sympathy, and even, if it so happen, to lament\nwith him.  Take care, though, that you do not lament internally also\n(_me kai esothen stenaxes_).\"[122]  We have seen what he has to say of\na lost child.  In spite of all his fine words, the Stoic really knows\nof nothing between the individual and the cosmos, for his practical\nteaching deadens, if it does not kill, friendship and family love.\n\nEverything with the Stoic turns on the individual.  _ta epi soi_, \"the\nthings in your own power,\" is the refrain of Epictetus' teaching.  All\nis thrown upon the individual will, upon \"the universal\" working in the\nindividual, according to Stoic theory, \"upon me\" the plain man would\nsay.  If the gods, as Seneca says, lend a hand to such as climb, the\nclimber has to make his own way by temperance and fortitude.  The \"holy\nspirit within us\" is after all hardly to be distinguished from\nconscience, intellect and will.[123]  God, says Epictetus, ordains \"if\nyou wish good, get it from yourself.\"[124]  Once the will\n(_proairesis_) is right, {66} all is achieved.[125]  \"You must exercise\nthe will (_thelesai_)--and the thing is done, it is set right; as on\nthe other hand, only fall a nodding and the thing is lost.  For from\nwithin (_esothen_) comes ruin, and from within comes help.\"[126]  \"What\ndo you want with prayers?\" asks Seneca, \"make yourself happy.\"[127]\nThe old Stoic paradox about the \"folly\" of mankind, and the\nworthlessness of the efforts of all save the sage, was by now chiefly\nremembered by their enemies.[128]\n\nAll this is due to the Stoic glorification of reason, as the embodiment\nin man of the Spermaticos Logos.  Though Nous with the Stoics is not\nthe pure dry light of reason, they tended in practice to distinguish\nreason from the emotions or passions (_pathe_), in which they saw\nchiefly \"perturbations,\" and they held up the ideal of freedom from\nthem in consequence (_apatheia_).[129] To be godlike, a man had to\nsuppress his affections just as he suppressed his own sensations of\npain or hunger.  Every human instinct of paternal or conjugal love, of\nfriendship, of sympathy, of pity, was thus brought to the test of a\nReason, which had two catch-words by which to try them--the \"Universe\"\nand \"the things in your own power\"--and the sentence was swift and\nsummary enough.  They did not realize that for most men--and probably\nit is truest of the best men--Life moves onward with all its tender and\ngracious instincts, while Analysis limps behind.  The experiment of\ntesting affection and instinct by reason has often been tried, and it\nsucceeds only where the reason is willing to be a constitutional\nmonarch, so to say, instead of the despot responsible only to the vague\nconcept of the Universe, whom the Stoics wished to enthrone.  They\ntalked of living according to Nature, but they were a great deal too\nquick in deciding what was Nature.  If the centuries have taught us\nanything, it is to give Nature more time, more study and more respect\nthan even yet we do.  There are words {67} at the beginning of the\nthirteenth book of the \"Prelude\" wiser and truer than anything the\nStoics had to say of her with their \"excessive zeal\" and their \"quick\nturns of intellect.\"  Carried away by their theories (none, we must\nremember as we criticize them, without some ground in experience and\nobservation), the Stoics made solitude in the heart and called it\npeace.  The price was too high; mankind would not pay it, and sought a\nreligion elsewhere that had a place for a man's children.\n\n[Sidenote: Sin and salvation]\n\nAgain, in their contempt for the passions the Stoics underestimated\ntheir strength.  How strong the passions are, no man can guess for\nanother, even if he can be sure how strong his own are.  Perhaps the\nStoics could subordinate their passions to their reason;--ancient\ncritics kept sharp eyes on them and said they were not always\nsuccessful.[130]  But there is no question that for the mass of men,\nthe Stoic account of reason is absurd.  \"I see another law in my\nmembers,\" said a contemporary of Seneca's, \"warring against the law of\nmy mind and bringing me into captivity.\"  Other men felt the same and\nsought deliverance in the sacraments of all the religions.  That\nSalvation was not from within, was the testimony of every man who\nunderwent the _taurobolium_.  So far as such things can be, it is\nestablished by the witness of every religious mind that, whether the\nfeeling is just or not the feeling is invincible that the will is\ninadequate and that religion begins only when the Stoic's ideal of\nsaving oneself by one's own resolve and effort is finally abandoned.\nWhether this will permanently be true is another question, probably for\nus unprofitable.  The ancient world, at any rate, and in general the\nmodern world, have pronounced against Stoic Psychology--it was too\nquick, too superficial.  The Stoics did not allow for the sense of\nsin.[131]  They recognized the presence of evil in the world; they felt\nthat \"it has its seat within us, in our inward part\";[132] and they\nremark the effect of evil in the blunting of the faculties--let the\nguilty, says Persius, \"see virtue, and pine that they have lost her\nforever.\"[133]  While Seneca finds himself \"growing better and becoming\nchanged,\" he still feels there may be much more needing amendment.[134]\nHe often {68} expresses dissatisfaction with himself.[135]  But the\ndeeper realization of weakness and failure did not come to the Stoics,\nand what help their teaching of strenuous endeavour could have brought\nto men stricken with the consciousness of broken willpower, it is hard\nto see.  \"Filthy Natta,\" according to Persius, was \"benumbed by vice\"\n(_stupet hic vitio_).[136]  \"When a man is hardened like a stone\n(_apolithothe_), how shall we be able to deal with him by argument?\"\nasks Epictetus, arguing against the Academics, who \"opposed evident\ntruths\"--what are we to do with necrosis of the soul?[137]  But the\nStoics really gave more thought to fancies of the sage's equality with\nGod and occasional superiority--so confident were they in the powers of\nthe individual human mind.  Plutarch, indeed, forces home upon them as\na deduction from their doctrine of \"the common nature\" of gods and men\nthe consequence that sin is not contrary to the Logos of Zeus--and yet\nthey say God punishes sin.[138]\n\nYet even the individual, much as they strove to exalt his capabilities,\nwas in the end cheapened in his own eyes.[139]  As men have deepened\ntheir self-consciousness, they have yielded to an instinctive craving\nfor the immortality of the soul.[140] Whether savages feel this or not,\nit is needless to argue.  No religion apart from Buddhism has\npermanently held men which had no hopes of immortality; and how far the\ncorruptions of Buddhism have modified its rigour for common people, it\nis not easy to say.  In one form or another, in spite of a terrible\nwant of evidence, men have clung to eternal life.  The Stoics\nthemselves used this consensus of opinion as evidence for the truth of\nthe belief.[141]  \"It pleased me,\" writes Seneca, \"to inquire of the\neternity of souls (_de aeternitate animarum_)--nay! to believe in it.  I\nsurrendered myself to that great hope.\"[142] {69} \"How natural it is!\"\nhe says, \"the human mind is a great and generous thing; it will have no\nbounds set to it unless they are shared by God.\"[143]  \"When the day\nshall come, which shall part this mixture of divine and human, here,\nwhere I found it, I will leave my body, myself I will give back to the\ngods.  Even now I am not without them.\"  He finds in our birth into\nthis world an analogy of the soul passing into another world, and in\nlanguage of beauty and sympathy he pictures the \"birthday of the\neternal,\" the revelation of nature's secrets, a world of light and more\nlight.  \"This thought suffers nothing sordid to dwell in the mind,\nnothing mean, nothing cruel.  It tells us that the gods see all, bids\nus win their approval, prepare for them, and set eternity before\nus.\"[144]  Beautiful words that wake emotion yet!\n\n[Sidenote: Immortality]\n\nBut is it clear that it is eternity after all?  In the _Consolation_\nwhich Seneca wrote for Marcia, after speaking of the future life of her\nson, he passed at last to the Stoic doctrine of the first\nconflagration, and described the destruction of the present scheme of\nthings that it may begin anew.  \"Then we also, happy souls who have\nbeen assigned to eternity (_felices animae et aeterna sortitae_), when God\nshall see fit to reconstruct the universe, when all things pass\n(_labentibus_), we too, a little element in a great catastrophe, shall\nbe resolved into our ancient elements.  Happy is your son, Marcia, who\nalready knows this.\"[145]  Elsewhere he is still less certain.  \"Why am\nI wasted for desire of him, who is either happy or non-existent?  (_qui\naut beatus aut nullus est_).\"[146]\n\nThat in later years, in his letters to Lucilius, Seneca should lean to\nbelief in immortality, is natural enough.  Epictetus' language, with\nsome fluctuations, leans in the other direction: \"When God does not\nsupply what is necessary, he is sounding the signal for retreat--he has\nopened the door and says to you, Come!  But whither?  To nothing\nterrible, but whence you came, to the dear and kin [both neuters], the\nelements.  What in you was fire, shall go to fire, earth to earth,\nspirit to spirit [perhaps, breath _hoson pneumation eis pneumation_],\nwater to water; {70} no Hades, nor Acheron, nor Cocytus, nor\nPyriphlegethon; but all things full of gods and daemons.  When a man has\nsuch things to think on, and sees sun and moon and stars, and enjoys\nearth and sea, he is not solitary or even helpless.\"[147]  \"This is\ndeath, a greater change, not from what now is into what is not, but\ninto what now is not.  Then shall I no longer be?  You will be, but\nsomething else, of which now the cosmos has no need.  For you began to\nbe (_egenou_), not when you wished, but when the cosmos had need.\"[148]\n\nOn the whole the Stoic is in his way right, for the desire for\nimmortality goes with the instincts he rejected--it is nothing without\nthe affections and human love.[149]  But once more logic failed, and\nthe obscure grave witnesses to man's instinctive rejection of Stoicism,\nwith its simple inscription _taurobolio in aeternum renatus_.\n\n[Sidenote: The question of the gods]\n\nLastly we come to the gods themselves, and here a double question meets\nus.  Neither on the plurality nor the personality of the divine does\nStoicism give a certain note.  In the passages already quoted it will\nhave been noticed how interchangeably \"God,\" \"the gods\" and \"Zeus\" have\nbeen used.  It is even a question whether \"God\" is not an identity with\nfate, providence, Nature and the Universe.[150]  Seneca, as we have\nseen, dismisses the theory of daemons or _genii_ rather abruptly--\"that\nis what some think.\"  Epictetus definitely accepts them, so far as\nanything here is definite, and with them, or in them, the ancestral\ngods.  Seneca, as we have seen, is contemptuous of popular ritual and\nsuperstition.  Epictetus inculcates that \"as to piety about the gods,\nthe chief thing is to have right opinions about them,\" but, he\nconcludes, \"to make libations and to sacrifice according to the custom\nof our fathers, purely and not meanly, nor carelessly, nor scantily,\nnor above our ability, is a thing which belongs to all to do.\"[151]\n\"Why do you,\" he asks, \"act the part of a Jew, when you are a\nGreek?\"[152]  He also accepts the {71} fact of divination.[153]\nIndeed, aside perhaps from conspicuous extravagances, the popular\nreligion suffices.  Without enthusiasm and without clear belief, the\nStoic may take part in the ordinary round of the cults.  If he did not\nbelieve himself, he pointed out a way to the reflective polytheist by\nwhich he could reconcile his traditional faith with philosophy--the\nmany gods were like ourselves manifestations of the Spermaticos Logos;\nand he could accept tolerantly the ordinary theory of daemons, for\nChrysippus even raised the question whether such things as the\ndisasters that befall good men are due to negligence on the part of\nProvidence, or to evil daemons in charge of some things.[154] While for\nhimself the Stoic had the strength of mind to shake off superstition,\nthe common people, and even the weaker brethren of the Stoic school,\nremained saddled with polytheism and all its terrors and follies.  Of\nthis compromise Seneca is guiltless.[155]  It was difficult to cut the\nconnexion with Greek tradition--how difficult, we see in Plutarch's\ncase.  The Stoics, however, fell between two stools, for they had not\nenough feeling for the past to satisfy the pious and patriotic, nor the\nresolution to be done with it.  After all, more help was to be had from\nLucretius than from Epictetus in ridding the mind of the paralysis of\npolytheism.\n\nBut the same instinct that made men demand immortality for themselves,\na feeling, dim but strong, of the value of personality and of love,\ncompelled them to seek personality in the divine.  Here the Stoic had\nto halt, for after all it is a thing beyond the power of reason to\ndemonstrate, and he could not here allege, as he liked, that the facts\nstare one in the face.  So, with other thinkers, impressed at once by\nthe want of evidence, and impelled by the demand for some available\nterms, he wavered between a clear statement of his own uncertainty, and\nthe use of popular names.  \"Zeus\" had long before been adopted by\nCleanthes in his famous hymn, but this was an element of weakness; for\nthe wall-paintings in every great house gave another account of Zeus,\nwhich belied every attribute with which the Stoics credited him.  The\napologists and the Stoics {72} explained the legends by the use of\nallegory, but, as Plato says, children cannot distinguish between what\nis and what is not allegory--nor did the common people.  The finer\nreligious tempers demanded something firmer and more real than\nallegory.  They wanted God or Gods, immortal and eternal; and at best\nthe Stoic gods were to \"melt like wax or tin\" in their final\nconflagration, while Zeus too, into whom they were to be resolved,\nwould thereby undergo change, and therefore himself also prove\nperishable.[156]\n\n\"I put myself in the hands of a Stoic,\" writes Justin Martyr, \"and I\nstayed a long time with him, but when I got no further in the matter of\nGod--for he did not know himself and he used to say this knowledge was\nnot necessary--I left him.\"[157]  Other men did not, like Justin,\npursue their philosophic studies, and when they found that, while the\nStoic's sense of truth would not let him ascribe personality to God,\nall round there were definite and authoritative voices which left the\nmatter in no doubt, they made a quick choice.  What authority means to\na man in such a difficulty, we know only too well.\n\nThe Stoics in some measure felt their weakness here.  When they tell us\nto follow God, to obey God, to look to God, to live as God's sons, and\nleave us not altogether clear what they mean by God, their teaching is\nnot very helpful, for it is hard to follow or look to a vaguely grasped\nconception.  They realized that some more definite example was needed.\n\"We ought to choose some good man,\" writes Seneca, \"and always have him\nbefore our eyes that we may live as if he watched us, and do everything\nas if he saw.\"[158]  The idea came from Epicurus.  \"Do everything, said\nhe, as if Epicurus saw.  It is without doubt a good thing to have set a\nguard over oneself, to whom you may look, whom you may feel present in\nyour thoughts.\"[159] \"Wherever I am, I am consorting with the best men.\nTo them, in whatever spot, in whatever age they were, I send my\nmind.\"[160] He recommends Cato, Laelius, Socrates, Zeno.  Epictetus has\nthe same advice.  What would Socrates do? is the canon he\nrecommends.[161]  \"Though you are not yet a Socrates, you {73} ought to\nlive as one who wishes to be a Socrates.\"[162]  \"Go away to Socrates\nand see him ... think what a victory he felt he won over himself.\"[163]\nComte in a later day gave somewhat similar advice.  It seems to show\nthat we cannot do well without some sort of personality in which to\nrest ourselves.\n\n[Sidenote: Plutarch's criticism]\n\nWhen once this central uncertainty in Stoicism appeared, all the fine\nand true words the Stoics spoke of Providence lost their meaning for\nordinary men who thought quickly.  The religious teachers of the day\nlaid hold of the old paradoxes of the school and with them demolished\nthe Stoic Providence.  \"Chrysippus,\" says Plutarch, \"neither professes\nhimself, nor any one of his acquaintances and teachers, to be good\n(_spoudaion_).  What then do they think of others, but precisely what\nthey say--that all men are insane, fools, unholy, impious,\ntransgressors, that they reach the very acme of misery and of all\nwretchedness?  And then they say that it is by Providence that our\nconcerns are ordered--and we so wretched!  If the Gods were to change\ntheir minds and wish to hurt us, to do us evil, to overthrow and\nutterly crush us, they could not put us in a worse condition; for\nChrysippus demonstrates that life can admit no greater degree either of\nmisery or unhappiness.\"[164]  Of course, this attack is unfair, but it\nshows how men felt.  They demanded to know how they stood with the\ngods--were the gods many or one? were they persons or natural laws[165]\nor even natural objects? did they care for mankind? for the individual\nman?  This demand was edged by exactly the same experience of life\nwhich made Stoicism so needful and so welcome to its followers.  The\npressure of the empire and the terrors of living drove some to\nphilosophy and many more to the gods--and for these certainty was\nimperative and the Stoics could not give it.\n\nIt is easy, but not so profitable as it seems, to find faults in the\nreligion of other men.  Their generation rejected the Stoics, but they\nmay not have been right.  If the Stoics were too hasty in making reason\ninto a despot to rule over the {74} emotions, their contemporaries were\nno less hasty in deciding, on the evidence of emotions and desires,\nthat there were gods, and these the gods of their fathers, because they\nwished for inward peace and could find it nowhere else.  The Stoics\nwere at least more honest with themselves, and though their school\npassed away, their memory remained and kept the respect of men who\ndiffered from them, but realized that they had stood for truth.\n\n\nChapter II Footnotes:\n\n[1] _Hist._ i, 2.\n\n[2] Tac. _Ann._ iv, 33, _sic converso statu neque alia re Romana quam\nsi unus imperitet_.\n\n[3] Hdt. iii, 80.  Cf. Tac. _A._ vi, 48, 4, _vi dominationis convulsus\net mutatus_.\n\n[4] Suetonius, _Gaius_, 29.\n\n[5] Sen. _de ira_, iii, 15, 3.\n\n[6] Lecky, _European Morals_, i, 275; Epictetus, _D._ iii, 15.\n\n[7] Seneca, _Ep._ 90, 36-43.\n\n[8] Tacitus, _Germany_, cc. 18-20.\n\n[9] Tac. _A._ i, 72.  Suetonius (_Tib._ 59) quotes specimens.\n\n[10] See Boissier, _Tacite_, 188 f.; _l'opposition sous les Cesars_,\n208-215.\n\n[11] Persius, v, 73, _libertate opus est_.\n\n[12] Horace, _Sat._ ii, 2, 79.\n\n[13] See Edward Caird, _Evolution of Theology in the Greek\nPhilosophers_, vol. ii, lectures xvii to xx, and Zeller, _Eclectics_,\npp. 235-245.  Seneca, _B.V._ 20, 3.\n\n[14] Epictetus, _D._ ii, 8, _su apospasma ei tou theou_.\n\n[15] Lucan, ix, 564-586, contains a short summary of Stoicism, supposed\nto be spoken by Cato.\n\n[16] Epictetus, _D._ i, 9 (some lines omitted).\n\n[17] _phantasiai_, impressions left on the mind by things or events.\n\n[18] Epictetus, _D._ i, 9.\n\n[19] Diogenes Laertius, vii, 1, 53; see Caird, _op. cit._ vol. ii, p.\n124.\n\n[20] See Lecky, _European Morals_, i, 128, 129.\n\n[21] _Ep._ 108, 22, _philosophiam oderat_.\n\n[22] With these passages compare the fine account which Persius gives\n(_Sat._ v) of his early studies with the Stoic Cornutus.\n\n[23] Plutarch, _de esu carnium_, ii, 5.\n\n[24] Plutarch, _de esu carnium_, i, 6, on clogging the soul by eating\nflesh.  Clem. Alex. _Paed._ ii, 16, says St Matthew lived on seeds, nuts\nand vegetables, and without meat.\n\n[25] Plutarch, _de esu carnium_, ii, 1.\n\n[26] Sen. _Ep._ 108, 3, 13-23.\n\n[27] This is a quality that Quintilian notes in his style for praise or\nblame.  Others (Gellius, _N.A._ xii, 2) found in him _levis et quasi\ndicax argutia_.\n\n[28] _Ep._ 78, 2, 3, _patris me indulgentissimi senectus retinuit_.\n\n[29] _Ep._ 58, 5.\n\n[30] _Ep._ 95, 65\n\n[31] His nephew Lucan, Quintilian severely says, was \"perhaps a better\nmodel for orators than for poets.\"\n\n[32] _Ep._ 49, 2.  Virgil made one speech.\n\n[33] _ad Polybium_, 13, 2, 3.\n\n[34] Juvenal, x, 16, _magnos Seneca praedivitis hortos_.\n\n[35] _Ann._ xiii, 12, 2.\n\n[36] Tac. _Ann._ xiii, 15-17.\n\n[37] Tac. _Ann._ xiv, 51.\n\n[38] Tac. _Ann._ xiii, 42.\n\n[39] _B.V._ 20, 3.\n\n[40] _B.V._ 23, 1.\n\n[41] Tac. _Ann._ xiv, 52-56.\n\n[42] _de tranqu. animi_, 10, 6.\n\n[43] Tac. _Ann._ xiv, 65; xv, 45-65.\n\n[44] B. W. Henderson, _Nero_, pp. 280-3.\n\n[45] Tac. _Ann._ xv, 65; Juvenal, viii, 212.\n\n[46] Tac. _Ann._ xv, 45, 6.\n\n[47] This is emphasized by Zeller, _Eclectics_, 240, and by Dill,\n_Roman Society from Nero to Marcus_, 324, 326.\n\n[48] _ae Clem._ i, 6.\n\n[49] [Transcriber's note: this footnote missing from book]\n\n[50] _Ep._ 61, 1.\n\n[51] Lucian, _Nigrinus_, 19, says there is no better school for virtue,\nno truer test of moral strength, than life in the city of Rome.\n\n[52] Gellius, _N.A._ ii, 18, 10.\n\n[53] Gell. _N.A._ xv, 11, 5.\n\n[54] Manual, J.  I have constantly used Long's translation, but often\naltered it.  It is a fine piece of work, well worth the English\nreader's study.\n\n[55] _D._ iii, 26.  Compare and contrast Tertullian, _de Idol_, 12,\n_fides famem nan timet.  Scit enim famem non minus sibi contemnendam\npropter Deum quam omne mortis genus_.  The practical point is the same,\nperhaps; the motive, how different!\n\n[56] _D._ iii, 24; iv, 1; _M._ 11, 26.\n\n[57] _D._ ii, 24.  He maintains, too, against Epicurus the naturalness\nof love for children; once born, we cannot help loving them, _D._ i, 23.\n\n[58] _D._ iv, 1.\n\n[59] _D._ iv, 5, _thelei ta allotrie me einai allotria_.\n\n[60] _D._ i, 18.  This does not stop his condemning the adulterer, _D._\nii, 4 (man, he said, is formed for fidelity), 10.  Seneca on outward\ngoods, _ad Marciam_, 10.\n\n[61] _M._ 40.\n\n[62] Fragment, 53.\n\n[63] _D._ i, id.\n\n[64] _D._ iii, 12, classing the _korasidion_ with wine and cake.\n\n[65] _M._ 33.\n\n[66] _D._ iv, 11.\n\n[67] Gell. _N.A._ i, 2, 6; xvii, 19, 1.\n\n[68] Lucian, _adv. Indoct._ 13.\n\n[69] _D._ iii, 9.\n\n[70] _M._ 46.\n\n[71] _D._ iii, 22, _kakorygka_.\n\n[72] _D._ iii, 22.  Lucian says Epictetus urged Demonax to take a wife\nand leave some one to represent him in posterity.  \"Very well,\nEpictetus,\" said Demonax, \"give me one of your own daughters\" (_v.\nDemon._ 55).\n\n[73] Epict. _D._ iii, 24.  _strateia tis estin ho bios hekastou, kai\naute makra kai toikile.  terein se dei to stratiotou prosneuma kai tou\nstrategou prassein hekasta, ei oion._.\n\n[74] Epict. _D._ iii, 23.\n\n[75] Sen. _Ep._ 112, 3.\n\n[76] _de ira_, iii, 36, 1-4.\n\n[77] Sen. _de tranqu. animi_, 1.\n\n[78] Epict. _D._ iii, 10.  I have here slightly altered Mr Long's\nrendering.\n\n[79] _D._ iv, 6.\n\n[80] Cf. Persius, iii, 66-72, causas cognoscite rerum, quid sumus aut\nquidnam victuri gignimur ... quem te deus esse iussit et humana qua\nparte locatus es in re.\n\n[81] D. ii, 11.  See Davidson, Stoic Creed, pp. 69, 81, on innate\nideas.  Plutarch, _de coh. ira_, 15, on Zeno's doctrine, _to sperma\nsummigma kai kerasma ton tes phuches dynameon hyparchein apespasmenon_.\n\n[82] The qualification may be illustrated from Cicero's Stoic, _de Nat.\nDeor_, ii, 66, 167, _Magna di curant parva neglegunt_.\n\n[83] _Ep._ 95, 47-50.  Cf. _Ep._ 41; _de Prov._ i, 5.  A very close\nparallel, with a strong Stoic tinge, in Minucius Felix, 32, 2, 3,\nending _Sic apud nos religiosior est ille qui iustior_.\n\n[84] _Nat. Quaest._ ii, 45.  Cf. Tertullian, _Apol._ 21, on Zeno's\ntestimony to the Logos, as creator, fate, God, _animus Iovis_ and\n_necessitas omnium rerum_.\n\n[85] Cf. Sen. _Ep._ 41, 1.  Prope est a te deus, tecum est, intus est.\nIta dico, Lucili, sacer intra nos spiritus sedet malorum bonorumque\nnostrorum observator et custos.\n\n[86] Epict. D. i, 14.  See Clem. Alex. Strom, vii, 37, for an\ninteresting account of how _phthanei he theia dynamis, kathaper phos\ndiidein ten phychen_.\n\n[87] _Ep._ 110, 1, paedagogam dari deum.\n\n[88] _D._ iii, 24,\n\n[89] _D._ ii, 14.\n\n[90] _de providentia_, 2, 6-9.\n\n[91] _de Prov._ 4, 1.\n\n[92] _de Prov._ 5, 7.  See Justin Martyr's criticism of Stoic fatalism,\n_Apol._ ii, 7.  It involves, he says, either God's identity with the\nworld of change, or his implication in all vice, or else that virtue\nand vice are nothing--consequences which are alike contrary to every\nsane _eeenoia_, to _logos_ and to _nous_.\n\n[93] _de Prov._ 5, 8.\n\n[94] Plutarch, _adv. Stoicos_, 33, on this Stoic paradox of the\nequality of God and the sage.\n\n[95] _de Prov._ 6, 5-7.  This Stoic justification of suicide was\nrepudiated alike by Christians and Neo-Platonists.\n\n[96] _D._ i, 1.\n\n[97] _D._ i, 12.  See also _D._ ii, 16 \"We say 'Lord God! how shall I\nnot be anxious?' Fool, have you not hands, did not God make them for\nyou?  Sit down now and pray that your nose may not run.\"\n\n[98] Cf. Cicero's Stoic, _N.D._ ii, 66, 167, _Nemo igitur vir magnus\nsine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit_.\n\n[99] Ep. 41, 1, 2.  (The line is from Virgil, _Aen._ viii, 352.)  The\nrest of the letter develops the idea of divine dependence.  _Sic animus\nmagnus ac sacer et in hoc demissus at propius quidem divina nossemus,\nconversatur quidem nobiscum sed haeret origini suae, etc_.\n\n[100] Ep. 73, 15, 16.\n\n[101] Epictetus, _D._ i, 6.\n\n[102] _D._ i, 9.\n\n[103] _D._ iv, 1.\n\n[104] _D._ iv, 1.\n\n[105] _D._ ii, 16 end, with a variant between _sos eimi_ and _isos\neimi_, the former of which, Long says, is certain.\n\n[106] _D._ i, 16.  Contrast the passage of Clement quoted on p. 286.\n\n[107] _D._ ii, 16.\n\n[108] _D._ ii, 16.\n\n[109] _D._ iii, 13.\n\n[110] _D._ ii, 22.\n\n[111] _Ep._ 95, 51-53.\n\n[112] _de ira_, iii, 28, 1.\n\n[113] _Ep._ 95, 33, _homo sacra res homini_.\n\n[114] See Lecky, _European Morals_, i, 294 ff.: Maine, _Ancient Law_,\np. 54 f.\n\n[115] See, by the way, Plutarch's banter on this \"polity\"--the stars\nits tribesmen, the sun, doubtless, councillor, and Hesperus _prytanis_\nor _astynomus_, _adv. Sto._ 34.\n\n[116] Epict. _D._ ii, 5; M. Aurelius, viii, 34.\n\n[117] _Ep._ 63, 14.\n\n[118] _D._ iii, 24.\n\n[119] _D._ iv, 1.\n\n[120] _ib._\n\n[121] _D._ iv, 6.\n\n[122] _M._ 16.\n\n[123] Cf. Theophilus (the apologist of about 160 A.D.), ii, 4, who,\nthough not always to be trusted as to the Stoics, remarks this\nidentification of God and conscience.\n\n[124] _D._ i, 29.\n\n[125] Cf. _D._ i, 1; iii, 19; iv, 4; iv, 12, and very many other\npassages.\n\n[126] _D._ iv, 9, end.\n\n[127] _Ep._ 31, 5.\n\n[128] Plutarch, _Progress in Virtue_, c. 2, 76 A, on the absurdity of\nthere being no difference between Plato and Meletus.  Cf. also _de\nrepugn. Stoic._ 11, 1037 D.\n\n[129] \"Unconditional eradication,\" says Zeller, _Eclectics_, p. 226.\n\"I do not hold with those who hymn the savage and hard Apathy (_ten\nagrion kai skleran_),\" wrote Plutarch.  _Cons, ad Apoll._ 3, 102 C.\nSee Clem. Alex. _Str._ ii, 110, on _pathe_; as produced by the agency\nof spirits, and note his talk of Christian Apathy.  _Str._ vi, 71-76.\n\n[130] Justin Martyr (_Apol._ ii, 8) praises Stoic morality and speaks\nof Stoics who suffered for it.\n\n[131] Cf. Epict. _D._ iii, 25.\n\n[132] Sen. _Ep._ 50, 4.\n\n[133] Persius, iii, 38.\n\n[134] _Ep._ 6, 1.\n\n[135] e.g. _Ep._ 57, 3, he is not even _homo tolerabilis_.  On the\nbondage of the soul within the body, see _Ep._ 65, 21-23.\n\n[136] Cf. Seneca, Ep. 53, 7, 8--quo quis peius habet minus sentit.\n\"The worse one is, the less he notices it.\"\n\n[137] _D._ i, 5.\n\n[138] Plut. _de repugn. Stoic._ 34, 1050 C.  Cf. _Tert. de exh.\ncastit._ 2.\n\n[139] Cf. Plutarch, _non suaviter_, 1104 F.  _kataphronountes eauton os\nephemeron kthe_--of the Epicureans.\n\n[140] Cf. Plutarch, non suaviter, 1104 C.  _tes aidiotetus elpis kai ho\npothos tou einai manton epoton prespytatos on kai melstos_.  Cf. _ib._\n1093 A.\n\n[141] Sen. _Ep._ 117, 6.\n\n[142] _Ep._ 102, 2.\n\n[143] Ep. 102, 21; the following passages are from the same letter.\nNote the Stoic significance of _naturale_.\n\n[144] Compare _Cons. ad Marc._ 25, 1, _integer ille, etc._\n\n[145] The last words of the \"Consolation.\" Plutarch on resolution into\n_pur noeron_, _non suaviter_, 1107 B.\n\n[146] _ad Polyb._ 9, 3.\n\n[147] _D._ iii, 13.  Plutarch (_non suaviter_, 1106 E) says Cocytus,\netc., are not the chief terror but _he tou me ontos apeile_.\n\n[148] _D._ iii, 24.\n\n[149] See Plutarch on this, _non suaviter_, 1105 E.\n\n[150] Seneca, _N.Q._ ii, 45.\n\n[151] Manual, 31.  Plutarch, _de repugn. Stoic._ 6, 1034 B, C, remarks\non Stoic inconsistency in accepting popular religious usages.\n\n[152] _D._ ii, 9.  In _D._ v, 7, he refers to \"Galilaeans,\" so that it\nis quite possible he has Christians in view here.\n\n[153] _M._ 32; _D._ iii, 22.\n\n[154] Plut. _de repugn. Stoic._ 37, 1051 C.\n\n[155] Tertullian, _Apol._ 12, _idem estis qui Senecam aliquem pluribus\net amarioribus de vestra superstitione perorantem reprehendistis_.\n\n[156] See Plutarch, _de comm. not. adv. Stoicos_, c. 31, and _de def.\norac._ 420 A, c. 19; Justin M. _Apol._ ii, 7.\n\n[157] Dial. _c. Tryphone_, 2.\n\n[158] Sen. _Ep._ 11, 8.\n\n[159] _Ep._ 25, 5.\n\n[160] _Ep._ 62, 2, cf. 104, 21.\n\n[161] _M._ 33, _ti nan epoiesen en touto Sokrates he Zenon_.\n\n[162] _M._ 50.\n\n[163] _D._ ii, 18.  The tone of Tertullian, _e.g._ in _de Anima_, 1, on\nthe Phaedo, suggests that Socrates may have been over-preached.  What\ntoo (_ib._ 6) of barbarians and their souls, who have no \"prison of\nSocrates,\" etc?\n\n[164] Plut. _de Stoic. repugnantiis_, 31, 1048 E.  Cf. _de comm. not._\n33.\n\n[165] Plutarch, _Amat._ 13, 757 C.  _horas depou ton upolambanonta\nbuthon hemas atheotetos, an eis pathe kai dynameis kai aretas\ndiagraphomen ekaston ton theon_.\n\n\n\n\n{75}\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nPLUTARCH\n\nStoicism as a system did not capture the ancient world, and even upon\nindividuals it did not retain an undivided hold.  To pronounce with its\nadmirers to-day that it failed because the world was not worthy of it,\nwould be a judgment, neither quite false nor altogether true, but at\nbest not very illuminative.  Men are said to be slow in taking in new\nthoughts, and yet it is equally true that somewhere in nearly every man\nthere is something that responds to ideas, and even to theories; but if\nthese on longer acquaintance fail to harmonize with the deeper\ninstincts within him, they alarm and annoy, and the response comes in\nthe form of re-action.\n\nIn modern times, we have seen the mind of a great people surrendered\nfor a while to theorists and idealists.  The thinking part of the\nFrench nation was carried away by the inspiration of Rousseau into all\nsorts of experiments at putting into hasty operation the principles and\nideas they had more or less learnt from the master.  Even theories\nextemporized on the moment, it was hoped, might be made the foundations\nof a new and ideal social fabric.  The absurdities of the old religion\nyielded place to Reason--embodied symbolically for the hour in the\nperson of Mme Momoro--afterwards, more vaguely, in Robespierre's\nSupreme Being, who really came from Rousseau.  And then--\"avec ton Etre\nSupreme tu commences a m'embeter,\" said Billaud to Robespierre himself.\nWithin a generation Chateaubriand, de Maistre, Bonald, and de la\nMennais were busy refounding the Christian faith.  \"The rites of\nChristianity,\" wrote Chateaubriand, \"are in the highest degree moral,\nif for no other reason than that they have been practised by our\nfathers, that our mothers have watched over our cradles as Christian\nwomen, that the Christian religion has chanted its psalms over our\nparents' coffins and invoked peace upon them in their graves.\"\n\n{76}\n\nAlongside of this let us set a sentence or two of Plutarch.  \"Our\nfather then, addressing Pemptides by name, said, 'You seem to me,\nPemptides, to be handling a very big matter and a risky one--or rather,\nyou are discussing what should not be discussed at all (_ta akineta\nkinein_), when you question the opinion we hold about the gods, and ask\nreason and demonstration for everything.  For the ancient and ancestral\nfaith is enough (_arkei gar he patrios kai palaia pistis_), and no\nclearer proof could be found than itself--\n\n  Not though man's wisdom scale the heights of thought--\n\nbut it is a common home and an established foundation for all piety;\nand if in one point its stable and traditional character (_to bebainon\nautes kai nenomismenon_) be shaken and disturbed, it will be undermined\nand no one will trust it....  If you demand proof about each of the\nancient gods, laying hands on everything sacred and bringing your\nsophistry to play on every altar, you will leave nothing free from\nquibble and cross-examination (_ouden asykophanteton oud\nabasaniston_)....  Others will say that Aphrodite is desire and Hermes\nreason, the Muses crafts and Athene thought.  Do you see, then, the\nabyss of atheism that lies at our feet, if we resolve each of the gods\ninto a passion or a force or a virtue?'\"[1]\n\nSuch an utterance is unmistakeable--it means a conservative re-action,\nand in another place we find its justification in religious emotion.\n\"Nothing gives us more joy than what we see and do ourselves in divine\nservice, when we carry the emblems, or join in the sacred dance, or\nstand by at the sacrifice or initiation....  It is when the soul most\nbelieves and perceives that the god is present, that she most puts from\nher pain and fear and anxiety, and gives herself up to joy, yes, even\nas far as intoxication and laughter and merriment....  In sacred\nprocessions and sacrifices not only the old man and the old woman, nor\nthe poor and lowly, but\n\n  The thick-legged drudge that sways her at the mill,\n\nand household slaves and hirelings are uplifted by joy and triumph.\nRich men and kings have always their own banquets and feasts--but the\nfeasts in the temples and at initiations, when men seem to touch the\ndivine most nearly in their thought, {77} with honour and worship, have\na pleasure and a charm far more exceeding.  And in this no man shares\nwho has renounced belief in Providence.  For it is not abundance of\nwine, nor the roasting of meat, that gives the joy in the festivals,\nbut also a good hope, and a belief that the god is present and\ngracious, and accepts what is being done with a friendly mind.\"[2]\n\n[Sidenote: Continuity of religion]\n\nOne of Chateaubriand's critics says that his plea could be advanced on\nbehalf of any religion; and Plutarch had already made it on behalf of\nhis own.  He looks past the Stoics, and he finds in memory and\nassociation arguments that outweigh anything they can say.  The\nSpermaticos Logos was a mere Etre Supreme--a sublime conception\nperhaps, but it had no appeal to emotion, it waked no memories, it\ntouched no chord of personal association.  We live so largely by\ninstinct, memory and association, that anything that threatens them\nseems to strike at our life,\n\n  So was it when my life began;\n  So is it now I am a man;\n  So be it when I shall grow old,\n        Or let me die!\n  The Child is father of the Man;\n  And I could wish my days to be\n  Bound each to each by natural piety.\n\nSome such thought is native to every heart, and the man who does not\ncling to his own past seems wanting in something essentially human.\nThe gods were part of the past of the ancient world, and if Reason took\nthem away, what was left?  There was so much, too, that Reason could\nnot grasp; so much to be learnt in ritual and in mystery that to the\nmerely thinking mind had no meaning,--that must be received.  Reason\nwas invoked so lightly, and applied so carelessly and harshly, that it\ncould take no account of the tender things of the heart.  Reason\ndestroyed but did not create, questioned without answering, and left\nlife without sanction or communion.  It was too often a mere affair of\ncleverness.  It had its use and place, no doubt, in correcting\nextravagances of belief, but it was by no means the sole authority in\nman's life, and its function was essentially to be the handmaid of\nreligion.  \"We must take {78} Reason from philosophy to be our\nmystagogue and then in holy reverence consider each several word and\nact of worship.\"[3]\n\nPlutarch is our representative man in this revival of religion, and\nsome survey of his life and environment will enable us to enter more\nfully into his thought, and through him to understand better the\nbeginnings of a great religious movement, of which students too often\nhave lost sight.\n\nFor centuries the great men of Greek letters were natives of every\nregion of the eastern Mediterranean except Greece, and Plutarch stands\nalone in later literature a Hellen of the motherland--Greek by blood,\nbirth, home and instinct, proud of his race and his land, of their\nhistory, their art and their literature.  When we speak of the\ninfluence of the past, it is well to remember to how great a past this\nman looked back, and from what a present.  Long years of faction and\nwar, as he himself says, had depopulated Greece, and the whole land\ncould hardly furnish now the three thousand hoplites that four\ncenturies before Megara alone had sent to Plataea.  In regions where\noracles of note had been, they were no more; their existence would but\nhave emphasized the solitude--what good would an oracle be at Tegyra,\nor about Ptoum, where in a day's journey you might perhaps come on a\nsolitary shepherd?[4]  It was not only that wars and faction fights had\nwasted the life of the Greek people, but with the opening of the far\nEast by Alexander, and the development of the West under Roman rule,\nCommerce had shifted its centres, and the Greeks had left their old\nhomes for new regions.  Still keen on money, philosophy and art, they\nthronged Alexandria, Antioch and Rome, and a thousand other cities.\nThe Petrie papyri have revealed a new feature of this emigration, for\nthe wills of the settlers often mention the names of their wives, and\nthese were Greek women and not Egyptian, as the names of their fathers\nand homes prove.[5]  Julius Caesar had restored Corinth a century after\nMummius destroyed it, and Athens was still as she had been and was to\nbe for centuries, the resort of every one who loved philosophy and\nliterature.[6]  These were the two {79} cities of Greece; the rest were\nreminders of what had been.  In one of these forsaken places Plutarch\nwas born, and there he was content to live and die, a citizen and a\nmagistrate of Chaeronea in Boeotia.\n\n[Sidenote: His family circle]\n\nHis family was an old one, long associated with Chaeronea.  From\nchildhood his life was rooted in the past by the most natural and\ndelightful of all connexions.  His great-grandfather, Nicarchus, used\nto tell how his fellow-citizens were commandeered to carry wheat on\ntheir own backs down to Anticyra for Antony's fleet--and were quickened\nup with the whip as they went; and \"then when they had taken one\nconsignment so, and the second was already done up into loads and\nready, the news came that Antony was defeated, and that saved the city;\nfor at once Antony's agents and soldiers fled, and they divided the\ngrain among themselves.\"[7]  The grandfather, Lamprias, lived long and\nsaw the grandson a grown man.  He appears often in Plutarch's _Table\nTalk_--a bright old man and a lively talker--like incense, he said, he\nwas best when warmed up.[8]  He thought poorly of the Jews for not\neating pork--a most righteous dish, he said.[9]  He had tales of his\nown about Antony, picked up long ago from one Philotas, who had been a\nmedical student in Alexandria and a friend of one of the royal cooks,\nand eventually medical attendant to a son of Antony's by Fulvia.[10]\nPlutarch's father was a quiet, sensible man, who maintained the\npractice of sacrificing,[11] kept good horses,[12] knew his Homer, and\nhad something of his son's curious interest in odd problems.  It is\nperhaps an accident that Plutarch never mentions his name, but, though\nhe often speaks of him, it is always of \"my father\" or \"our\nfather\"--the lifelong and instinctive habit.  There were also two\nbrothers.  The witty and amiable Lamprias loved laughter and was an\nexpert in dancing--a useful man to put things right when the dance went\nwith more spirit than music.[13]  Of Timon we hear less, but Plutarch\nsets Timon's goodness of heart among the very best gifts Fortune has\nsent him.[14]  He emphasizes the bond that brothers have in the family\nsacrifices, {80} ancestral rites, the common home and the common\ngrave.[15] That Plutarch always had friends, men of kindly nature and\nintelligence, and some of them eminent, is not surprising.  Other human\nrelationships, to be mentioned hereafter, completed his circle.  He was\nborn, and grew up, and lived, in a network of love and sympathy, the\nrecord of which is in all his books.\n\nPlutarch was born about the year 50 A.D., and, when Nero went on tour\nthrough Greece in 66 A.D., he was a student at Athens under\nAmmonius.[16]  He recalls that among his fellow-students was a\ndescendant of Themistocles, who bore his ancestor's name and still\nenjoyed the honours granted to him and his posterity at Magnesia.[17]\nAmmonius, whom he honoured and quoted throughout life, was a\nPlatonist[18] much interested in Mathematics.[19]  He was a serious and\nkindly teacher with a wide range of interests, not all speculative.\nPlutarch records a discussion of dancing by \"the good Ammonius.\"[20]\nHe was thrice \"General\" at Athens,[21] and had at any rate once the\nexperience of an excited mob shouting for him in the street, while he\nsupped with his friends indoors.\n\nPlutarch had many interests in Athens, in its literature, its\nphilosophy and its ancient history--in its relics, too, for he speaks\nof memorials of Phocion and Demosthenes still extant.  But he lingers\nespecially over the wonders of Pericles and Phidias, \"still fresh and\nnew and untouched by time, as if a spirit of eternal youth, a soul that\nwas ageless, were in the work of the artist.\"[22]  Athens was a\nconservative place, on the whole, and a great resort for strangers.\nThe Athenian love of talk is noticed by Luke with a touch of satire,\nand Dio Chrysostom admitted that the Athenians fell short of the glory\nof their city and their ancestors.[23]  Yet men loved Athens.[24]\nAulus Gellius in memory of his years there, called his book of\ncollections _Attic Nights_, and here and there he speaks of student\nlife--\"It was from AEgina to Piraeus that some of us who were\nfellow-students, Greeks and Romans, were crossing in the same ship.\n{81} It was night.  The sea was calm.  It was summertime and the sky\nwas clear and still.  So we were sitting on the poop, all of us\ntogether, with our eyes upon the shining stars,\" and fell to talking\nabout their names.[25]\n\n[Sidenote: His travels]\n\nWhen his student days were over, Plutarch saw something of the world.\nHe alludes to a visit to Alexandria,[26] but, though he was interested\nin Egyptian religion, as we shall see, he does not speak of travels in\nthe country.  He must have known European Greece well, but he had\nlittle knowledge, it seems, of Asia Minor and little interest in it.\nHe went once on official business for his city to the pro-consul of\nIllyricum--and had a useful lesson from his father who told him to say\n\"We\" in his report, though his appointed colleague had failed to go\nwith him.[27]  He twice went to Italy in the reigns of Vespasian and\nDomitian, and he seems to have stayed for some time in Rome, making\nfriends in high places and giving lectures.  Of the great Latin writers\nof his day he mentions none, nor is he mentioned by them.  But he tells\nwith pride how once Arulenus Rusticus had a letter from Domitian\nbrought him by a soldier in the middle of one of these lectures and\nkept it unopened till the end.[28]  The lectures were given in Greek.\nHe confesses to his friend Sossius Senecio that, owing to the pressure\nof political business and the number of people who came about him for\nphilosophy, when he was in Rome, it was late indeed in life that he\nattempted to learn Latin; and when he read Latin, it was the general\nsense of a passage that helped him to the meaning of the words.  The\nniceties of the language he could not attempt, he says, though it would\nhave been a graceful and pleasant thing for one of more leisure and\nfewer years.[29]  That this confession is a true one is shown by the\nscanty use he makes of Roman books in his biographies, by his want of\nacquaintance with Latin literature, poetry and philosophy, and by\nblunders in detail noted by his critics.  _Sine patris_ is a poor\nattempt at Latin grammar for a man of his learning, and in his life of\nLucullus he has turned the streets of Rome into villages through\ninattention to the various meanings of _vicus_.[30]\n\n{82}\n\nBut, as he says, he was a citizen of a small town, and he did not wish\nto make it smaller,[31] and he went back to Chaeronea and obscurity.  A\ncity he held to be an organism like a living being,[32] and he never\ncared for a man on whom the claims of his city sat loosely--as they did\non the Stoics.[33] The world was full of Greek philosophers and\nrhetoricians, lecturing and declaiming, to their great profit and\nglory, but Plutarch was content to stay at home, to be magistrate and\npriest.  If men laughed to see him inspecting the measurement of tiles\nand the carrying of cement and stones--\"it is not for myself, I say,\nthat I am doing this but for my native-place.\"[34]  This was when he\nwas Telearch--an office once held by Epameinondas, as he liked to\nremember.  Pliny's letters show that this official inspection of\nmunicipal building operations by honest and capable men was terribly\nneeded.  But Plutarch rose to higher dignities, and as Archon Eponymos\nhe had to preside over feasts and sacrifices.[35]  He was also a\nBoeotarch.  The Roman Empire did not leave much political activity even\nto the free cities, but Plutarch loyally accepted the new era as from\nGod, and found in it many blessings of peace and quiet, and some\nopportunities still of serving his city.  He held a priesthood at\nDelphi, with some charge over the oracle and a stewardship at the\nPythian games.  He loved Delphi, and its shrine and antiquities,[36]\nand made the temple the scene of some of his best dialogues.  \"The kind\nApollo (_ho philos_),\" he says, \"seems to heal the questions of life,\nand to resolve them, by the rules he gives to those who ask; but the\nquestions of thought he himself suggests to the philosophic\ntemperament, waking in the soul an appetite that will lead it to\ntruth.\"[37]\n\nHe does not seem to have gained much public renown, but he did not seek\nit.  The fame in his day was for the men of rhetoric, and he was a man\nof letters.  If he gave his time to municipal duties, he must have\nspent the greater part of his days in reading and writing.  He says\nthat a biographer needs a great many books and that as a rule many of\nthem will not be readily accessible--to have the abundance he requires,\nhe ought really to be in some \"famous city where learning is loved and\n{83} men are many\"; though, he is careful to say, a man may be happy\nand upright in a town that is \"inglorious and humble.\"[38] He must have\nread very widely, and he probably made good use of his stay in Rome.\nIn philosophy and literature it is quite probable that he used\nhand-books of extracts, though this must not imply that he did not go\nto the original works of the greater writers.  But his main interest\nlay in memoirs and travels.  He had an instinct for all that was\ncharacteristic, or curious, or out-of-the-way; and all sorts of casual\nreferences show how such things attached themselves to his memory.\nDiscursive in his reading, as most men of letters seem to be, with a\nquick eye for the animated scene, the striking figure, the strange\noccurrence, he read, one feels, for enjoyment--he would add, no doubt,\nfor his own moral profit; indeed he says that he began his Biographies\nfor the advantage of others and found them to be much to his own.[39]\nHe was of course an inveterate moralist; but unlike others of the\nclass, he never forgets the things that have given him pleasure.  They\ncrowd his pages in genial reminiscence and apt allusion.  There is\nalways the quiet and leisurely air of one who has seen and has enjoyed,\nand sees and enjoys again as he writes.  It is this that has made his\nBiographies live.  They may at times exasperate the modern historian,\nfor he is not very systematic--delightful writers rarely are.  He\nrambles as he likes and avowedly passes the great things by and\ntreasures the little and characteristic.  \"I am not writing histories\nbut lives,\" he says, \"and it is not necessarily in the famous action\nthat a man's excellence or failure is revealed.  But some little\nthing--a word or a jest--may often show character better than a battle\nwith its ten thousand slain.\"[40]\n\nBut, after all, it is the characteristic rather than the character that\ninterests him.  He is not among the greatest who have drawn men, for he\nlacks the mind and patience to go far below the surface to find the key\nto the whole nature.  When he has shown us one side of the hero, he\nwill present another and a very different one, and leave us to\nreconcile them if we can.  The contradictions remain contradictions,\nand he wanders pleasantly on.  The Lives of Pericles and Themistocles,\nfor instance, are little more than mere collectanea from sources widely\ndiscrepant, and often quite worthless.  Of the mind of Pericles he had\nlittle {84} conception; he gathered up and pleasantly told what he had\nread in books.  He had too little of the critical instinct and took\nthings too easily to weigh what he quoted.\n\nAbove all, despite his \"political\" energy and enthusiasm, it was\nimpossible, for a Greek of his day to have the political insight that\nonly comes from life in a living state.  How could the Telearch of\nChaeronea under the Roman Empire understand Pericles?  Archbishop Trench\ncontrasts his enthusiasm about the gift of liberty to Greece by\nFlamininus with the reflection of Wordsworth that it is a thing\n\n          which is not to be given\n  By all the blended powers of Earth and Heaven.\n\nPlutarch really did not know what liberty is; Wordsworth on the other\nhand had taken part in the French Revolution, and watched with keen and\nsympathetic eyes the march of events throughout a most living epoch.\nIt is worth noting that indirectly Plutarch contributed to the\ndisasters of that epoch, for his _Lycurgus_ had enormous influence with\nRousseau and his followers who took it for history.  Here was a man who\nmade laws and constitutions in his own head and imposed them upon his\nfellow-countrymen.  So Plutarch wrote and believed, and so read and\nbelieved thinking Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, like himself\nsubjects of a despotism and without political experience.\n\nBesides Biographies he wrote moral treatises--some based on lectures,\nothers on conversation, others again little better than\nnote-books--pleasant and readable books, if the reader will forgive a\ncertain want of humour, and a tendency to ramble, and will surrender\nhis mind to the long and leisurely sentences, for Plutarch is not to be\nhurried.  Everything he wrote had some moral or religious aim.  He was\na believer, in days of doubt and perplexity.  The Epicurean was heard\nat Delphi.  Even in the second century, when the great, religious\nrevival was in full swing, Lucian wrote and found readers.  Men brought\ntheir difficulties to Plutarch and he went to meet them--ever glad to\ndo something for the ancestral faith.  Nor was he less ready to\ndiscuss--or record discussions of--questions much less serious.  Was\nthe hen or the egg first?  Does a varied diet or a single dish help the\ndigestion more?  Why is fresh water better than salt for {85} washing\nclothes?  Which of Aphrodite's hands did Diomed wound?\n\nIt is always the same man, genial, garrulous, moral and sensible.\nThere are no theatricalities in his style--he is not a rhetorician even\non paper.[41]  He discards the tricks of the school, adoxography,\nepigram and, as a rule, paradox.  His simplicity is his charm.  He is\nreally interested in his subject whatever it is; and he believes in its\npower of interesting other men, too much to think it worth while to\ntrick it out with extraneous prettinesses.  Yet after he has discussed\nhis theme, with excursions into its literary antecedents and its moral\nsuggestions, we are not perhaps much nearer an explanation of the fact\nin question,[42] nor always quite sure that it is a fact.  Everything\ninterests him, but he is in no hurry to get at the bottom of anything;\njust as in the _Lives_ he is occupied with everything except the depths\nof his hero's personality.  It remains that in his various works he has\ngiven us an unexampled pageant of antiquity over a wide reach of time\nand many lands, and always bright with the colour of life--the work of\na lover of men.  \"I can hardly do without Plutarch,\" wrote Montaigne;\n\"he is so universal and so full, that upon all occasions, and what\nextravagant subject soever you take in hand, he will still intrude\nhimself into your business, and holds out to you a liberal and not to\nbe exhausted hand of riches and embellishments.\"  What Shakespeare\nthought of him is written in three great plays.[43]\n\n[Sidenote: His wife and children]\n\nBut so far nothing has been said of Plutarch's own home.  The lot of\nthe wife of a great preacher or moralist is not commonly envied; and\nthe tracts which Plutarch wrote upon historic women and their virtues,\nand on the duties of married life, on diet and on the education of the\nyoung, suggest that Timoxena must have lived in an atmosphere of high\nmoral elevation, with a wise saw and an ancient instance for every\noccurrence of the day.  But it is clear that he loved her, and his\naffection for their four little boys must have been as plain to her as\nto his readers--and his joy when, after long waiting, at last a little\ngirl was born.  \"You had longed for a daughter {86} after four sons,\"\nhe writes to her, \"and I was glad when she came and I could give her\nyour name.\"  The little Timoxena lived for two years, and the letter of\nconsolation which Plutarch wrote her mother tells the story of her\nshort life.  \"She had by nature wonderful good temper and gentleness.\nSo responsive to affection, so generous was she that it was a pleasure\nto see her tenderness.  For she used to bid her nurse give the breast\nto other children and not to them only, but even to toys and other\nthings in which she took delight.  She was so loving that she wished\neverything that gave her pleasure to share in the best of what she had.\nI do not see, my dear wife, why things such as these, which gave us so\nmuch happiness while she lived, should give us pain and trouble now\nwhen we think of them.\"[44]  He reminds her of the mysteries of\nDionysus of which they were both initiates.  In language that recalls\nWordsworth's great Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, he suggests\nthat old age dulls our impressions of the soul's former life, and that\ntheir little one is gone from them, before she had time to fall in love\nwith life on earth.  \"And the truth about this is to be seen in the\nancient use and wont of our fathers,\" who did not observe the ordinary\nsad rites of burial for little children, \"as if they felt it not right\nin the case of those who have passed to a better and diviner lot and\nplace....  And since to disbelieve them is harder than to believe, let\nus comply with the laws in outward things, and let what is within be\nyet more stainless, pure and holy.\"[45]\n\nTwo of the sons had previously died--the eldest Soclaros, and the\nfourth, \"our beautiful Chaeron\"--the name is that of the traditional\nfounder of Chaeronea.  The other two, Autobulus and Plutarch grew up.\nSome of these names appear in the _Table Talk_, while others of his\nworks were written at the suggestion of his sons.\n\n[Sidenote: His slaves]\n\nFrom the family we pass to the slaves, and here, as we should expect,\nPlutarch is an advocate of gentleness.  In the tract _On Restraining\nAnger_ a high and humane character is drawn in Fundanus, who had\nsuccessfully mastered a naturally passionate temper.  It has been\nthought that Plutarch was drawing {87} his own portrait over his\nfriend's name.  A naive tendency to idealise his own virtues he\ncertainly shares with other moralists.  Fundanus urges that, while all\nthe passions need care and practice if they are to be overcome, anger\nis the failure to which we are most liable in the case of our slaves.\nOur authority over them sets us in a slippery place; temper here has\nnothing to check it, for here we are irresponsible and that is a\nposition of danger.  A man's wife and his friends are too apt to call\ngentleness to the slaves mere easy-going slackness (_atonian kai\nrhathumian_).  \"I used to be provoked by such criticism myself against\nmy slaves.  I was told they were going to pieces for want of\ncorrection.  Later on I realized that, first of all, it is better to\nlet them grow worse through my forbearance than by bitterness and anger\nto pervert oneself for the reformation of others.  And, further, I saw\nthat many of them, through not being punished, began to be ashamed of\nbeing bad, and that forgiveness was more apt than punishment to be the\nbeginning of a change in them--and indeed that they would serve some\nmen more readily for a silent nod than they would others for blows and\nbrandings.  So I persuaded myself that reasoning does better than\ntemper.\"[46]  It will be remarked that Fundanus, or his recording\nfriend, does not here take the Stoic position that the slave is as much\na son of God as the master,[47] nor does he spare the slave for the\nslave's sake but to overcome his own temper.  So much for theory; but\nmen's conduct does not always square with their theories, and in life\nwe see men guilty of kind-heartedness and large-mindedness not at all\nto be reconciled with the theories which they profess, when they\nremember them.\n\nIt is curious that one of the few stories of Plutarch that come from\noutside sources should concern this very tract and the punishment of a\nslave.  Gellius heard it from the philosopher Taurus after one of his\nclasses.  Plutarch, Taurus said, had a worthless slave and ordered him\na flogging.  The man loudly protested he had done no wrong, and at\nlast, under the stimulus of the lash, taunted his master with\ninconsistency--what about the fine book on controlling Anger? he was\nangry enough now.  {88} \"Then Plutarch, slowly and gently\" asked what\nsigns of anger he showed in voice or colour or word?  \"My eyes, I\nthink, are not fierce; nor my face flushed; I am not shouting aloud;\nthere is no foam on my lip, no red in my cheek; I am saying nothing to\nbe ashamed of; nothing to regret; I am not excited nor gesticulating.\nAll these, perhaps you are unaware, are the signs of anger.\"[48]  Then\nturning to the man who was flogging the slave, he said, \"In the\nmeantime, while I and he are debating, _you_ go on with your\nbusiness.\"[49]  The story is generally accepted, and it is certainly\ncharacteristic.  The philosopher, feeling his pulse, as it were, to\nmake sure that he is not angry, while his slave is being lashed, is an\ninteresting and suggestive picture, which it is well to remember.\n\nHow long Plutarch lived we do not know.  He refers to events of the\nyear 104 or 105, and in his _Solon_ he speaks of Athens and Plato each\nhaving an unfinished masterpiece, so that he cannot have known of the\nintention of the Emperor Hadrian to finish the temple of Zeus\nOlympics.[50]  All that this need imply is that the _Solon_ was written\nbefore 125 A.D.  As to his death, it is certainly interesting when we\nrecall how full of dreams and portents his Biographies are, to learn\nfrom Artemidorus' great work on the Interpretation of Dreams (written\nsome forty years later) that Plutarch, when ill, dreamed that he was\nascending to heaven, supported by Hermes.  Next day he was told that\nthis meant great happiness.  \"Shortly after he died, and this was what\nhis dream and the interpretation meant.  For ascent to heaven means\ndestruction to a sick man, and the great happiness is a sign of\ndeath.\"[51]  Plutarch might well have accepted this himself.\n\nSuch was Plutarch's life--the life of a quiet and simple-minded Greek\ngentleman, spent amid scenes where the past predominated over the\npresent,--_nullum sine nomine saxum_, where Antiquity claimed him for\nher own by every right that it has ever had upon man.  The land of his\nfathers, the literature, the art, the philosophy, the faith, and the\nreproduction of the {89} good old life in the pleasant\nhousehold[52]--everything conspired to make him what he was.  We now\ncome to his significance in the story of the conflict of religions in\nthe Roman Empire.\n\n[Sidenote: Plutarch not a philosopher]\n\nA good deal has been written about Plutarch's philosophy.  His works\nare full of references to philosophy and philosophers, and he leaves us\nin no doubt as to his counting himself a disciple of Plato; his\ncommentaries on Platonic doctrines give him a place in the long series\nof Plato's expositors.  But no one would expect a writer of the first\ncentury to be a man of one allegiance, and Plutarch modifies the\nteaching of Plato with elements from elsewhere.  It has then been\ndebated whether he should, or should not, be called an Eclectic, but\nnot very profitably.  The essential thing to note is that he is not\nproperly a philosopher at all, much as the statement would have\nastonished him.[53]  His real interest is elsewhere; and while he, like\nthe Greeks of his day, read and talked Philosophy interminably, as men\nin later ages have read and talked Theology, it was not with the\nphilosophic spirit.  Philosophy is not the mistress--rather, he avows,\nthe servant of something else; and that means that it is not\nPhilosophy.  His test of philosophic thought and doctrine was\navailability for the moral and religious life--a test which may or may\nnot be sound, as it is applied.  But Plutarch was an avowed moralist,\ndidactic in every fibre; and everything he wrote betrays the essential\nfailure of the practical man and the moralist--impatience, the short\nview.  From his experience of human life in its manifold relations of\nlove and friendship, he came to the conclusion that \"the ancient faith\nof our fathers suffices.\"  It is also plain that he was afraid of life\nwithout religion.  So far as a man of his training would--a man\nfamiliar with the history of philosophy, but without patience or depth\nenough to be clear in his own mind, he associated truth with his\nreligion; at all events it was \"sufficient,\" for this he had found in\nhis course through the world.  Definite upon this one central point, he\napproached philosophy, but not with the true philosopher's purpose of\nexamining his experience, in accordance with the Platonic {90}\nsuggestion[54]; rather, with the more practical aim of profiting by\nevery serviceable thought or maxim which he could find.  And he\ncertainly profited.  If he started with preconceptions, which he\nintended to keep, he enlarged and purified them--in a sense, we may\nsay, he adorned and enriched them.  For whereever he found a moving or\nsuggestive idea, a high thought, he adopted it and found it a place in\nhis mind, though without inquiring too closely whether it had any right\nto be there.  In the end, it is very questionable whether the sum of\nhis ideas will hold together at all, if we go beyond the quick test of\na rather unexamined experience.  We have already seen how he protested\nagainst too curious examination.  \"There is no philosophy possible,\"\nwrote John Stuart Mill, \"where fear of consequences is a stronger\nprinciple than love of truth.\"\n\nBut to such criticisms a reply is sometimes suggested, which is best\nmade in the well-known words of Pascal--\"the heart has its reasons\nwhich the reason does not know.\"[55]  The experience which led Plutarch\nto his conclusion was real and sound.  There is an evidential value in\na good father, in wife and children--even in a telearchy with its tiles\nand cement--which is apt to be under-estimated.  For with such elements\nin life are linked passions and emotions, which are deeply bound up\nwith human nature, and rule us as instincts--blind reasons of the\nheart.  Like all other things they require study and criticism if they\nare not to mislead, and those who most follow them are sometimes the\nworst judges of their real significance.  On the other hand the danger\nof emotion, instinct and intuition as guides to truth is emphasized\nenough,--it was emphasized by the Stoics; and a contribution is made to\nhuman progress, when the value of these guides to truth is re-asserted,\neven to the extent of obvious exaggeration, by some one, who, like\nPlutarch, has had a life rich in various human experience.  It remains\nhowever, in Plutarch's case as in all such cases, the fundamental\nquestion, whether the supposed testimony of instinct and intuition is\nconfirmed.  If it is not confirmed, it may be taken to have been\nmisunderstood.\n\nKeeping the whole life of this man in view, and realizing its\nsoundness, its sweetness and its worth, we must see what {91} he made\nof the spiritual environment of man's life in general--laying stress on\nwhat in his system, or his attempt at a system, is most significant,\nand postponing criticism.  It should be said once for all that a\ngeneral statement of Plutarch's views cannot be quite faithful, for he\nwas a man of many and wandering thoughts, and also something of an\nAcademic; and whatever he affirmed was with qualifications, which in a\nshort summary must be understood rather than repeated.\n\n[Sidenote: The knowledge of God]\n\nOur knowledge of God and of things divine comes to us, according to\nPlutarch, from various sources.  There is the consensus of mankind.\n\"Of all customs first and greatest is belief in gods.  Lycurgus, Numa,\nIon and Deucalion, alike sanctified men, by prayers and oaths and\ndivinations and oracles bringing them into touch with the divine in\ntheir hopes and fears.  You might find communities without walls,\nwithout letters, without kings, without houses, without money, with no\nneed of coinage, without acquaintance with theatres and gymnasia; but a\ncommunity without holy rite, without a god, that uses not prayer nor\noath, nor divination, nor sacrifice to win good or avert evil--no man\never saw nor will see....  This is what holds all society together and\nis the foundation and buttress of all law.\"[56]\n\nThis evidence from the consensus of mankind is brought to a higher\npoint in the body of myth inherited from the past, and in custom and\nlaw--and is so far confirmed by reason.  But we can go further and\nappeal to the highest and best minds of antiquity, who in their own\nhighest moments of inspiration confirmed the common view.  \"In the\nmatter of belief in gods, and in general, our guides and teachers have\nbeen the poets and the lawgivers, and, thirdly, the philosophers--all\nalike laying down that there are gods, though differing among\nthemselves as to the number of the gods and their order, their nature\nand function.  Those of the philosophers are free from pain and death;\ntoil they know not, and are clean escaped the roaring surge of {92}\nAcheron.\"[57]  \"It is likely that the word of ancient poets and\nphilosophers is true,\" he says.[58]  Plutarch was a lover of poetry and\nof literature, and he attributed to them a value as evidence to truth,\nwhich is little intelligible to men who have not the same passion.[59]\nStill the appeal to the poets in this connexion was very commonly made.\n\nBut men are not only dependent on the tradition of their fathers and\nthe inspiration of poets and philosophers, much as they should, and do,\nlove and honour these.  The gods make themselves felt in many ways.\nThere was abundant evidence of this in many established cases of\ntheolepsy, enthusiasm (_entheos_) and possession.  Again there were the\noracles, in which it was clear that gods communicated with men and\nrevealed truths not otherwise to be gained--a clear demonstration of\nthe spiritual.  Men were \"in anguish and fear lest Delphi should lose\nits glory of three thousand years,\" but Delphi has not failed; for \"the\nlanguage of the Pythian priestess, like the right line of the\nMathematicians--the shortest between two points, makes neither\ndeclension nor winding, has neither double meaning nor ambiguity, but\ngoes straight to the truth.  Though hard to believe and much tested,\nshe has never up to now been convicted of error,--on the contrary she\nhas filled the shrine with offerings and gifts from barbarians and\nGreeks, and adorned it with the beautiful buildings of the\nAmphictyons.\"[60]  The revival of Delphi in Plutarch's day, \"in so\nshort a time,\" was not man's doing--but \"the God came here and inspired\nthe oracle with his divinity.\"  And Delphi was not the only oracle.\nThe Stoics perhaps had pointed the way here with their teaching on\ndivination, but as it stands the argument (such as it is) is said to be\nPlutarch's own.[61]  Lastly in this connexion, the mysteries offered\nevidence, but here he is reticent.  \"As to the mysteries, in which we\nmay receive the greatest manifestations and illuminations of the truth\n{93} concerning daemons--like Herodotus, I say, 'Be it unspoken.'\"[62]\n\n[Sidenote: Absolute being]\n\nPhilosophy, poetry, tradition, oracles and mysteries[63] bring Plutarch\nto belief in gods.  \"There are not Greek gods and barbarian, southern\nor northern; but just as sun, moon, sky, earth and sea are common to\nall men and have many names, so likewise it is one Reason that makes\nall these things a cosmos; it is one Providence that cares for them,\nwith ancillary powers appointed to all things; while in different\npeople, different honours and names are given to them as customs vary.\nSome use hallowed symbols that are faint, others symbols more clear, as\nthey guide their thought to the divine.\"[64]  This one ultimate Reason\nis described by Plutarch in terms borrowed from all the great teachers\nwho had spoken to the Greeks of God.  The Demiurge, the One and\nAbsolute, the World-Soul and the rest all contribute features.[65]\n\n\"We,\" he says, \"have really no share in Being, but every mortal nature,\nset between becoming and perishing, offers but a show and a seeming of\nitself, dim and insecure\"; and he quotes the famous saying of\nHeraclitus that it is impossible to descend into the same river twice,\nand develops the idea of change in the individual.  \"No one remains,\nnor is he one, but we become many as matter now gathers and now slips\naway about one phantasm and a common form (or impress)....  Sense\nthrough ignorance of Being is deceived into thinking that the\nappearance is.  What then indeed is Being?  The eternal, free from\nbecoming, free from perishing, for which no time brings change....  It\nis even impious to say 'Was' or 'Will be' of Being; for these are the\nvaryings and passings and changings of that which by nature cannot\nabide in Being.  But God _is_, we must say, and that _not_ in time, but\nin the aeon that knows no motion, time or variation, where is neither\nformer {94} nor latter, future nor past, older nor younger; but God is\none, and with one Now he has filled Always, and is alone therein the\none that Is.\"[66]\n\nThe symbol E at Delphi affords him a text here.  It is one of \"the kind\nApollo's\" riddles to stimulate thought.  Plutarch read it as Epsilon\nand translates it \"Thou Art,\" and from this as from the very name of\nApollo he draws a lesson as to the nature of real Being.  The name\n_A-poll-o_ means of itself the \"Not-Many,\" and the symbol E is the\nsoul's address to God--God is, and God is one.  Not every one\nunderstands the nature of the divine; men confuse God with his\nmanifestations.  \"Those who suppose Apollo and the sun to be one and\nthe same, we should welcome and love for their pious speech, because\nthey attach the idea (_epinoia_) of God to that thing which they honour\nmost of all they know and crave for,\" but we should point them higher,\n\"bid them go upward and see the truth of their dream, the real Being\n(_ten ousian_).\"  They may still honour the image--the visible sun.\nBut that a god should do the work of the sun, that there should be\nchanges and progressions in a god, that he should project fire from\nhimself and extend himself into land, sea, winds and animals, and into\nall the strange experiences of animals and plants (as the Stoics\ntaught)--it is not holy even to hear such things mentioned.  No, God is\nnot like Homer's child playing on the sand, making and unmaking; all\nthis belongs to another god, or rather daemon, set over nature with its\nbecomings and perishings.[67]  To confuse gods and daemons is to make\ndisorder of everything.\n\nIt is here that the real interest of Plutarch's theology begins; for,\nas Christian apologists were quick to point out, all the philosophers\nwere in the last resort monotheists.  But the ultimate One God is by\ncommon consent far from all direct contact with this or any other\nuniverse of becoming and perishing.  For it was questioned how many\nuniverses (_kosmoi_) there might be[68]--some conjecturing there would\nbe one hundred and eighty-three--and if there were more than one, the\nStoics asked what became of Fate and Destiny, and would there not be\nmany \"Zeuses or Zenes\"?  Why should there be? asked {95} Plutarch; why\nnot in each universe a guide and ruler with mind and reason, such as he\nwho in our universe is called lord and father of all?  What hinders\nthat they should all be subjects of the Fate and Destiny that Zeus\ncontrols; that he should appoint to each several one of them his own\nrealm, and the seeds and reasons of everything achieved in it; that he\nshould survey them, and they be responsible to him?  That in the whole\nscheme of things there should be ten universes, or fifty, or a hundred,\nall governed by one Reason, all subordinate to one rule, is not\nimpossible.  The Ultimate God rules through deputies.[69]\n\n[Sidenote: The deputies of the supreme]\n\nThese deputies are Plutarch's chief concern in theology.  The Stoics\nand he were at one about the Supreme and Ultimate God, waiving the\nmatter of personality, which he asserted and which they left open.  But\nwhen the Stoics turned the deputy gods into natural forces, which we\nmight call laws of nature, or, still worse, into natural objects like\nwine and grain,[70] Plutarch grew angry and denounced such teaching as\natheism.  \"We must not as it were turn them into queen-bees who can\nnever go out, nor keep them shut up in the prison of matter, or rather\npacked up, as they (the Stoics) do, when they turn the gods into\nconditions of the atmosphere and mingled forces of water {96} and fire,\nand thus beget them with the universe and again burn them up with it;\nthey do not leave the gods at liberty and free to move, as if they were\ncharioteers or steersmen; no! like images they are nailed down, even\nfused to their bases, when they are thus shut up into the material,\nyes, and riveted to it, by being made partakers with it in destruction\nand resolution and change.\"[71]  This is one of many assertions of the\nexistence of ancillary gods, who are not metaphors, nor natural laws,\nbut personal rulers of provinces, which may very well be each a\nuniverse, free and independent.  \"The true Zeus\" has a far wider survey\nthan \"the Homeric Zeus\" who looked away from Troy to Thrace and the\nDanube, nor does he contemplate a vacant infinite without, nor yet (as\nsome say) himself and nothing else.  To judge from the motions of the\nheavens, the divine really enjoys variety, and is glad to survey\nmovement, the actions of gods and men, the periods of the stars.[72]\n\n[Sidenote: Daemons]\n\nThus under the Supreme is a hierarchy of heavenly powers or gods, and\nagain between them and men is another order of beings, the daemons.[73]\nThese, unlike the gods, are of mixed nature, for while the gods are\nemanations or Logoi of the Supreme, the daemons have something of the\nperishable.  \"Plato and Pythagoras and Xenocrates and Chrysippus,\nfollowing the ancient theologians, say that daemons are stronger than\nmen and far excel us in their natural endowment; but the divine element\nin them is not unmixed nor undiluted, but partakes of the soul's nature\nand the body's sense-perception, and is susceptive of pleasure and\npain, while the passions which attend these mutations affect them, some\nof them more and others less.  For there are among daemons, as among\nmen, differences of virtue and wickedness.\"[74]  \"It can be proved on\nthe testimony of wise and ancient witnesses that there are natures, as\nit were on the frontiers of gods and men, that admit mortal passions\nand inevitable changes, whom we may rightly, after the custom of {97}\nour fathers, consider to be daemons, and so calling them, worship\nthem.\"[75]  If the atmosphere were abolished between the earth and the\nmoon (for beyond air and moon it was generally supposed that the gods\nlived[76]), the void would destroy the unity of the universe; and in\nprecisely the same way \"those who do not leave us the race of daemons,\ndestroy all intercourse and contact between gods and men, by abolishing\nwhat Plato called the interpretive and ancillary nature, or else they\ncompel us to make confusion and disorder of everything, by bringing God\nin among mortal passions and mortal affairs, fetching him down for our\nneeds, as they say the witches in Thessaly do with the moon.\"[77]  And\n\"he, who involves God in human needs, does not spare his majesty, nor\ndoes he maintain the dignity and greatness of God's excellence.\"[78]\nThe Stoic teaching that men are \"parts of God\" makes God responsible\nfor every human act of wickedness and sin--the common weakness of every\npantheistic system.[79]\n\nThus the daemons serve two purposes in religious philosophy.  They\nsafeguard the Absolute and the higher gods from contact with matter,\nand they relieve the Author of Good from responsibility for evil.  At\nthe same time they supply the means of that relation to the divine\nwhich is essential for man's higher life--\"passing on the prayers and\nsupplications of men thitherward, and thence bringing oracles and gifts\nof blessing.\"[80] \"They say well, who say that when Plato discovered\nthe element underlying qualities that are begotten--what nowadays they\ncall matter and nature--he set philosophers free from many great\ndifficulties; but to me they seem to solve more difficulties and\ngreater ones, who set the race of daemons between gods and {98} men and\ndiscovered that in some such way it made a community of us and brought\nus together, whether the theory belongs to the Magians who follow\nZoroaster, or is Thracian and comes from Orpheus, or is Egyptian, or\nPhrygian.\"[81]  Homer, he adds, still uses the terms \"gods\" and\n\"daemons\" alike; \"it was Hesiod who first clearly and distinctly set\nforth the four classes of beings endowed with reason, gods, daemons,\nheroes and finally men.\"\n\nThe daemons, then, are the agents of Providence, of the One Reason,\nwhich orders the universe; they are the ministers of the divine care\nfor man.  And here perhaps their mediation is helped by the fact that\nthe border lines between themselves and the gods above on the one hand,\nand men below on the other, are not fixed and final.  Some daemons, such\nas Isis, Osiris, Herakles and Dionysos, have by their virtue risen to\nbe gods,[82] while their own numbers have been recruited from the souls\nof good men.[83]  \"Souls which are delivered from becoming (_geneseos_)\nand thenceforth have rest from the body, as being utterly set free, are\nthe daemons that care for men, as Hesiod says\";[84] and, just as old\nathletes enjoy watching and encouraging young ones, \"so the daemons, who\nthrough worth of soul are done with the conflicts of life,\" do not\ndespise what they have left behind, but are kindly minded to such as\nstrive for the same goal,--especially when they see them close upon\ntheir hope, struggling and all but touching it.  As in the case of a\nshipwreck those on shore will run out into the waves to lend a hand to\nthe sailors they can reach (though if they are out on the sea, to watch\nin silence is all that can be done), so the daemons help us \"while the\naffairs of life break over us (_baptixomenous hypo ton pragmaton_) and\nwe take one body after another as it were carriages.\"  Above all they\nhelp us if we strive of our own virtue to be saved and reach the\nhaven.[85]\n\nBut this is not all, for in his letter written to console Apollonios\nPlutarch carries us further.  There was, he says, a {99} man who lost\nhis only son--he was afraid, by poison.  It perhaps adds confidence to\nthe story that Plutarch gives his name and home; he was Elysios of\nTerina in Southern Italy.  The precision is characteristic.  Elysios\naccordingly went to a _psychomanteion_, a shrine where the souls of the\ndead might be consulted.[86]  He duly sacrificed and went to sleep in\nthe temple.  He saw in a dream his own father with a youth strikingly\nlike the dead son, and he was told that this was \"the son's daemon,\"[87]\nand that the death had been natural, and right for the lad and for his\nparents.  Elsewhere Plutarch quotes the lines of Menander--\n\n  By each man standeth, from his natal hour,\n  A daemon, his kind mystagogue through life--[88]\n\nbut he prefers the view of Empedocles that there are two such beings in\nattendance on each of us.[89]  The classical instance of a guardian\nspirit was the \"daimonion\" of Socrates, on which both Plutarch and\nApuleius wrote books.[90]  Plutarch discusses many theories that had\nbeen given of it, but hardly convinces the reader that he really knew\nwhat Socrates meant.\n\nIn a later generation it was held that if proper means were taken the\nguardian spirit would come visibly before a man's eyes.  So Apuleius\nheld, and Porphyry records that when an Egyptian priest called on the\ndaemon of Plotinus to manifest himself in the temple of Isis (the only\n\"pure\" spot the Egyptian {100} could find in Rome), there came not a\ndaemon but a god; so great a being was Plotinus.[91]  Plutarch discusses\nthe question of such bodily appearances in connexion with the legend of\nNuma and Egeria.  He can believe that God would not disdain the society\nof a specially good and holy man, but as for the idea that god or daemon\nwould have anything to do with a human body--\"that would indeed require\nsome persuasion.\"  \"Yet the Egyptians plausibly say that it is not\nimpossible for the spirit of a god to have intercourse with a woman and\nbeget some beginnings of life,\" though Plutarch finds a difficulty in\nsuch a union of unequals.[92]\n\nPlutarch has comparatively little to say of visible appearances of\ntutelary or other daemons.  To what lengths of credulity men went in\nthis direction will be shown in a later chapter.  Yet a guardian who\ndoes not communicate in some way with the person he guards, and a\nseries of daemonic and divine powers content to be inert and silent,\nwould be futile; and in fact there was, Plutarch held, abundance of\ncommunication between men and the powers above them.  It was indeed one\nof the main factors of his religion that man's life is intimately\nrelated to the divine.\n\nPlutarch, of course, could know nothing of the language in use to-day,\nbut it is clear that he was familiar with some or all of the phaenomena,\nwhich in our times have received a vocabulary of their own, for the\nmoment very impressive.  Psychopathic, auto-suggestion, telepathy, the\nsubliminal self--the words may tell us something; whether what they\ntell us is verifiable, remains to be seen.  Plutarch's account of the\nfacts, for the description of which this language has been invented,\nseems even more fantastic to a modern reader, but it must be remembered\nthat he and his contemporaries were led to it at once by observation of\npsychical phaenomena, still to be observed, and by philosophic\nspeculation on the transcendence of God.  As a body of theories, the\nancient system holds together as well as most systems in the abstract.\nIt was not in theory that it broke down.  Plutarch as usual presents it\nwith reservations.\n\n{101}\n\n[Sidenote: The mantic art]\n\nThe daemons are not slow to speak; it is we who are slow to hear.  \"In\ntruth we men recognize one another's thoughts, as it were feeling after\nthem in the dark by means of the voice.  But the thoughts of the daemons\nare luminous and shine for those who can see; and they need no words or\nnames, such as men use among themselves as symbols to see images and\npictures of what is thought, while, as for the things actually thought,\nthose they only know who have some peculiar and daemonic light.  The\nwords of the daemons are borne through all things, but they sound only\nfor those who have the untroubled nature and the still soul--those, in\nfact, whom we call holy and happy (_daimonious_).\"[93]  Most people\nthink the daemon only comes to men when they are asleep, but this is due\nto their want of harmony.  \"The divine communicates immediately (_di\nautou_) with few and but rarely; to most men it gives signs, from which\nrises the so-called Mantic art\"[94]--prophecy or soothsaying.  All\nsouls have the \"mantic\" faculty--the capacity for receiving impressions\nfrom daemons--though not in an equal degree.  A daemon after all is, from\none point of view, merely a disembodied soul, and it may meet a soul\nincorporated in a body; and thus, soul meeting soul, there are produced\n\"impressions of the future,\"[95] for a voice is not needed to convey\nthought.\n\nBut if a disembodied soul can foresee the future, why should not a soul\nin a body also be able?  In point of fact, the soul has this power, but\nit is dulled by the body.  Memory is a parallel gift.  Some souls only\nshake off the influence of the body in dreams, some at the approach of\ndeath.[96] The mantic element is receptive of impressions and of\nanticipations by means of feelings, and without reasoning process\n(_asyllogistos_) it touches the future when it can get clear of the\npresent.  The state, in which this occurs, is called \"enthusiasm,\"\ngod-possession--and into this the body will sometimes fall of itself,\nand sometimes it is cast into it by some vapour or exhalation sent up\nby the earth.  This vapour or whatever it is (_to mantikon theuma kai\npneuma_) pervades the body, and produces {102} in the soul a\ndisposition, or combination (_krasin_), unfamiliar and strange, hard to\ndescribe, but from what is said it may be divined.  \"Probably by heat\nand diffusion it opens pores [or channels] whereby impressions of the\nfuture may be received.\"[97]  Such a vapour was found to issue from the\nground at Delphi--the accidental discovery of a shepherd, Coretas by\nname, who spoke \"words with God in them\" (_phonas enthousiodeis_) under\nits influence; and it was not till his words proved true that attention\nwas paid to the place and the vapour.  There is the same sort of\nrelation between the soul and the mantic vapour as between the eye and\nlight.\n\nBut does not this vapour theory do away with the other theory that\ndivination is mediated to us by the gods through the daemons?  Plutarch\ncites Plato's objection to Anaxagoras who was \"entangled in natural\ncauses\" and lost sight of better causes and principles beyond them.\nThere are double causes for everything.  The ancients said that all\nthings come from Zeus; those who came later, natural philosophers\n(_physidoi_), on the contrary \"wandered away from the fair and divine\nprinciple,\" and made everything depend on bodies, impacts, changes and\ncombinations (_krasis_); and both miss something of the truth.  \"We do\nnot make Mantic either godless or void of reason, when we give it the\nsoul of man as its material, and the enthusiastic spirit and exhalation\nas its tool or plectron.  For, first, the earth that produces these\nexhalations--and the sun, who gives the earth the power of combination\n(_krasis_) and change, is by the tradition of our fathers a god; and\nthen we leave daemons installed as lords and warders and guards of this\ncombination (_kraseos_), now loosening and now tightening (as if it\nwere a harmony), taking away excessive ecstasy and confusion, and\ngently and painlessly blending the motive power for those who use it.\nSo we shall not seem guilty of anything unreasonable or impossible.\"[98]\n\n{103}\n\nPlutarch gives an interesting account of a potion, which will produce\nthe same sort of effect.  The Egyptians compound it in a very mystical\nway of sixteen drugs, nearly all of which are fragrant, while the very\nnumber sixteen as the square of a square has remarkable properties or\nsuggestions.  The mixture is called Kyphi, and when inhaled it calms\nthe mind and reduces anxiety, and \"that part of us which receives\nimpressions (_phantastikon_) and is susceptive of dreams, it rubs down\nand cleans as if it were a mirror.\"[99]\n\nThe gods, he says, are our first and chiefest friends.[100]  Not every\none indeed so thinks--\"for see what Jews and Syrians think of the\ngods!\"[101]  But Plutarch insists that there is no joy in life apart\nfrom them.  Epicureans may try to deliver us from the wrath of the\ngods, but they do away with their kindness at the same moment; and\nPlutarch holds it better that there should even be some morbid element\n(_phathos_) of reverence and fear in our belief than that, in our\ndesire to avoid this, we should leave ourselves neither hope, nor\nkindness, nor courage in prosperity, nor any recourse to the divine\nwhen we are in trouble.[102]  Superstition is a rheum that gathers in\nthe eye of faith, which we do well to remove, but not at the cost of\nknocking the eye out or blinding it.[103]  In any case, its\ninconvenience is outweighed \"ten thousand times\" by the glad and joyous\nhopefulness that counts all blessing as coming from the gods.  And he\ncites in proof of this that joy in temple-service, to which reference\nhas already been made.  Those who abolish Providence need no further\npunishment than to live without it.[104]\n\n{104}\n\nBut the pleasures of faith are not only those of imagination or\nemotion.  For while the gods give us all blessings, there is none\nbetter for man to receive or more awful for God to bestow than truth.\nOther things God gives to men, mind and thought he shares with them,\nfor these are his attributes, and \"I think that of God's own eternal\nlife the happiness lies in his knowledge being equal to all that comes;\nfor without knowledge and thought, immortality would be time and not\nlife.\"[105]  The very name of Isis is etymologically connected with\nknowing (_eidenai_); and the goal of her sacred rites is \"knowledge of\nthe first and sovereign and intelligible, whom the goddess bids us seek\nand find in her.\"[106]  Her philosophy is \"hidden for the most part in\nmyths, and in true tales (_logois_) that give dim visions and\nrevelations of truth.\"[107]  Her temple at Sais bears the inscription:\n\"I am all that has been and is and shall be, and my veil no mortal yet\nhas lifted.\"[108]  She is the goddess of \"Ten Thousand Names.\"[109]\n\nPlutarch connects with his belief in the gods \"the great hypothesis\" of\nimmortality.  \"It is one argument that at one and the same time\nestablishes the providence of God and the continuance of the human\nsoul, and you cannot do away with the one and leave the other.\"[110]\nIf we had nothing divine in us, nothing like God, if we faded like the\nleaves (as Homer said), God would hardly give us so much thought, nor\nwould he, like women with their gardens of Adonis, tend and culture\n\"souls of a day,\" growing in the flesh which will admit no \"strong root\nof life.\"  The dialogue, in which this is said, is supposed to have\ntaken place in Delphi, so Plutarch turns to Apollo.  \"Do you think\nthat, if Apollo knew that the souls of the dying perished at once,\nblowing away like mist or smoke from their bodies, he would ordain so\nmany propitiations for the dead, and ask such great gifts and honours\nfor the departed--that he would cheat and humbug believers?  For my\npart, I will never let go the continuance of the soul, unless some\nHerakles shall come and take away the Pythia's tripod and abolish and\ndestroy the oracle.  For as long as so many oracles of this kind are\ngiven even in our day, it is not holy to condemn the soul to {105}\ndeath.\"[111]  And Plutarch fortifies his conviction with stories of\noracles, and of men who had converse with daemons, with apocalypses and\nrevelations, among which are two notable Descents into Hades,[112] and\na curious account of daemons in the British Isles.[113]\n\nThe theory of daemons lent itself to the explanation of the origin of\nevil, but speculation in this direction seems not to have appealed to\nPlutarch.  He uses bad daemons to explain the less pleasant phases of\npaganism, as we shall see, but the question of evil he scarcely\ntouches.  In his book on Isis and Osiris he discusses Typhon as the\nevil element in nature, and refers with interest to the views of \"the\nMagian Zoroaster who, they say, lived about five hundred years before\nthe Trojan War.\" Zoroaster held that there were two divine beings, the\nbetter being a god, Horomazes (Ormuzd), the other a daemon Areimanios\n(Ahriman), the one most like to light of all sensible things, the other\nto darkness and ignorance, \"and between them is Mithras, for which\nreason the Persians call Mithras the Mediator.\"  But the hour of\nMithras was not yet come, and in all his writings Plutarch hardly\nalludes to him more than half a dozen times.[114] It should be noted\nthat, whatever his interest in Eastern dualism with its Western\nparallels, Plutarch does not abandon his belief in the One Ultimate\nGood God.\n\nThis then in bare outline is a scheme of Plutarch's religion, though,\nas already noted, the scheme is not of his own making, but is put\ntogether from incidental utterances, all liable to qualification.  It\nis not the religion of a philosopher; and the qualifications, which\nlook like concessions to philosophic hesitation, mean less than they\nsuggest.  They are entrenchments thrown up against philosophy.  He is\nan educated Greek who has read the philosophers, but he is at heart an\napologist--a defender of myth, ritual, mystery and polytheism.  He has\n{106} compromised where Plato challenged.  His front (to carry out the\nmilitary metaphor) extends over a very long line--a line in places very\nweakly supported, and the daemons form its centre.  It is the daemons who\nlink men to the gods, and through them to the Supreme, making the\nuniverse a unity; who keep the gods immune from contact with matter and\nfrom the suggestion of evil; and what is more, they enable Plutarch to\ndefend the myths of Greek and Egyptian tradition from the attack of\nphilosopher and unbeliever.  And this defence of myth was probably more\nto him than the unity of the universe.  Every kind of myth was finding\na home in the eventual Greek religion, many of them obscene, bestial\nand cruel--revolting to the purity and the tenderness developing more\nand more in the better minds of Greece.  They could not well be\ndetached from the religion, so they had to be defended.\n\nThere are, for example, many elements in the myth of Isis and Osiris\nthat are disgusting.  Plutarch recommends us first of all, by means of\nthe preconceptions supplied by Greek philosophy upon the nature of God,\nto rule out what is objectionable as unworthy of God, but not to do\nthis too harshly.  Myth after all is a sort of rainbow to the sun of\nreason,[115] and should be received \"in a holy and philosophic\nspirit.\"[116]  We must not suppose that this or the other story\n\"happened so and was actually done.\"  Many things told of Isis and\nOsiris, if they were supposed to have truly befallen \"the blessed and\nincorruptible nature\" of the gods, would be \"lawless and barbarous\nfancy\" which, as AEschylus says--\n\n  You must spit out and purify your mouth.[117]\n\nBut, all the same, myth must be handled tenderly and not in too\nrationalistic a spirit--for that might be opening the doors to \"the\natheist people.\"  Euhemerus, by recklessly turning all the gods into\ngenerals and admirals and kings of ancient days, has covered the whole\nworld with atheism,[118] and the Stoics, as we have seen, are not much\nbetter, who turn the gods into their own gifts.  No, we may handle myth\nfar too freely--\"ah! yet {107} consider it again!\"  There are so many\npossibilities of acceptance.  And \"in the rites of Isis there is\nnothing unreasonable, nothing fictitious, nor anything introduced by\nsuperstition, but some things have an ethical value, others a\nhistorical or physical suggestion.\"[119]\n\n[Sidenote: Evil daemons]\n\nIn the second place, if nothing can be done for the myth or the\nrite--if it is really an extreme case--Plutarch falls back upon the\ndaemons.  There are differences among them as there are among men, and\nthe elements of passion and unreason are strong in some of them; and\ntraces of these are to be found in rites and initiations and myths here\nand there.  Rituals in which there is the eating of raw flesh, or the\nrending asunder of animals, fasting or beating of the breast, or again\nthe narration of obscene legends, are to be attributed to no god but to\nevil daemons.  How many such rituals survived, Plutarch does not say and\nperhaps he did not know; but the Christian apologists were less\nreticent, and Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus Maternus and the rest\nhave abundant evidence about them.  Some of these rites, Plutarch says,\nmust have been practised to avert the attention of the daemons.  \"The\nhuman sacrifices that used to be performed,\" could not have been\nwelcome to the gods, nor would kings and generals have been willing to\nsacrifice their own children unless they had been appeasing the anger\nof ugly, ill-tempered, and vengeful spirits, who would bring pestilence\nand war upon a people till they obtained what they sought.  \"Moreover\nas for all they say and sing in myth and hymn, of rapes and wanderings\nof the gods, of their hiding, of their exile and of their servitude,\nthese are not the experiences of gods but of daemons.\"  It is not right\nto say that Apollo fought a dragon for the Delphic shrine.[120]\n\nBut some such tales were to be found in the finest literature of the\nGreeks, and they were there told of the gods.[121]  In reply to this,\none of Plutarch's characters quotes the narrative of a hermit by the\nRed Sea.[122]  This holy man conversed with men once a year, and the\nrest of the time he consorted with {108} wandering nymphs and\ndaemons--\"the most beautiful man I ever saw, and quite free from all\ndisease.\"  He lived on a bitter fruit which he ate once a month.  This\nsage declared that the legends told of Dionysus and the rites performed\nin his honour at Delphi really pertained to a daemon.  \"If we call some\ndaemons by the names that belong to gods,--no wonder,\" said this\nstranger, \"for a daemon is constantly called after the god, to whom he\nis assigned, and from whom he has his honour and his power\"--just as\nmen are called Athenaeus or Dionysius--and many of them have no sort of\ntitle to the gods' names they bear.[123]\n\n[Sidenote: Superstition]\n\nWith Philosophy so ready to be our mystagogue and to lead us into the\ntrue knowledge of divine goodness, and with so helpful a theory to\nexplain away all that is offensive in traditional religion, faith ought\nto be as easy as it is happy and wholesome.  But there is another\ndanger beside Atheism--its exact opposite, superstition; and\nhere--apart from philosophical questions--lay the practical difficulty\nof Plutarch's religion.  He accepted almost every cult and mythology\nwhich the ancient world had handed down; Polytheism knows no false\ngods.  But to guide one's course aright, between the true myth and the\ndepraved, to distinguish between the true and good god and the\npseudonymous daemon, was no easy task.  The strange mass of Egyptian\nmisunderstandings was a testimony to this--some in their ignorance\nthought the gods underwent the actual experience of the grain they gave\nmen to sow, just as untaught Greeks identified the gods with their\nimages; and some Egyptians worshipped the animals sacred to the gods;\nand so religion was brought into contempt, while \"the weak and\nharmless\" fell into unbounded superstition, and the shrewder and bolder\ninto \"beastly and atheistic reflections.\"[124]  And yet on second\nthoughts Plutarch has a kindly apology for animal-worship.[125]\n\nPlutarch himself wrote a tract on superstition in which some have found\na note of rhetoric or special pleading, for he decidedly gives the\natheist the superiority over the superstitious, {109} a view which\nAmyot, his great translator, called dangerous, for \"it is certain that\nSuperstition comes nearer the mean of true Religion than does\nAtheism.\"[126]  Perhaps it did in the sixteenth century, but in\nPlutarch's day superstition was the real enemy to be crushed.  Nearly\nevery superstitious practice he cites appears in other writers.\n\nSuperstition, the worst of all terrors, like all other terrors kills\naction.  It makes no truce with sleep, the refuge from other fears and\npains.  It invents all kinds of strange practices, immersions in mud,\nbaptisms,[127] prostrations, shameful postures, outlandish worships.\nHe who fears \"the gods of his fathers and his race, saviours, friends\nand givers of good\"--whom will he not fear?  Superstition adds to the\ndread of death \"the thought of eternal woes.\"  The atheist lays his\nmisfortunes down to accident and looks for remedies.  The superstitious\nmakes all into judgments, \"the strokes of God,\" and will have no\nremedies lest he should seem \"to fight against God\" (_theomachein_).\n\"Leave me, Sir, to my punishment!\" he cries, \"me the impious, the\naccursed, hated of Gods and daemons\"--so he sits in rags and rolls in\nthe mud, confessing his sins and iniquities, how he ate or drank or\nwalked when the daemonion forbade.  \"Wretched man!\" he says to himself,\n\"Providence ordains thy suffering; it is God's decree.\"  The atheist\nthinks there are no gods; the superstitious wishes there were none.  It\nis they who have invented the sacrifices of children that prevailed at\nCarthage[128] and other things of the kind.  If Typhons and Giants were\nto drive out the gods and become our rulers, what worse could they ask?\n\nA hint from the _Conjugal Precepts_ may be added here, as it suggests a\ndifficulty in practice.  \"The wife ought not to have men friends of her\nown but to share her husband's; and the gods are our first and best\nfriends.  So those gods whom the the husband acknowledges, the wife\nought to worship and own, and those alone, and keep the great door shut\non superfluous devotions and foreign superstitions.  No god really\nenjoys the {110} stolen rites of a woman in secret.\"[129]  This is a\ncounsel of peace, but if \"ugly, ill-tempered and vengeful spirits\" seem\nto the mother to threaten her children, who will decide what are\nsuperfluous devotions?\n\nThe religion of Plutarch is a different thing from his morality.  For\nhis ethics rest on an experience much more easy to analyse, and like\nevery elderly and genial person he has much that he can say of the\nkindly duties of life.  Every reader will own the beauty and the high\ntone of much of his teaching, though some will feel that its centre is\nthe individual, and that it is pleasant rather than compulsive and\ninevitable.  After all nearly every religion has, somewhere or other,\nwhat are called \"good ethics,\" but the vital question is, \"What else?\"\nIn the last resort is ecstasy, independently of morality, the main\nthing?  Are words and acts holy as religious symbols which in a society\nare obviously vicious?  What propellent power lies behind the morals?\nAnd where are truth and experience?\n\n[Sidenote: Apology or truth?]\n\nWhat then is to be said of Plutarch's religion?  Here his experience\nwas not so readily intelligible, and every inherited and acquired\ninstinct within him conspired to make him cling to tradition and\nauthority as opposed to independent judgment.  His philosophy was not\nPlato's, in spite of much that he borrowed from Plato, for its motive\nwas not the love of truth.  The stress he lays upon the pleasure of\nbelieving shows that his ultimate canon is emotion.  He does not really\nwish to find truth on its own account, though he honestly would like\nits support.  He wishes to believe, and believe he will--_sit pro\nratione voluntas_.  \"There is something of the woman in Plutarch,\" says\nMr Lecky.  Like men of this temperament in every age, he surrenders to\nemotion, and emotion declines into sentimentalism.  He cannot firmly\nsay that anything, with which religious feeling has ever been\nassociated, has ceased to be useful and has become false.  He may talk\nbravely of shutting the great door against Superstition, but\nSuperstition has many entrances--indeed, was indoors already.\n\nWe have only to look at his treatise on Isis and Osiris to see the\neffects of compromise in religion.  He will never take a firm stand;\nthere are always possibilities, explanations, parallels, suggestions,\nsymbolisms, by which he can escape from facing {111} definitely the\ndemand for a decisive reformation of religion.  As a result, in spite\nof the radiant mist of amiability, which he diffuses over these\nEgyptian gods, till the old myths seem capable of every conceivable\ninterpretation, and everything a symbol of everything else, and all is\nbeautiful and holy--the foolish and indecent old stories remain a\ndefinite and integral part of the religion, the animals are still\nobjects of worship and the image of Osiris stands in its original naked\nobscenity.[130] And the Egyptian is not the only religion, for, as\nTertullian points out, the old rites are still practised every where!\"\nwith unabated horrors, symbol or no symbol.[131]  Plutarch emphasizes\nthe goodness and friendliness of the gods, but he leaves the evil\ndaemons in all their activity.  Strange and awful sacrifices of the past\nhe deprecates, but he shows no reason why they should not continue.\nGod, he says, is hardly to be conceived by man's mind as in a dream;\nand he thanks heaven for its peculiar grace that the oracles are\nreviving in his day; he believes in necromancy, theolepsy and nearly\nevery other grotesque means of intercourse with gods and daemons.  He\ncalls himself a Platonist; he is proud of the great literature of\nGreece; but nearly all that we associate in religious thought with such\nnames as Xenophanes, Euripides and Plato, he gently waves aside on the\nauthority of Apollo.  It raises the dignity of Seneca when we set\nbeside him this delightful man of letters, so full of charm, so warm\nwith the love of all that is beautiful, so closely knit to the tender\nemotions of ancestral piety--and so unspeakably inferior in essential\ntruthfulness.\n\nThe ancient world rejected Seneca, as we have seen, and chose Plutarch.\nIf Plutarch was not the founder of Neo-Platonism, he was one of its\nprecursors and he showed the path.  Down that path ancient religion\nswung with deepening emotion into that strange medley of thought and\nmystery, piety, magic and absurdity, which is called the New Platonism\nand has nothing to do with Plato.  Here and there some fine spirit\nemerged into clearer air, and in some moment of ecstasy {112} achieved\n\"by a leap\" some fleeting glimpse of Absolute Being, if there is such a\nthing.  But the mass of men remained below in a denser atmosphere,\nprisoners of ignorance and of fancy--in an atmosphere not merely dark\nbut tainted, full of spiritual and intellectual death.\n\n\nChapter III Footnotes:\n\n[1] _Amatorius_, 13, 756 A, D; 757 B.  The quotation is from Euripides,\n_Bacchae_, 203.\n\n[2] _Non suaviter_, 21, 1101 E-1102 A.\n\n[3] _de Iside_, 68, 378 A.\n\n[4] _de def. orac._ 8, 414 A.\n\n[5] Mahaffy, _Silver Age of Greek World_, p. 45.\n\n[6] Horace is the best known of Athenian students.  The delightful\nletters of Synesius show the hold Athens still retained upon a very\nchanged world in 400 A.D.\n\n[7] Life of Antony, 68.\n\n[8] _Symp._ i, 5, 1.\n\n[9] _Symp._ iv, 4, 4.\n\n[10] _v. Ant._  28.\n\n[11] _Symp._ iii, 7, 1.\n\n[12] _Symp._ ii, 8, 1.\n\n[13] _Symp._ viii, 6, 5, _hubristes on kai philogelos physei_.  _Symp._\nix, 15, 1.\n\n[14] _de fraterno amore_, 16, 487 E.  Volkmann, _Plutarch_, i, 24,\nsuggests he was the Timon whose wife Pliny defended on one occasion,\n_Epp._ i, 5, 5.\n\n[15] _de frat. am._ 7, 481 D.\n\n[16] _de E._ 1, 385 B.\n\n[17] _v. Them._ 32, end.\n\n[18] Zeller, _Eclectics_, 334.\n\n[19] _de E._ 17, 391 E.  Imagine the joys of a Euclid, says Plutarch,\nin _non suaviter_, 11, 1093 E.\n\n[20] _Symp._ ix, 15.\n\n[21] _Symp._ viii, 3, I.\n\n[22] _Pericles_ 13.\n\n[23] Dio Chr. _Rhodiaca, Or._ 31, 117.\n\n[24] Cf. the _Nigrinus_.\n\n[25] Gellius, N.A. ii, 21, 1, _vos opici_, says Gellius to his\nfriends--Philistines.\n\n[26] _Symp._ v, 5, 1.\n\n[27] _Polit. praec._ 20, 816 D.\n\n[28] _de curiositate_, 15.\n\n[29] _Demosthenes_, 2.\n\n[30] See Volkmann, i, 35, 36; _Rom. Qu._ 103; _Lucullus_, 37, end.\n\n[31] _Demosthenes_, 2.\n\n[32] _de sera_, 15, 559 A.\n\n[33] _de Stoic. rep._ 2, 1033 B, C.\n\n[34] _Pol. Praec._  15, 811 C.\n\n[35] _Symp._ ii, 10, 1; vi, 8, 1.\n\n[36] Reference to Polemo's hand-book to them, _Symp._ v, 2, 675 B.\n\n[37] _de E._ 384 F.\n\n[38] _Demosthenes_, 2; and 1.\n\n[39] _Timoleon_, pref.\n\n[40] _Alexander_, 1.\n\n[41] _de tranqu. animi_, i, 464 F, _ouk akroaseos heneka theromenes\nkalligraphian_--a profession often made, but in Plutarch's case true\nenough as a rule.\n\n[42] See, _e.g._, variety of possible explanations of the E at Delphi,\nin tract upon it.\n\n[43] Stapfer, _Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity_ (tr.), p. 299.  \"It\nmay be safely said he followed Plutarch far more closely than he did\neven the old English chroniclers.\"\n\n[44] _Cons. ad Ux._ 2-3, 608 C, D.\n\n[45] _Cons. ad Ux._ 11, 612 A, B.  Cf. _non suaviter_, 26, 1104 C, on\nthe loss of a child or a parent.\n\n[46] _de coh. ira._ 11, 459 C; cf. _Progress in Virtue_, 80 B, 81 C, on\n_epieikeia_ and _praotes_ as signs of moral progress.\n\n[47] Cf. Sen. _Ep._ 47; Clem. Alex. _Paed._ iii, 92.\n\n[48] A curious parallel to this in Tert. _de Patientia_, 15, where\nTertullian draws the portrait of Patience--perhaps from life, as Dean\nRobinson suggests--after Perpetua the martyr.\n\n[49] Gellius, _N.A._ i, 26.\n\n[50] _Solon_, 32.\n\n[51] Artemidorus, _Oneirocritica_, iv, 72.  On this author see chapter\nvii.\n\n[52] See _non suaviter_, 17, 1098 D, on the unspeakably rich joy of\nsuch a life of friendly relations with gods and men.\n\n[53] _Progress in Virtue_, 4, 77 C, Love of Philosophy compared to a\nlover's passion, to \"hunger and thirst.\"\n\n[54] Plato, _Apology_, 38 A, _ho de anexetastos bios ou biotos\nanthropo_.\n\n[55] _Pensees_, Art. xxiv, 5.\n\n[56] _Adv. Coloten_ (foe Epicurean), 31, 1125 D, E.  For this argument\nfrom consensus, see Seneca, _Ep._ 117, 6, _Multum dare solemus\npraesumptioni omnium hominum et apud nos veritatis argumentum est\naliquid omnibus videri: tanquam deos esse inter alia hoc colligimus,\nquod omnibus insita de dis opinio est, nee ulla gens usquam est adeo\nextra leges moresque projecta ut non aliquos deos credat_.  This\nconsensus rests (with the Stoics) on the common preconceptions of the\nmind, which are natural.  For ridicule of the doctrine of consensus,\nsee Lucian, Zeus Tragaedus, 42.\n\n[57] _Amatorius_, 18, 763 C.  Cf. view of Celsus _ap._ Orig. _c. Cels._\nvii, 41.\n\n[58] _Consol. ad Apoll._ 34, 120 B.\n\n[59] _Quomodo Poetas_, 1, 15 E, F, poetry a preliminary study to\nphilosophy, _prophilosopheteon tois poiemasin_.\n\n[60] _de Pyth. orac._ 29, 408 F.  Cf. the pagan's speech in Minucius\nFelix, 7, 6, _pleni et mixti deo vates futura praecerpunt ... etiam per\nguietem deos videmus_....\n\n[61] So Volkmann, _Plutarch_, ii, 290 n.  Cf. a passage of Celsus,\nOrig. _c. Cels._ viii, 45.\n\n[62] _de def. or._ 14, 417 C, _emphaseis_ and _diaphaseis_.\n\n[63] Tertullian sums up the pagan line of argument and adds a telling\ncriticism in his book _adversus Nationes_, ii, 1: _adversus haec igitur\nnobis negotium est, adversus institutiones maiorum, auctoritates\nreceptorum, leges dominantium, argumentationes prudentium, adversus\nvetustatem consuetudinem necessitatem, adversus exempla prodigia\nmiracula, quae omnia adulterinam istam divinitatem corroboraverint....\nMaior in huiusmodi penes vos auctoritas litterarum quam rerum est_.\n\n[64] _de Iside_, 67, 377 F-378 A\n\n[65] Oakesmith, _Religion of Plutarch_, p. 88--a book which I have\nfound of great use.\n\n[66] _de E._ 18-20.  Cf. Clem. Alex. _Protr._  84.  The true To-day of\nGod is eternity.  Also Tert. _ad Natt._ ii, 6, on the axiom of no\nchange in God.\n\n[67] _de E._ 21.\n\n[68] Cf. Plato, _Timaeus_, 55 D.\n\n[69] Plutarch, _de. def. orac._ 29, 425 F-426 A.  Celsus has the same\nview; (Origen, _c. Cels._ v, 25; vii, 68): the world's regions are\nseverally allotted to _epoptai_ under Providence; so that local usages\nmay well be maintained in such form as pleases them; to alter these\nwould be impious, while to worship the daemons is to honour God, who is\nnot jealous of them.  Cf. Plutarch, _de fortuna Romanorum_, 11, 324 B,\n_ho Romaion megas daimon ... te polei synebesas kai synauxetheis,\nkthe_--the tract is a poor and rhetorical one, and the phrase may be\nmerely a synonym for \"luck.\"  See also Celsus (Orig. _c. Cels._ viii,\n58) on the Egyptian attribution of the human body to thirty-six \"daemons\nor gods of aether,\" so that by prayer to the right one disease in any\npart of the body may be cured; Celsus gives some of their names.  The\nChristians assumed a somewhat similar scheme with a rather different\ndevelopment.  Athenagoras, an apologist of the second century, gives\nthe following account in his _Presbeia_, 24-27.  A system of angels\nunder Providence existed, some good and some bad, enjoying free-will as\nmen also do; \"the ruler of matter and of the forms in it\" lusted after\nvirgins and succumbed to flesh, and neglected the administration\nentrusted to him; others fell with him; they cannot regain heaven but\nmeantime occupy the air; their children by mortal women were giants and\nthe souls of these are the daemons; the ruler of matter directs all\nthings against God; with matter are connected the soul's worse\nimpulses.  See also Clem. Alex. _Strom._ vi, 157, on angelic governance\nof individual nations and cities; and Lactantius, _Instit._ ii, 8, 14,\nwhose account fairly resembles that of Athenagoras.  Tertullian,\nhowever, suggests (_Apol._ 11) that the Creator had no need of\nancillary gods to complete his work.\n\n[70] For a summary of Stoic teaching here, see Cicero, _N.D._ ii, 60-70.\n\n[71] _de def. orac._ 29, 426 B.  Cf. _de Iside_, 66, 377 D, E.  \"You\nmight as well give the name of steersman to sails, ropes or anchor.\"\n\n[72] _de def. orac._ 30, 246 D, E.\n\n[73] This triple government of the Universe is worked out in _de fato_\n(a tract whose authorship is questioned), but from one passage and\nanother of Plutarch's undoubted works it can be established, though\nevery statement has a little fringe of uncertainties.\n\n[74] _de Iside_, 25, 360 E.\n\n[75] _de def. orac._ 12, 416 C.\n\n[76] Cf. Athenagoras, _Presb._ 24 (quoted in note 1 on p. 95); and\nApuleius, _de deo Socr._ 6, 132, cited on p. 232.\n\n[77] _de def. orac._ 13, 416 F.\n\n[78] _de def. orac._ 9, 414 F.\n\n[79] See _de comm. not. adv. Stoicos_, 33, and _de Stoicorum repugn._\n33, 34--three very interesting chapters.  Clement of Alexandria has the\nsame tone in criticizing this idea--_ouk oid hopos anexethi tis epaion\ntoutou theon egnokos apidon eis ton bion ton hymeteron en hosois\nphyrometha kakois.  ein gar an outos, ho med eipein themis, merikos\nhamartanon ho those, kthe_.  _Strom._ ii, 74.\n\n[80] _de Iside_, 26, 361 C.  Cf. Plato, _Sympos._  202 E, 203 A\n(referred to above), for the functions of _to daimonion_, which is\n_metaxu theou te kai thnetou ... hermeneuon kai diamorthmeuon theois ta\npar anthropon kai anthropois ta para theon kthe ... theos de anthropo\nou mignutai ... ou toi de daimones polloi kai pantodapoi eisin, eis de\ntouton esti kai ho Eros_.\n\n[81] _de def. orac._ 10, 414 F-415 A.\n\n[82] _de Iside_, 27, 361 E; _de def. orac._ 10, 415 C; cf. Tert. _ad\nNatt._ ii, 2.\n\n[83] _Romulus_, 28; _de def. orac._ 10, 415 B.\n\n[84] Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 121.  \"But,\" asks Tatian (c. 16), \"why\nshould they get _drastikoteras dynameos_ after death?\"  See the reply\ngiven by Plutarch, _de def. orac._ 39, 431 E.  Compare also views of\nApuleius (_de deo Socr._ 15) cited on p. 233.\n\n[85] _de genio Socratis_, 24, 593 D-F.  He is thinking of the series of\nrebirths.\n\n[86] On such places and on necromancy in general see Tertullian, _de\nanima_, 57, who puts it down to illusion of the evil one--_nec magnum\nilli exteriores oculos circumscribere cui interiorem mentis aciem\nexcaecare perfacile est_.\n\n[87] Cf. p. 15 on the _genius_ and the _fravashi_.\n\n[88] _de tranqu. animi_, 15, 474 B.\n\n[89] Cf. the story of the appearance to Brutus of his evil genius--_ho\nsos_, _o broute_, _daimon kakos_, Brutus, 36.  Basilides the Gnostic\n(the father of Isidore) is credited with describing Man as a sort of\nWooden Horse with a whole army of different spirits in him (Clem. Alex.\n_Strom_, ii, 113).  Plutarch makes a similar jibe at the Stoic account\nof arts, virtues, vices, etc., as corporeal or even animate and\nrational beings--making a man \"a Paradise, or a cattle-pen, or a Wooden\nHorse,\" _de commun. notit. adv. Stoicos_, 45, 1084 B.  There was a\ntendency in contemporary psychology to attribute all feelings, etc., to\ndaemonic influence; cf. Clem. Alex. _Strom._ ii, 110, who suggests that\nall _pathe_ are imprints (as of a seal) made on the soul by the\nspiritual powers against which we have to wrestle.  Cf. Tert. _de\nAnima_, 41, the evil of soul in part due to evil spirit.\n\n[90] Clement says (_Strom._ vi, 53) that Isidore the Gnostic \"in the\nfirst book of the expositions of Parchor the Prophet\" dealt with the\ndaemon of Socrates and quoted Aristotle's authority for such tutelary\nspirits.  For the book of Apuleius, see ch. vii.\n\n[91] Porphyry, _v. Plotini_, 10.  Cf. Origen, _c. Cels._ vii, 35, for\nCelsus' views on the visibility of daemons, _e.g._ in the cave of\nTrophonius.\n\n[92] _Life of Numa_, 4--a most interesting chapter, when it is\nremembered what other works were being written contemporaneously.\n\n[93] _de genio Socr._ 20, 588 D, 589 D.\n\n[94] _de gen. Socr._ 24, 593 D.\n\n[95] _de def. orac._ 38, 431 C, _phantasias tou mellontos_.\n\n[96] Cf. Clem. Alex. _Strom._ vi, 46, on preaching of Christ in Hades,\nwhere souls, rid of the flesh, see more clearly.\n\n[97] _de dif. orac._ 40, 432 C-E, _thermoteti gar kai diachysei porous\ntinas anoigein phantastikous tou mellontos eikos estin_.\n\nFor these _poroi_ cf. Clem. Alex. _Strom_, vii, 36, with J. B. Mayor's\nnote.\n\n[98] _de def. orac._ 46-48, 435 A-437 A (referring to Phaedo, 97 D).\nThe curious mixture of metaphors, the double suggestion of _krasis_,\nthe parallel from music, and the ambiguity of _to enthousiastikon_\n(characteristic of the confusion of spiritual and material then\nprevalent) make a curious sentence in English.  On the relation of\ndaemons to oracles, see also _de facie in orbe lunae_, 30, 944 D; also\nTertullian, _de Anima_, 46, who gives a lucid account of daemons as the\nexplanation of oracles, and _Apol._ 22--daemons inhabiting the\natmosphere have early knowledge of the weather, and by their incredible\nspeed can pass miraculously quickly from one end of the earth to the\nother, and so bring information--strange, he adds (c. 25), that Cybele\ntook a week to inform her priest of the death of Marcus Aurelius--_o\nsomniculosa diplomata_! (\"sleepy post\").\n\n[99] _de Iside_, 80, 383 E.  Clem. Alex. _Strom._ i, 135, says Greek\nprophets of old were \"stirred up by daemons, or disordered by waters,\nfragrances or some quality of the air,\" but the Hebrews spoke \"by the\npower and mind of God.\"\n\n[100] _Praec. Conj._ 19.  Cf. Plato, _Laws_, 906 A, _symmachoi de hemin\ntheoi te ama kai daimones, hemeis d' au ktema theon kai daimonon_.\n\n[101] _de repugn. Stoic._ 38, 1051 E.\n\n[102] _non suaviter_, 20, 1101 B.\n\n[103] _non suaviter_ 21, 1101 C.  Clem. Alex. _Paed._ ii, 1, says it is\n\"peculiar to man to cleanse the eye of the soul.\"\n\n[104] _non suaviter_, 22, 1102 F.\n\n[105] _de Iside_, 1, 351 D.\n\n[106] _de Iside_, 2, 352 A.\n\n[107] _de Iside_, 9, 354 C, _emphaseis kai diaphaseis_.\n\n[108] _de Iside_, 9, 354 C.\n\n[109] _de Iside_, 53, 372 E, _Myrionumos_.\n\n[110] _de ser. num. vind._ 18, 560 F.\n\n[111] _de ser. num. vind._ 17, 560 B-D.  Justin, _Apology_, 1, 18,\nappeals to the belief in the continuance of the soul, which pagans\nderive from necromancy, dreams, oracles and persons \"daemoniolept.\"\n\n[112] In _de sera numinum vindicta_ and _de genio Socratis_.  Cf. also\nthe account of the souls of the dead given in _de facie in orbe lunae_,\nc. 28 ff.\n\n[113] _de def. orac._ 18, 419 E.  Another curious tale of these remote\nislands is in Clem. Alex. _Strom._ vi, 33.\n\n[114] Cumont, _Mysteries of Mithra_ (tr.), p. 35.  Mithraism began to\nspread under the Flavians, but (p. 33) \"remained for ever excluded from\nthe Hellenic world.\"\n\n[115] _de Iside_, 20, 358 F.\n\n[116] _de Iside_, 11, 355 C.\n\n[117] _de Iside_, 20, 358 E.  Cf. the language of Clement in dealing\nwith expressions in the Bible that seem to imply an anthropomorphic\nconception of God.  See p. 291.\n\n[118] _de Iside_, 23, 360 A.\n\n[119] _de Iside_, 8, 353 E.\n\n[120] _de def. orac._ 14, 15, 417 B-F.  Cf. Clem. Alex. _Protr._ 42,\n_apanthropoi kai misanthropoi daimones_ enjoying _anthropoktonias_.\n\n[121] So Tertullian urges, _ad Natt._ ii, 7.\n\n[122] This man, or somebody very like him, appears as a Christian\nhermit in Sulpicius Severus, _Dial._ i, 17; only there he is reported\nto consort with angels.\n\n[123] _de def. orac._ 21, 421 A-E.  Cf. Tert. _de Spect._ 10.  The\nnames of the dead and their images are nothing, but we know _qui sub\nistis nominibus institute simulacris operentur et gaudeant et\ndivinitatem mentiantur, nequam spiritus scilicet, daemones_.  He holds\nthe gods to have been men, long deceased, but agrees in believing in\ndaemonic operations in shrines, etc.\n\n[124] _de Iside_, 70, 71, 379 B-E.\n\n[125] _de Iside_, 76, 382 A.\n\n[126] See discussion in Oakesmith, _Religion of Plutarch_, p. 185.\nGreard, _de la Morale de Plutarque_, p. 269, ranks it with the best\nworks that have come down to us from Antiquity.\n\n[127] Tertullian on pagan baptisms--Isis and Mithras, _de Baptismo_, 5;\n_de Praescr. Haer._ 40.\n\n[128] Cf. Tert. _Apol._ 9, on these sacrifices, in Africa, and\nelsewhere, and see p. 26.\n\n[129] _Conjug. Praec._ 19.\n\n[130] Cf. _de Iside_, 55, 373 C; 18, 358 B; the image of Osiris, 36,\n365 B.  Origen (_c. Cels._ v, 39) remarks that Celsus is quite pleased\nwith those who worship crocodiles \"in the ancestral way.\"\n\n[131] If the legend is mere fable, he asks, _cur rapitur sacerdos\nCereris, si non tale Ceres passet est? cur Saturno alieni liberi\nimmolantur ... cur Idaeae masculus amputatur_?  _ad Natt._ ii, 8.\n\n\n\n\n{113}\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nJESUS OF NAZARETH\n\nWhen we hear any other speaker, even a very good one, he produces\nabsolutely no effect upon us, or not much, whereas the mere fragments\nof you and your words, even at second-hand, and however imperfectly\nrepeated, amaze and possess the souls of every man, woman and child who\ncomes within hearing of them.--Plato, _Symposium_, 215 D (Jowett).\n\n_Dominus noster Christus veritatem se non consuetudinem\ncognominavit_.--Tertullian, _de virg. vel._ 1.\n\n\nTowards the end of the first century of our era, there began to appear\na number of little books, written in the ordinary Greek of every-day\nlife, the language which the common people used in conversation and\ncorrespondence.  It was not the literary dialect, which men of letters\naffected--a mannered and elaborate style modelled on the literature of\nancient Greece and no longer a living speech.  The books were not\nintended for a lettered public, but for plain people who wanted a plain\nstory, which they knew already, set down in a handy and readable form.\nThe writers did their work very faithfully--some of them showing a\nsurprising loyalty to the story which they had received.  Like other\nwriters they were limited by considerations of space and so forth, and\nthis involved a certain freedom of choice in selecting, omitting,\nabridging and piecing together the material they gathered.  Four only\nof the books survive intact; of others there are scanty fragments; and\nscholars have divined at least one independent work embodied in two\nthat remain.  So far as books can, three of them represent very fairly\nthe ideas of an earlier generation, as it was intended they should, and\ntell their common story, with the variations natural to individual\nwriters, but with a general harmony that is the pledge of its truth.\n\n[Sidenote: The Gospels]\n\nAt an early date, these books began to be called Gospels[1] and by the\ntime they had circulated for a generation they were {114} very widely\nknown and read among the community for which they were written.  Apart\nfrom a strong instinct which would allow no conscious change to be made\nin the lineaments of the central figure of the story, there was nothing\nto safeguard the little books from the fate of all popular works of\ntheir day.  Celsus, at the end of the second century, maintained that a\ngood deal of the story was originally invention; and he added that the\n\"believers\" had made as free as drunk men with it and had written the\ngospel over again--three times, four times, many times--and had altered\nit to meet the needs of controversy.[2]  Origen replied that Marcion's\nfollowers and two other schools had done so, but he knew of no others.\nIt may to-day be taken as established that the four gospels, as we know\nthem, stand substantially as near the autograph of their authors as\nmost ancient books which were at all widely read, though here and there\nit is probable, or even certain, that changes on a slight scale have\nbeen made in the wording to accommodate the text to the development of\nChristian ideas.[3]  This is at first sight a serious qualification,\nbut it is not so important as it seems.  By comparison of the first\nthree gospels with one another, with the aid of the history of their\ntransmission in the original Greek and in many versions and quotations,\nit is not very difficult to see where the hand of a later day has\ntouched the page and to break through to something in all probability\nvery near the original story.\n\nThis is the greatest problem of literary and historical criticism\nto-day.  All sorts of objections have been raised against the\ncredibility of the gospels from the time of Celsus--they were raised\neven earlier; for Celsus quotes them from previous\ncontroversialists--and they are raised still.  We are sometimes told\nthat we cannot be absolutely certain of the authenticity of any single\nsaying of Jesus, or perhaps of any recorded episode in his life.  A\nhypertrophied conscience might admit this to be true in the case of any\nword or deed of Jesus that might be quoted, and yet maintain that we\nhave not lost much.  For, it is a commonplace of historians that an\nanecdote, even if false in itself, may contain historical truth; it\n{115} may be evidence, that is, to the character of the person of whom\nit is told; for a false anecdote depends, even more than a true story,\nupon keeping the colour of its subject.  It may be added that, as a\nrule, false anecdotes are apt to be more highly coloured than true\nstories, just as a piece of colour printing is generally a good deal\nbrighter than nature.  The reader, who, by familiarity with books, and\nwith the ways of their writers, has developed any degree of literary\ninstinct, will not be inclined to pronounce the colours in the first\nthree gospels at least to be anything but natural and true.  However,\neven if one were to concede that all the recorded sayings and doings of\nJesus are fabrications (a wildly absurd hypothesis), there remains a\ncommon element in them, a unity of tone and character, which points to\na well-known and clearly marked personality behind them, whose actual\nexistence is further implied by the Christian movement.  In other\nwords, whether true or false in detail, the statements of the gospels,\nif we know how to use them aright, establish for us the historicity of\nJesus, and leave no sort of doubt as to his personality and the\nimpression he made upon those who came into contact with him.\n\nWe may not perhaps be able to reconstruct the life of Jesus as we\nshould wish--it will not be a biography, and it will have no dates and\nhardly any procession of events.  We shall be able to date his birth\nand death, roughly in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, more exactly\nfixing in each case a period of five years or so within which it must\nhave happened.  Of epochs and crises in his life we can say little, for\nwe do not know enough of John the Baptist and his work to be able to\nmake clear his relations with Jesus, nor can we speak with much\ncertainty of the development of the idea of Messiahship in the mind of\nJesus himself.  But we can with care recapture something of the\nexperience of Jesus; we can roughly outline his outward life and\nenvironment.  What is of more consequence, we can realize that,\nwhatever the particular facts of his own career which opened the door\nfor him, he entered into the general experience of men and knew human\nlife deeply and intimately.  And, after all, in this case as in others,\nit is not the facts of the life that matter, but the central fact that\nthis man did know life as it is before he made judgment upon {116} it.\nIt is this alone that makes his judgment--or any other man's--of\nconsequence to us.  It is not his individual life, full of endless\nsignificance as that is, but his realization thereby of man's life and\nhis attitude toward it that is the real gift of the great man--his\nthought, his character, himself in fact.  And here our difficulty\nvanishes, for no one, who has cared to study the gospels with any\ndegree of intelligent sympathy, has failed to realize the personality\nthere revealed and to come in some way or other under its influence.\n\nSo far in dealing with the religious life of the ancient world, we have\nhad to do with ideas and traditions--with a well thought-out scheme of\nphilosophy and with an ancient and impressive series of mysteries and\ncults.  The new force that now came into play is something quite\ndifferent.  The centre in the new religion is not an idea, nor a ritual\nact, but a personality.  As its opponents were quick to point out,--and\nthey still find a curious pleasure in rediscovering it--there was\nlittle new in Christian teaching.  Men had been monotheists before,\nthey had worshipped, they had loved their neighbours, they had\ndisplayed the virtues of Christians--what was there peculiar in\nChristianity?  Plato, says Celsus, had taught long ago everything of\nthe least value in the Christian scheme of things.  The Talmud,\naccording to the modern Jew, contains a parallel to everything that\nJesus said--(\"and how much else!\" adds Wellhausen).  What was new in\nthe new religion, in this \"third race\" of men?  The Christians had\ntheir answer ready.  In clear speech, and in aphasia, they indicated\ntheir founder.  He was new.  If we are to understand the movement, we\nmust in some degree realize him--in himself and in his influence upon\nmen.\n\nIn every endeavour made by any man to reconstruct another's\npersonality, there will always be a subjective and imaginative element.\nBiography is always a work of the imagination.  The method has its\ndangers, but without imagination the thing is not to be done at all.  A\ngreat man impresses men in a myriad of different ways--he is as various\nand as bewilderingly suggestive as Nature herself--and no two men will\nrecord quite the same experience of him.  Where the imagination has to\npenetrate an extraordinary variety of impressions, to seize, not a\nseries of forces each severally making {117} its own impression, but a\nsingle personality of many elements and yet a unity, men may well\ndiffer in the pictures they make.  Even the same man will at different\ntimes be differently impressed and not always be uniformly able to\ngrasp and order his impressions.  Hence it is that biographies and\nportraits are so full of surprises and disappointments, while even the\nwriter or the painter will not always accept his own interpretation--he\noutgrows it and detests it.  And if it is possible to spend a life in\nthe realization of the simplest human nature, what is to be said of an\nattempt to make a final picture of Jesus of Nazareth?  Still the effort\nmust be made to apprehend what he was to those with whom he lived, for\nfrom that comes the whole Christian movement.\n\n\n[Sidenote: Celsus on \"coarseness\" of Jesus]\n\nCelsus denounced Jesus in language that amazes us; but when he was\nconfronted with the teaching of Jesus, the moral worth of which a mind\nso candid could not deny, he admitted its value, but he attributed it\nto the fact that Jesus plagiarized largely from Greek philosophy and\nabove all from Plato.  He did not grasp, Celsus adds, how good what he\nstole really was, and he spoiled it by his vulgarity of phrase.  In\nparticular, Celsus denounced the saying \"Whosoever shall smite thee on\nthe right cheek, turn to him the other also.\"  The idea came from the\n_Crito_, where Socrates compels Crito to own that we must do evil to no\none--not even by way of requital.  The passage is a fine one, and\nCelsus quoted it in triumph and asked if there were not something\ncoarse and clownish in the style of Jesus.[4]\n\nCelsus forgot for the moment that the same sort of criticism had been\nmade upon Socrates.  \"'You had better be done,' said Critias, 'with\nthose shoemakers of yours, and the carpenters and coppersmiths.  They\nmust be pretty well down at the heel by now--considering the way you\nhave talked them round.' 'Yes,' said Charicles, 'and the cowherds\ntoo.'\"[5]  But six centuries had made another man of Socrates.  His\nideas, interpreted by Plato and others, had altered the whole thinking\nof the Greek world; his Silenus-face had grown beautiful by {118}\nassociation; the physiognomy of his mind and speech was no longer so\nstriking; he was a familiar figure, and his words and phrases were\ncurrent coin, accepted without question.  But to Celsus Jesus was no\nsuch figure; he had not the traditions and preconceptions which have in\nturn obscured for us the features of Jesus; there was nothing in Jesus\neither hallowed or familiar, and one glance revealed a physiognomy.\nThat he did not like it is of less importance.\n\n[Sidenote: The words of Jesus]\n\nTaking the saying in question, we find, as Celsus did, absurdity upon\nthe face of it, and, as he also did, something else at the heart of\nit--a contrast between surface and inner value broad as the gulf\nbetween the common sense which men gather from experience and the\nmorality which Jesus read beneath human nature.  Among the words of\nJesus there are many such sayings, and it is clear that he himself saw\nand designed the contrasts which we feel as we read them.  This sense\nof contrast is one of the ground-factors of humour generally, perhaps\nthe one indispensable factor; it is always present in the highest\nhumour.  If we then take the words of Jesus, as they struck those who\nfirst heard them--or as they struck Celsus--we cannot help remarking at\nonce a strong individual character in them, one element in which is\nhumour,--always one of the most personal and individual of all marks of\nphysiognomy.\n\nHumour, in its highest form, is the sign of a mind at peace with\nitself, for which the contrasts and contradictions of life have ceased\nto jar, though they have not ceased to be,--which accepts them as\nnecessary and not without meaning, indeed as adding charm to life, when\nthey are viewed from above.  It is the faculty which lets a man see\nwhat Plato called \"the whole tragedy and comedy of life\"[6]--the one in\nthe other.  Is it not humour that saw the Pharisee earnestly rinsing,\nrubbing and polishing the _outside_ of his cup, forgetful of the fact\nthat he drank from the inside? that saw the simple-minded taking their\nbaskets to gather the grape-harvest from bramble-bushes?  That pleaded\nwith a nation, already gaining a name for being sordid, _not_ to cast\npearls before swine, and to forsake caring for the morrow, because such\ncare was the mark of the Gentile world--the distinguishing sign between\nGentile and Jew?  {119} That told the men he knew so well--men bred in\na rough world--to \"turn the other cheek,\"--to yield the cloak to him\nwho took the coat, not in irony, but with the brotherly feeling that\n\"his necessity is greater than mine\"--to go when \"commandeered\" not the\nrequired mile, making an enemy by sourness of face, but to go two--\"two\nadditional,\" the Syriac version says--and so soften the man and make\nhim a friend?[7]\n\nWhat stamps the language of Jesus invariably is its delicate ease,\nimplying a sensibility to every real aspect of the matter in hand--a\nsense of mastery and peace.  Men marvelled at the _charm_ of his\nwords--Luke using the Greek _charis_ to express it.[8] The homely\nparable may be in other hands coarse enough, but the parables of Jesus\nhave a quality about them after all these years that leaves one certain\nhe smiled as he spoke them.  There is something of the same kind to be\nfelt in Cowper's letters, but in the stronger nature the gift is of\nmore significance.  At the cost of a little study of human character,\nand close reading of the Synoptists, and some careful imagination, it\nis possible to see him as he spoke,--the flash of the eye, the smile on\nthe lip, the gesture of the hand, all the natural expression of himself\nand his thought that a man unconsciously gives in speaking, when he has\nforgotten himself in his matter and his hearer--his physiognomy, in\nfact.  We realize very soon his complete mastery of the various aspects\nof what he says.  That he realizes every implication of his words is\nless likely, for there is a spontaneity about them--they are \"out of\nthe abundance of his heart\"; the form is not studied; they are for the\nman and the moment.  But they imply the speaker and his whole relation\nto God and man--they cannot help implying this, and that is their\ncharm.  Living words, flashed out on the spur of the moment from the\ndepths of him, they _are_ the man.  It was not idly that the early\nchurch used to say \"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus.\"  On any\nshowing, it is of importance to learn the mind of one whose speech is\nso full of life, and it is happily possible to do this from even the\nsmall collections we possess of his recorded sayings.\n\n{120}\n\nQuite apart from the human interest which always clings about the\nchildhood of a significant man, the early years of Jesus have a value\nof their own, for it was to them that he always returned when he wished\nto speak his deepest thought on the relations of God and man.  In the\nlife and love of the home he found the truest picture of the divine\nlife.  This we shall have to consider more fully at a later point.\nVery little is said by the evangelists of the childhood and youth at\nNazareth, but in the parables we have Jesus' own reminiscences, and the\nscenes and settings of the stories he tells fit in easily and\npleasantly with the framework of the historical and geographical facts\nof his life at Nazareth.\n\nThe town lies in a basin among hills, from the rim of which can be seen\nthe historic plain of Esdraelon toward the South, Eastward the Jordan\nvalley and the hills of Gilead, and to the West the sea.  \"It is a map\nof Old Testament history.\"[9] On great roads North and South of the\ntown's girdle of hills passed to and fro, on the journey between Egypt\nand Mesopotamia, the many-coloured traffic of the East--moving no\nfaster than the camel cared to go, swinging disdainfully on, with\ncontempt on its curled lip for mankind, its work and itself.  Traders,\npilgrims and princes--the kingdoms of the world and the glory of\nthem--all within reach and in no great hurry, a panorama of life for a\nthoughtful and imaginative boy.\n\nThe history of his nation lay on the face of the land at his feet, and\nit was in the North that the Zealots throve.  Was it by accident that\nJoseph the carpenter gave all his five sons names that stood for\nsomething in Hebrew history?  Jesus himself says very little, if\nanything, of the past of his people, and he does not, like some of the\nPsalmists, turn to the story of Israel for the proof of his thoughts\nupon God.  But it may be more than a coincidence that his countrymen\nwere impressed with his knowledge of the national literature; and\ntraces of other than canonical books have been found in his teaching.\nIt implies a home of piety, where God was in all their thoughts.\n\n[Sidenote: His early life]\n\nThe early disappearance of the elder Joseph has been explained by his\ndeath, which seems probable.  The widow was {121} left with five sons\nand some daughters.[10]  The eldest son was, according to the story,\nmore than twelve years old, and he had probably to share the household\nburden.  The days were over when he played with the children in the\nmarket at weddings and at funerals, and while he never forgot the games\nand kept something of the child's mind throughout, he had to learn what\nit was to be weary and heavy-laden.  His parables include pictures of\nhome-life--one of a little house, where the master in bed can argue\nwith an importunate friend outside the door, who has come on a very\nhomely errand.[11] In a group of stories, parables of the mother, we\nsee the woman sweeping the house till she finds a lost drachma, the\nrecovery of which is joyful enough to be told to neighbours.  We see\nher hiding leaven in three measures of meal, while the eldest son sat\nby and watched it work.  He never forgot the sight of the heaving,\npanting mass, the bubbles swelling and bursting, and all the commotion\nthe proof of something alive and at work below; and he made it into a\nparable of the Kingdom of God--associated in the minds of the weary\nwith broken bubbles, and in the mind of Jesus with the profoundest and\nmost living of realities.  It was perhaps Mary, too, who explained to\nhim why an old garment will not tolerate a new patch.  Whatever is the\nhistorical value of the fourth Gospel, it lays stress on the close\nrelation between Jesus and his mother.\n\nOne of the Aramaic words, which the church cherished from the first as\nthe _ipsissima verba_ of Jesus, was _Abba_.  It was what Mary had\ntaught him as a baby to call Joseph.  The fact that in manhood he gave\nto God the name that in his childhood he had given to Joseph, surely\nthrows some light upon the homelife.  To this word we shall return.\n\nJesus had always a peculiar tenderness for children.  \"Suffer little\nchildren to come unto me,\" is one of his most familiar sayings, though\nin quoting it we are apt to forget that \"come\" is in Greek a verb\ncarrying volition with it, and that Mark uses another noticeable word,\nand tells us that Jesus put his arms round the child.[12]  Little\nchildren, we may be sure, came to him of their own accord and were at\nease with him; {122} and it has been suggested that the saying goes\nback to the Nazareth days, and that the little children came about\ntheir brother in the workshop there.  Mr Burkitt has recently\nremarked[13] that we may read far and wide in Christian Literature\nbefore we find any such feeling for children as we know so well in the\nwords of Jesus; and in Classical Literature we may look as far.  To\nJesus the child is not unimportant--to injure a child was an\nunspeakable thing.  Indeed, if the Kingdom of God meant anything, it\nwas that we must be children again--God's little children, to whom\ntheir Father is the background of everything.  The Christian phrase\nabout being born again may be Jesus' own, but if so, it has lost for us\nsomething of what he intended by it, which survives in more authentic\nsayings.  We have to recover, he said, what we lost when we outgrew the\nchild; we must have the simplicity and frankness of children--their\ninstinctive way of believing all things and hoping all things.  All\nthings are new to the child; it is only for grown-up people that God\nhas to \"_make_ all things new.\"  Paul has not much to say about\nchildren, but he has this thought--\"if any man be in Christ, it is a\nnew creation, all things are made new.\"  Probably the child's habit of\ntaking nothing for granted--except the love that is all about it--is\nwhat Jesus missed most in grown men.  Every idealist and every poet is\na child from beginning to end--and something of this sort is the mark\nof the school of Jesus.\n\n[Sidenote: Jesus and nature]\n\nThe outdoor life of Jesus lies recorded in his parables.  Weinel has\nsaid that Paul was a man of a city--Paul said so himself.  But Jesus is\nat home in the open air.  The sights and sounds of the farm are in his\nwords--the lost sheep, the fallen ox, the worried flock, the hen\nclucking to her chickens.  This last gave a picture in which his\nthought instinctively clothed itself in one of his hours of deepest\nemotion.  It is perhaps a mark of his race and land that to \"feed\nswine\" is with him a symbol of a lost life, and that the dog is an\nunclean animal--as it very generally is elsewhere.  He speaks of\nploughing, clearly knowing how it should be done; and like other\nteachers, he uses the analogies of sowing and harvest.  The grain\ngrowing secretly, and the harvest, over-ripe and spilling its wheat,\nwere to him pictures of human life.\n\n{123}\n\nWild nature, too, he knew and loved.  The wild lily, which the women\nused to burn in their ovens never thinking of its beauty, was to him\nsomething finer than King Solomon, and he probably had seen Herodian\nprinces on the Galilean roads.  (It is a curious thing that he has more\nthan one allusion to royal draperies.) He bade men study the flowers\n(_katamanthanein_).  It is perhaps worth remark that flower-poetry came\ninto Greek literature from regions familiar to us in the life of Jesus;\nMeleager was a Gadarene.  The Psalmist long ago had said of the birds\nthat they had their meat from God; but Jesus brought them into the\nhuman family--\"Your Heavenly Father feedeth them.\"  Even his knowledge\nof weather signs is recorded.  Not all flowers keep in literature the\nscent and colour of life; they are a little apt to become \"natural\nobjects.\"  But if they are to retain their charm in print, something is\nwanted that is not very common--the open heart and the open eye, to\nwhich birds and flowers are willing to tell their secret.  There are\nother things which point to the fact that Jesus had this\nendowment,--and not least his being able to find in the flower a link\nso strong and so beautiful between God and man.  Here as elsewhere he\nwas in touch with his environment, for he loved Nature as Nature, and\nwas true to it.  His parables are not like AEsop's Fables.  His lost\nsheep has no arguments; his lily is not a Solomon, though it is better\ndressed; and his sparrows are neither moralists nor theologians--but\nsparrows, which might be sold at two for a farthing, and in the\nmeantime are chirping and nesting.  And all this life of Nature spoke\nto him of the character of God, of God's delight in beauty and God's\nlove.  God is for him the ever-present thought in it all--real too, to\nothers, whenever he speaks of him.\n\nAn amiable feeling for Nature is often to be found in sentimental\ncharacters.  But sentimentalism is essentially self-deception; and the\nGospels make it clear that of all human sins and weaknesses none seems\nto have stirred the anger of Jesus as did self-deception.  When the\nPharisees in the synagogue watched to see whether Jesus would heal on\nthe Sabbath, he \"looked round about upon them all with anger,\" says\nMark.  This gaze of Jesus is often mentioned in the Gospels--almost\nunconsciously--but Luke and Matthew drop the last two words in quoting\nthis passage, and do so at the cost {124} of a most characteristic\ntouch.  Matthew elsewhere, in accordance with his habit of grouping his\nmatter by subject, gathers together a collection of the utterances of\nJesus upon the Pharisees, with the recurring refrain \"Scribes and\nPharisees, actors.\"  The Mediterranean world was full of Greek actors;\nwe hear of them even among the Parthians in 53 B.C., and in Mesopotamia\nfor centuries; and as there had long been Greek cities in Palestine,\nand a strong movement for generations toward Greek ways of life, the\nactor cannot have been an unfamiliar figure.  To call the Pharisees\n\"actors\" was a new and strong thing to say, but Jesus said such things.\nOf the grosser classes of sinners he was tolerant to a point that\namazed his contemporaries and gave great occasion of criticism to such\nenemies as Celsus and Julian.  He had apparently no anger for the woman\ntaken in adultery; and he was the \"friend of publicans and\nsinners\"--even eating with them.\n\n[Sidenote: His sense of the real]\n\nThe explanation lies partly in Jesus' instinct for reality and truth.\nSensualist and money-lover were at least occupied with a sort of\nreality; pleasure and money in their way are real, and the pursuit of\nthem brings a man, sooner or later, into contact with realities genuine\nenough.  Whatever illusions publican and harlot might have, the world\nsaw to it that they did not keep them long.  The danger for such people\nwas that they might be disillusioned overmuch.  But the Pharisee lied\nwith himself.  If at times he traded on his righteousness to over-reach\nothers, his chief victim was himself, as Jesus saw, and as Paul found.\nPaul, brought up in their school to practise righteousness, gave the\nwhole thing up as a pretence and a lie--he would no longer have\nanything to do with \"his own righteousness.\"  But he was an exception;\nPharisees in general believed in their own righteousness; and, by\ntampering with their sense of the proportions of things, they lost all\nfeeling for reality, and with it all consciousness of the value and\ndignity of man and the very possibility of any conception of God.\n\nJesus had been bred in another atmosphere, in a school of realities.\nWhen he said \"Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of heaven,\"\nhis words were the record of experience--the paradox was the story of\nhis life.  He had known poverty and hand-labour; he had been \"exposed\nto feel what wretches feel.\"  Whatever criticism may make of the story\nof his feeding {125} multitudes, it remains that he was markedly\nsensitive to the idea of hunger--over and over he urged the feeding of\nthe poor, the maimed and the blind; he suggested the payment of a day's\nwage for an hour's work, where a day's food was needed and only an\nhour's work could be had; he even reminded a too happy father that his\nlittle girl would be the better of food.  No thinker of his day, or for\nlong before and after, was so deeply conscious of the appeal of sheer\nmisery, and this is one of the things on which his followers have never\nlost the mind of Jesus.  Poverty was perhaps even for himself a key to\nthe door into the Kingdom of God.  At any rate, he always emphasizes\nthe advantage of disadvantages, for they at least make a man in earnest\nwith himself.\n\nThere is a revelation of the seriousness of his whole mind and nature\nin his reply to the follower who would go away and return.  \"No man,\nhaving put his hand to the plough and looking back, is _fit_ for the\nKingdom of God.\"  This every one knows who has tried to drive a furrow,\nand all men of action know only too well that the man, whom Jesus so\ndescribes, is fit for no kind of Kingdom.  It is only the\nsentimentalism of the church that supposes the flabby-minded to be at\nhome in the Kingdom of God.  Jesus did not.  The same kind of energy is\nin the parables.  The unjust steward was a knave, but he was in\nearnest; and so was the questionably honest man who found treasure in a\nfield.  The merchant let everything go for the one pearl of great\nprice.  Mary chose \"the one thing needful.\"  We may be sure that in one\nshop in Nazareth benches were made to stand on four feet and doors to\nopen and shut.  The parables from nature, as we have seen, are true to\nthe facts of nature.  They too stand on four feet.  The church laid\nhold of a characteristic word, when it adopted for all time Jesus'\n_Amen_--\"in truth.\"  Jesus was always explicit with his followers--they\nshould know from the first that their goal was the cross, and that\nmeantime they would have no place where to lay their heads.  They were\nto begin with hard realities, and to consort with him on the basis of\nthe real.\n\nThe world in the age of Jesus was living a good deal upon its past,\nlooking to old books and old cults, as we see in Plutarch and many\nothers.  The Jews no less lived upon their great books.  Even Philo was\nfettered to the Old Testament, {126} except when he could dissolve his\nfetters by allegory, and even then he believed himself loyal to the\nhigher meaning of the text.  But nothing of the kind is to be seen in\nJesus.  His knowledge of Psalmist and Prophet excited wonder; but in\nall his quotations of the Old Testament that have reached us, there is\nno trace of servitude to the letter and no hint of allegory.  He does\nnot quote Scripture as his followers did.  Here too he spoke as having\nauthority.  If sometimes he quoted words for their own sake, it was\nalways as an _argumentum ad hominem_.  But his own way was to grasp the\nwriter's mind--a very difficult thing in his day, and little done--and\nto go straight to the root of the matter, regardless of authority and\ntradition.  Like draws to like, and an intensely real man at once\ngrasped his kinship with other intensely real men; and he found in the\nprophets, not reeds shaken with the wind, courtiers of king or of\npeople, but men in touch with reality, with their eyes open for God,\nfriends and fore-runners, whose experience illumined his own.  This\ntype of manhood needed no explanation for him.  The other sort\nperplexed him--\"Why can you not judge for yourselves?\" how was it that\nmen could see and yet not see?  From his inner sympathy with the\nprophetic mind, came his freedom in dealing with the prophets.  He read\nand understood, and decided for himself.  No sincere man would ever\nwish his word to be final for another.  Jesus was conscious of his own\nright to think and to see and to judge, and for him, as for the modern\ntemper, the final thing was not opinion, nor scripture, nor authority,\nbut reality and experience.  There lay the road to God.  Hence it is\nthat Jesus is so tranquil,--he does \"not strive nor cry\"--for the man\nwho has experienced in himself the power of the real has no doubts\nabout it being able to maintain itself in a world, where at heart men\nwant nothing else.\n\n[Sidenote: The temptations of Jesus]\n\nWhen so clear an eye for reality is turned upon the great questions of\nman's life and of man's relations with God, it is apt here too to reach\nthe centre.  From the first, men lingered over the thought that Jesus\nhad gone to the bottom of human experience and found in this fact his\npower to help them.  He was made like to his brethren; he was touched\nwith the feeling of our infirmities; he was \"able to sympathize\"\n(_dynamenon sympathesai_) for he was \"tempted in all respects like us.\"\nIn {127} the Gospel, as it is handed down to us, the temptation of\nChrist is summed up in three episodes set at the beginning of the story\nand told in a symbolic form, which may or may not have been given to\nthem by Jesus himself.  Then \"the devil left him\"--Luke adding\nsignificantly \"till a time.\"  The interpretation is not very clear.\nStrong men do not discuss their own feelings very much, but it is\npossible now and then to divine some experience from an involuntary\ntone, or the unconscious sensitiveness with which certain things are\nmentioned; or, more rarely, emotion may open the lips for a moment of\nself-revelation, in which a word lays bare a lifetime's struggle.  It\nwill add to the significance of his general attitude toward God and\nman's life, if we can catch any glimpse of the inner mind of Jesus.\n\nWe have records of his being exhausted and seeking quiet.  Biographers\nof that day concealed such things in their heroes, but the Gospels\nfreely reveal what contemporary critics counted weaknesses in Jesus.\nHe weeps, he hungers, he is worn out.  He has to be alone--on the\nmountain by night, in a desert-place before dawn.  Such exhaustion is\nnever merely physical or merely spiritual; the two things are one.  Men\ncrowded upon Jesus, till he had not leisure to eat; he came into touch\nwith a ceaseless stream of human personalities; and those who have been\nthrough any such experience will understand what it cost him.  To\ncommunicate an idea or to share a feeling is exhausting work, and we\nread further of deeds of healing, which, Jesus himself said, took\n\"virtue\" (_dynamin_) out of him, and he had to withdraw.  When the\nSyro-Phoenician woman called for his aid, it was a question with him\nwhether he should spend on a foreigner the \"virtue\" that could with\ndifficulty meet the claims of Israel, for he was not conscious of the\n\"omnipotence\" which has been lightly attributed to him.  It was the\nwoman's brilliant answer about the little dogs eating the children's\ncrumbs that gained her request.  The turn of speech showed a vein of\nhumour, and he consented \"for this saying.\"[14]  If human experience\ngoes for anything in such a case, contact with a spirit so delicate and\nsympathetic gave him something of the {128} strength he spent.  The\nincident throws light upon the \"fluxes and refluxes of feeling\" within\nhim, and the effect upon him of a spirit with something of his own\ntenderness and humour.  For the moment, though, his sense of having\nreached his limits should be noticed.\n\nThe church has never forgotten the agony in the garden, but that\nepisode has lost some of its significance because it has not been\nrecognized to be one link in a chain of experience, which we must try\nto reconstruct.  It has been assumed that Jesus never expected to\ninfluence the Pharisees and scribes; but this is to misinterpret the\ncommon temper of idealists, and to miss the pain of Jesus' words when\nhe found his hopes of the Pharisees to be vain.  Gradually, from their\npressure upon his spirit, he grew conscious of the outcome--they would\nnot be content with logomachies; the end might be death.  Few of us\nhave any experience to tell us at what cost to the spirit such a\ndiscovery is made.  The common people he read easily enough and\nrecognized their levity.  And now, in exile, as Mr Burkitt has lately\nsuggested,[15] he began to concentrate himself upon the twelve.  It was\nnot till Peter, by a sudden flash of insight, grasped his\nMessiahship--a character, which Jesus had realized already, though we\ndo not know by what process, and had for reasons of his own\nconcealed,--it was not till then that Jesus disclosed his belief that\nhe would be killed at last.  From that moment we may date the falling\naway of Judas, and what this man's constant presence must have meant to\nJesus, ordinary experience may suggest.  Shrewd, clever and\ndisappointed, he must have been a chill upon his Master at all hours.\nHis influence upon the rest of the group must have been consciously and\nincreasingly antipathetic.  Night by night Jesus could read in the\nfaces which of them had been with Judas during the day.  The sour\ntriumph of Judas when the Son of man was told to go on to another\nvillage after a day's journey, and the uncomfortable air of one or more\nof the others, all entered into Jesus' experience; and night by night\nhe had to undo Judas' work.  He \"learnt by what he suffered\" from the\nman's tone and look that there would be desertion, perhaps betrayal.\nThe daily suffering involved in trying to recapture the man, in going\nto seek the lost sheep in the wilderness of bitterness, may be {129}\nimagined.  Side by side, King, Pharisee and disciple are against him,\nand the tension, heightened by the uncertainty as to the how, when and\nwhere of the issue must have been great.  Luke's graphic word says his\nface was \"set\" for Jerusalem--it would be, he knew, a focus for the\ngrowing forces of hatred.\n\nDay by day the strain increased.  Finally Jesus spoke.  The where and\nhow of the betrayal he could not determine; the when he could.  At the\nsupper, he looked at Judas and then he spoke.[16]  \"What thou doest, do\nquickly.\"  The man's face as he hurried out said \"Yes\" to the unspoken\nquestion--and for the moment it brought relief.  This is the background\nof the garden-scene.  What the agony meant spiritually, we can hardly\ndivine.  The physical cost is attested by the memory of his face which\nhaunted the disciples.  The profuse sweat that goes with acute mental\nstrain is a familiar phenomenon, and its traces were upon him--visible\nin the torchlight.  Last of all, upon the cross, Nature reclaimed her\ndue from him.  Jesus had drawn, as men say, upon the body, and in such\ncases Nature repays herself from the spirit.  The worn-out frame\ndragged the spirit with it, and he died with the cry--\"My God, my God,\nwhy hast thou forsaken me?\"\n\nTurning back, we find in Luke[17] that Jesus said to his disciples \"Ye\nare they that have continued with me in my temptations.\"  Dr John\nBrown[18] used to speak of Jesus having \"a disposition for private\nfriendships.\"  A mind with the genius for friendliness is not only\nactive but passive.  We constantly find in history instances of men\nwith such a gift failing in great crises because of it--they yield to\nthe friendly word; it means so much to them.  Thus when Peter, a friend\nof old standing and of far greater value since his confession at\nPhilippi, spoke and reinforced the impressions made on Jesus' mind by\nhis prevision of failure and death, the temptation was of a terrible\nkind.  The sudden rejoinder, in which Jesus identifies the man he loved\nwith Satan, shows what had happened.  But, if friendship carried with\nit temptation, yet when physical exhaustion brought spiritual\nexhaustion in its train, the love and tenderness {130} of his friends\nupheld him.  But, more still, their belief in him and in his ideas,\ntheir need of him, drove the tempter away.  He could not disappoint\nthem.  The faces that softened to him,--all that came to his mind as he\nthought of his friends name by name--gave him hope and comfort, though\nthe body might do its worst.  It was perhaps in part this experience of\nthe friendship of simple and commonplace men that differentiated the\nteaching of Jesus from the best the world had yet had.  No other\nteacher dreamed that common men could possess a tenth part of the moral\ngrandeur and spiritual power, which Jesus elicited from them--chiefly\nby believing in them.  Here, to any one who will study the period, the\nsheer originality of Jesus is bewildering.  This belief in men Jesus\ngave to his followers and they have never lost it.\n\n[Sidenote: Man's relations with God]\n\nIt was in the new life and happiness in God that he was bringing to the\ncommon people that Jesus saw his firmest credentials.  He laid stress\nindeed upon the expulsion of devils and the cure of disease--matters\nexplained to-day by \"suggestion.\"  But the culmination was \"the good\nnews for the poor.\"  \"Gospel\" and \"Evangelical\" have in time become\ntechnical terms, and have no longer the pulse of sheer happiness which\nJesus felt in them, and which the early church likewise experienced.\n\"Be of good cheer!\" is the familiar English rendering of one of the\nwords of Jesus, often on his lips--\"Courage!\" he said.  One text of\nLuke represents him as saying it even on the cross, when he spoke to\nthe penitent thief.\n\nSumming up what we have so far reached, we may remark the broad\ncontrast between the attitude of Jesus to human life and the views of\nthe world around him.  A simple home with an atmosphere of love and\ntruth and intelligence, where life was not lost sight of in its\nrefinements, where ordinary needs and common duties were the daily\nfacts, where God was a constant and friendly presence--this was his\nearly environment.  Later on it was the carpenter's bench, the\nfisherman's boat, wind on the mountain and storm on the lake, leaven in\nthe meal and wheat in the field.  Everywhere his life is rooted in the\nnormal and the natural, and everywhere he finds God filling the meanest\ndetail of man's life with glory and revelation.\n\nPhilosophers were anxious to keep God clear of contact with matter;\nMarcus Aurelius found \"decay in the substance {131} of all\nthings--nothing but water, dust, bones, stench.\"[19]  Jesus saw life in\nall things--God clothing the grass and watching over little birds.\nTo-day the old antithesis of God and matter is gone, and it comes as a\nrelief to find that Jesus anticipated its disappearance.  The religious\nin his day looked for God in trance and ritual, in the abnormal and\nunusual, but for him, as for every man who has ever helped mankind, the\nordinary and the commonplace were enough.  The Kingdom of God is among\nyou, or even within you--in the common people, of whom all the other\nteachers despaired.\n\nWe come now to the central question of man's relation with God, never\nbefore so vital a matter to serious people in the Mediterranean world.\nJew and Greek and Egyptian were all full of it, and men's talk ran much\nupon it.  Men were anxious to be right with God, and sought earnestly\nin the ways of their fathers for the means of communion with God and\nthe attainment of some kind of safety in their position with regard to\nhim.  Jew and Greek alike talked of heaven and hell and of the ways to\nthem.  They talked of righteousness and holiness--\"holy\" is one of the\ngreat words of the period--and they sought these things in ritual and\nabstinence.  Modern Jews resent the suggestion that the thousand and\none regulations as to ceremonial purity, and the casuistries, as many\nor more, spun out of the law and the traditions, ranked with the great\ncommandments of neighbourly love and the worship of the One God.  No\ndoubt they are right, but it is noticeable that in practice the common\ntype of mind is more impressed with minutiae than with principles.  The\nSouthern European to-day will do murder on little provocation, but to\neat meat in Lent is sin.  But, without attributing such conspicuous\nsins as theft and adultery and murder to the Pharisees, it is clear\nthat in establishing their own righteousness they laid excessive stress\non the details of the law, on Sabbath-keeping (a constant topic with\nthe Christian apologists), on tithes, and temple ritual, on the washing\nof pots and plates--still rigorously maintained by the modern Jew--and\nall this was supposed to constitute holiness.  Jesus with the clear\nincisive word of genius dismissed it all as \"acting.\"  The Pharisee was\nessentially an actor--playing to himself the most contemptible little\ncomedies of holiness.  {132} Listen, cries Jesus, and he tells the tale\nof the man fallen among thieves and left for dead, and how priest and\nLevite passed by on the other side, fearing the pollution of a corpse,\nand how they left mercy, God's own work--\"I will have mercy and not\nsacrifice\" was one of his quotations from Hosea,--to be done by one\nunclean and damned--the Samaritan.  Whited sepulchres!  he cries,\npretty to look at, but full of what? of death, corruption and foulness.\n\"How _can_ you escape from the judgment of hell?\" he asked them, and no\none records what they answered or could answer.\n\n[Sidenote: Jesus the liberator]\n\nIt is clear, however, that, outside Palestine, the Jews in the great\nworld were moving to a more purely moral conception of religion--their\nenvironment made mere Pharisaism impossible, and Greek criticism\ncompelled them to think more or less in the terms of the fundamental.\nThe debt of the Jew to the Gentile is not very generously acknowledged.\nNone the less, the distinctive badge of all his tribe was and remained\nwhat the Greeks called fussiness (_to psophodees_).[20]  The Sabbath,\ncircumcision, the blood and butter taboos remained--as they still\nremain in the most liberal of \"Liberal Judaisms\"--tribe marks with no\nreligious value, but maintained by patriotism.  And side by side with\nthis lived and lives that hatred of the Gentile, which is attributed to\nChristian persecution, but which Juvenal saw and noted before the\nChristian had ceased to be persecuted by the Jew.  The extravagant\nnonsense found in Jewish speculation as to how many Gentile souls were\nequivalent in God's sight to that of one Jew is symptomatic.  To this\nday it is confessedly the weakness of Judaism that it offers no impulse\nand knows no enthusiasm for self-sacrificing love where the interests\nof the tribe are not concerned.[21]\n\nThe great work of Jesus in this matter was the final and decisive\ncleavage with antiquity.  Greek rationalism had long since laughed at\nthe puerilities of the Greek cults; but rationalism and laughter are'\nunequally matched against Religion, and it triumphed over them, and, as\nwe see in Plutarch {133} and the Neo-Platonists, it imposed its\npuerilities--yes, and its obscenities--upon Philosophy and made her in\nsober truth \"procuress to the lords of hell.\"  It was a new thing when\nReligion, in the name of truth and for the love of God, abolished the\nconnexion with a trivial past.  Jesus cut away at once every vestige of\nthe primitive and every savage survival--all natural growths perhaps,\nand helpful too to primitive man and to the savage, but confusing to\nmen on a higher plane,--either mere play-acting or the \"damnation of\nhell.\"  Pagan cults he summed up as much speaking.  Once for all he set\nReligion free from all taboos and rituals.  Paul, once, on the spur of\nthe moment, called Jesus the \"Yes\" of all the promises of God--a most\nsuggestive name for the vindicator and exponent of God's realities.  It\nis such a man as this who liberates mankind, cutting us clear of\nmake-believes and negations and taboos, and living in the open-air,\nwhether it is cloud or sun.  That Jesus shocked his contemporaries with\nthe abrupt nakedness of his religious ideas is not surprising.  The\nchurch made decent haste to cover a good many of them up, but not very\nsuccessfully.  A mind like that of Jesus propagates itself, and\nreappears with startling vitality, as history in many a strange page\ncan reveal.\n\nWe must now consider what was the thought of Jesus upon God and how he\nconceived of the relation between God and man.  He approached the\nmatter originally from the standpoint of Judaism, and no attempt to\nprove the influence of Greek philosophy is likely to succeed.  The\nresult of Greek speculation upon God--where it did not end in pure\npantheism--was that of God nothing whatever could be predicated--not\neven being, but that he was to be expressed by the negation of every\nidea that could be formed of him.  To this men had been led by their\npreconception of absolute being, and so strong was the influence of\ncontemporary philosophy that Christian thinkers adopted the same\nconclusion, managing what clumsy combinations they could of it and of\nthe doctrine of incarnation.  Clement of Alexandria is a marked example\nof this method.\n\nTo the philosophic mind God remains a difficult problem, but to the\nreligious temper things are very different.  To it God is the one great\nreality never very far away, and is conceived not as an abstraction,\nnor as a force, but as a personality.  {134} It has been and is the\nstrength and redemption of Judaism, that God is the God of Israel--\"Oh\nGod, thou art my God!\" How intuition is to be reconciled with\nphilosophy has been the problem of Christian thinkers in every age, but\nit may be remarked that the varying term is philosophy.  To the\nintuition of Jesus Christians have held fast--though Greeks and others\nhave called it \"folly\"; and in the meantime a good many philosophies\nhave had their day.\n\nThe central thought of Jesus is the Fatherhood of God.  For this, as\nfor much else, parallels have been found in the words of Hebrew\nthinkers, ancient and contemporary, and we may readily concede that it\nwas not original with Jesus to call God Father.  The name was given to\nGod by the prophets, but it was also given to him by the Stoics--and by\nHomer; so that to speak of God's Fatherhood might mean anything between\nthe two extremes of everything and nothing.  Christian theology, for\ninstance, starting with the idea of the Fatherhood of God, has not\nhesitated to speak in the same breath of his \"vindicating his\nmajesty\"--a phrase which there is no record or suggestion that Jesus\never used.  There may be fathers who vindicate their majesty, as there\nare many other kinds, but until we realize the connotation of the word\nfor men who speak of God as Father, it is idle to speak of it being a\nthought common to them.  The name may be in the Old Testament and in\nHomer, but the meaning which Jesus gave to it is his own.\n\nJesus never uses the name Father without an air of gladness.  Men are\nanxious as to what they shall eat, and what they shall drink, and\nwherewithal they shall be clothed--\"your heavenly Father knoweth that\nye have need of all these things.\"  Children ask father and mother for\nbread--will they receive a stone?  The women had hid the leaven in the\nthree measures of meal long before the children began to feel hungry.\nAnd as to clothes--God has clothed the flower far better than Solomon\never clothed himself, \"and shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of\nlittle faith?\"  The picture is one of the strong and tender parent,\nsmiling at the child's anxiety with no notion of his own majesty or of\nanything but love.  So incredibly simple is the relation between God\nand man--simple, unconstrained, heedless and tender as the talk round a\ntable in Nazareth.  Jesus is greater than the men who have elaborated\n{135} his ideas, and majesty is the foible of little minds.  The great\nman, if he thinks of his dignity, lets it take care of itself; he is\nmore interested in love and truth, and he forgets to think of what is\ndue to himself.  Aristotle said that his \"magnificent man\" would never\nrun; but, says Jesus, when the prodigal son was yet a great way off,\n\"his father saw him, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.\"\nThis contrast measures the distance between the thought of Jesus and\nsome Christian theologies.  It is worth noting that in the two\nparables, in which a father directly addresses his son, it is with the\ntender word _teknon_, which is more like a pet name.  It adds to the\nmeaning of the parable of the prodigal, when the father calls the elder\nbrother by the little name that has come down from childhood.  It was a\nword which Jesus himself used in speaking to his friends.[22]  The\nheavenly Father does not cease to be a father because his children are\nungracious and bad.  He sends rain and sun--and all they mean--to evil\nand to good.  The whole New Testament is tuned to the thought of\nJesus--\"the philanthropy of God our saviour.\"[23]\n\nPlato had long before defined the object of human life as \"becoming\nlike to God.\"  Jesus finds the means to this likeness to God in the\nsimplest of every day's opportunities.  \"Love your enemies and do good,\nand ye shall be sons of the Highest, for he is good and pitiful.\"\n\"Blessed are the peace-makers,\" he said, \"for they shall be called\nchildren of God.\"  This is sometimes limited to the reconciliation of\nquarrels, but the worst of quarrels is the rift in a man's own soul,\nthe \"division of his spiritual substance against itself\" which is the\nessence of all tragedy.  There are some whose least word, or whose\nmomentary presence, can somehow make peace wherever they go, and leave\nmen stronger for the rest they have found in another's soul.  This,\naccording to Jesus, is the family likeness by which God's children are\nrecognized in all sorts of company.  To have the faculty of\ncommunicating peace of mind--and it is more often than not done\nunconsciously, as most great things are--is no light or accidental gift.\n\nJesus lays a good deal more stress upon unconscious instinct than most\nmoralists do.  Once only he is reported to have spoken of the Last\nJudgment, which was a favourite theme {136} with the eschatologists of\nhis period, Jewish, pagan, and Christian.  He borrowed the whole\nframework of the scene, but he changed, and doubly changed, the\nsignificance of it.  For he discarded the national or political\ncriterion which the Jew preferred, and he did not have recourse to the\nrather individualistic moral test which Greek thinkers proposed, in\nimitation of Plato; still less did it occur to him to suggest a\n_Credo_.  With him the ultimate standard was one of sheer kindness and\ngood-heartedness--\"inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these\nmy brethren.\"  But it is still more interesting to note how this\nstandard is applied.  Every one at the Last Judgment accepts it, just\nas every one accepts the propositions of moralists in general.  But the\nreal cleavage between the classes of men does not depend on morality,\nas the chilly suggestion of the mere word reminds us.  Men judge other\nmen not by their morality, professed or practised, so much as by their\nunconscious selves--by instinct, impulse and so forth, the things that\nreally give a clue to the innermost man.  The most noticeable point\nthen in Jesus' picture of the Last Judgment is that, when \"sheep\" and\n\"goats\" are separated, neither party at once understands the reasons of\nthe decision.  These are conscious of duties done; the others have no\nvery clear idea about it.  Elsewhere Jesus suggests that, when men have\ndone all required of them, they may still have the feeling that they\nare unprofitable servants; and it is precisely the peace-makers and the\npure in heart who do not realize how near they come to God.  The priest\nand the Levite in the parable were conscious of their purity, but Jesus\ngives no hint that they saw God.  The Samaritan lived in another\natmosphere, but it was natural to him and he breathed it unconsciously.\nThe cultivation of likeness to God by Greek philosophers and their\npupils was very different.  Plutarch has left a tract, kindly and\nsensible, on \"How a man may recognize his own progress in virtue,\" but\nthere is no native Christian product of the kind.\n\n[Sidenote: The Kingdom of God]\n\nFrom what Jesus directly says of God, and from what he says of God's\nchildren, we may conclude that he classes God with the strong and sunny\nnatures; with the people of bright eyes who see through things and into\nthings, who have the feeling for reality, and love every aspect of the\nreal.  God has that sense which is peculiar to the creative mind--the\nkeen joy {137} in beauty, that loves star and bird and child.  God has\nthe father's instinct, a full understanding of human nature, and a\nheart open for the prodigal son, the publican and the woman with seven\ndevils.  \"In his will is our peace,\" wrote the great Christian poet of\nthe middle ages.  \"Doing the will we find rest,\" said a humble and\nforgotten Christian of the second century.[24]  They both learnt the\nthought from Jesus, who set it in the prayer beginning with _Abba_\nwhich he taught his disciples, and who prayed it himself in the garden\nwith the same _Abba_ in his heart.  \"In the Lord's prayer,\" said\nTertullian, \"there is an epitome of the whole Gospel.\"[25]\n\nAt this point two questions rise, which are of some historical\nimportance, and bear upon Jesus' view of God.  It is clear, first of\nall, that the expression \"the Kingdom of God\" was much upon the lips of\nJesus, at least in the earlier part of his ministry.  It was not of his\nown coining, and scholars have differed as to what he really meant.\nSuch controversy always rises about the terms in which a great mind\nexpresses itself.  The great thinker, even the statesman, has to use\nthe best language he can find to convey his ideas, and if the ideas are\nnew, the difficulty of expression is sometimes very great.  The words\nimply one thing to the listener, and another to the speaker who is\nreally trying (as Diogenes put it) to \"re-mint the currency,\" and how\nfar he succeeds depends mostly upon his personality.  To-day \"the\nKingdom,\" or more accurately \"the Kingship of God,\" is in some quarters\ninterpreted rather vigorously in the sense which the ordinary Jew gave\nto the phrase in the age of Jesus; but it is more than usually unsound\ncriticism to take the words of such a man as meaning merely what they\nwould in the common talk of unreflective persons, who use words as\ncounters and nothing else.  There was a vulgar interpretation of the\n\"Kingship of God,\" and there was a higher one, current among the better\nspirits; and it is only reasonable to interpret this phrase, or any\nother, in the light of the total mind of the man who uses it.  It is\nclear then that, when Jesus used \"the Kingship of God,\" he must have\nsubordinated it to his general idea of God; and what {138} that was, we\nhave seen.  To-day the phrase is returning into religious speech to\nsignify the permeation of society by the mind of Christ, which cannot\nbe far from what it meant to the earliest disciples.  It is significant\nthat the author of the fourth gospel virtually dropped the phrase\naltogether, that Paul preferred other expressions as a rule, and that\nit was merged and lost in the idea of the church.\n\nClosely bound up with the \"Kingdom of God\" is the name Messiah, with a\nsimilarly wide range of meanings.  The question has also been raised as\nto how far Jesus identified himself with the Messiah.  It might be more\npertinent to ask with which Messiah.  On the whole, the importance of\nthe matter can be gauged by the fate of the word.  It was translated\ninto Greek, and very soon Christos, or Chrestos, was a proper name and\nhardly a title at all except in apologetics, where alone the conception\nretained some importance.  The Divine Son and the Divine Logos--terms\nwhich Jesus did not use--superseded the old Hebrew title, at any rate\nin the Gentile world, and this could hardly have occurred if the idea\nhad been of fundamental moment in Jesus' mind and speech.  If he used\nthe name, as seems probable, it too must have been subordinated to his\nmaster-thought of God's fatherhood.  It would then imply at most a\nclose relation to the purposes of God, and a mission to men, the\nstewardship of thoughts that would put mankind on a new footing with\nGod.  The idea of his being a mediator in the Pauline sense is foreign\nto the gospels, and the later conception of a purchase of mankind from\nthe devil, or from the justice of God, by the blood of a victim is\nstill more alien to Jesus' mind.\n\n[Sidenote: The cross]\n\nThese are some of the features of the founder of the new religion as\nrevealed in the Gospels--features that permanently compel attention,\nbut after all it was not the consideration of these that conquered the\nworld.  Of far more account in winning the world was the death of this\nman upon the cross.  It was the cross that gave certainty to all that\nJesus had taught about God.  The church sturdily and indignantly\nrepudiated any suggestion, however philosophic, that in any way seemed\nlikely to lessen the significance of the cross.  That he should taste\nthe ultimate bitterness of death undisguised, that he should refuse the\npalliative wine and myrrh (an action symbolic of his {139} whole\nattitude to everything and to death itself), that with open eyes he\nshould set his face for Jerusalem, and with all the sensitiveness of a\ncharacter, so susceptive of impression and so rich in imagination, he\nshould expose himself to our experience--to the foretaste of death, to\nthe horror of the unknown, and to the supreme fear--the dread of the\nextinction of personality; and that he should actually undergo all he\nforesaw, as the last cry upon the cross testified--all this let the\nworld into the real meaning of his central thought upon God.  It was\nthe pledge of his truth, and thus made possible our reconciliation with\nGod.  If we may take an illustration from English literature,\nShakespeare's _Julius Caesar_ may suggest something here.  It has been\nnoticed how small a part Caesar plays in the drama--how little he\nspeaks; what weakness he shows--epilepsy, deafness, arrogance,\nvacillation; and how soon he disappears.  Would not the play have been\nbetter named _Brutus_?  Yet Shakespeare knew what he was doing; for the\nwhole play is Julius Caesar, from the outbreak of Cassius at the\nbeginning--\n\n  Why! man he doth bestride the narrow world\n  Like a colossus,\n\nto the bitter cry of Brutus at the end--\n\n  O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!\n\nCaesar determines everything in the story.  Every character in it is a\nmirror in which we see some figure of him, and the life of every man\nthere is made or unmade by his mind toward Caesar.  Caesar is the one\ngreat determining factor in the story; living and dead, he is the\ncentre and explanation of it all.\n\nWhat was written in the Gospels of the life and death of Jesus, might\nby now be ancient history, if the Gospels had told the whole story.\nBut they did not tell the whole story; and they neither were, nor are,\nthe source of the Christian movement, great as their influence is and\nhas been.  The Jesus who has impressed himself upon mankind is not a\ncharacter, however strong and beautiful, that is to be read about in a\nbook.  Before the Gospels were written, men spoke of the \"Spirit of\nJesus\" as an active force amongst them.  We may criticize their phrase\nand their psychology as we like, but they were speaking of something\nthey knew, something they had seen {140} and felt, and it is that\n\"something\" which changed the course of history.  Jesus lives for us in\nthe pages of the Gospels, but we are not his followers on that account,\nnor were the Christians of the first century.  They, like ourselves,\nfollowed him under the irresistible attraction of his character\nrepeating itself in the lives of men and women whom they knew.  The Son\nof God, they said, revealed himself in men, and it was true.  Of his\nimmediate followers we know almost nothing, but it was they who passed\nhim on to the next generation, consciously in their preaching, which\nwas not always very good; and unconsciously in their lives, which he\nhad transformed, and which had gained from him something of the power\nof his own life.  The church was a nexus of quickened and redeemed\npersonalities,--men and women in whom Christ lived.  So Paul wrote of\nit.  A century later another nameless Christian spoke of Christ being\n\"new born every day over again in the hearts of believers,\" and it\nwould be hard to correct the statement.  If we are to give a true\naccount of such men as Alexander and Caesar, we consider them in the\nlight of the centuries through which their ideas lived and worked.  In\nthe same way, the life, the mind and the personality of Jesus will not\nbe understood till we have realized by some intimate experience\nsomething of the worth and beauty of the countless souls that in every\ncentury have found and still find in him the Alpha and Omega of their\nbeing.  For the Gospels are not four but \"ten thousand times ten\nthousand, and thousands of thousands,\" and the last word of every one\nof them is \"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.\"\n\n\nChapter IV Footnotes:\n\n[1] Justin, _Apology_, i, 66.\n\n[2] Quoted by Origen, _contra Celsum_, ii, 26, 27.\n\n[3] Cf. Mr F. C. Conybeare's article on the remodelling of the\nbaptismal formula in Matthew xxviii after the Council of Nicaea,\n_Hibbert Journal_, Oct. 1902.\n\n[4] Origen, _c. Cels._ vii, 58, _agroikoteron_.\n\n[5] Xen. _Mem_, i, 2, 37.  Cf. Plato, _Symp._ 221 E. Gorgias, 491 A.\nSee Forbes, _Socrates_, 128; Adam, _Religious Teachers of Greece_, i,\n338.\n\n[6] Plato, _Philebus_, 50 B.\n\n[7] On \"playfulness\" in the words of Jesus, see Burkitt, the _Gospel\nHistory_, p. 142.  See also _Life of Abp Temple_, ii. 681 (letter to\nhis son 18 Dec. 1896), on the \"beam in the eye\" and the \"eye of the\nneedle\"--\"that faint touch of fun which all Oriental teachers delight\nin.\"\n\n[8] Luke iv, 22, _ethaumazon epi tois logois tes charitos_.\n\n[9] George Adam Smith, _Historical Geography of the Holy Land, ad loc._\n\n[10] Matthew xiii, 56 says _pasai_, and Mark uses a plural.\n\n[11] Luke xi, 5.\n\n[12] Mark ix, 36, _enagkalisamenos_.\n\n[13] _Gospel History_, p. 285.\n\n[14] I believe that the allusion to dogs has been thrown back into\nJesus' words from the woman's reply, and that she was the first to\nmention them.  Note Mark's emphatic phrase _dia touton ton logon_; vii,\n29.\n\n[15] _Gospel History_, p. 93 f. (with map).\n\n[16] The steady gaze and the pause are mentioned by the Gospels, in\nmore than one place, as preceding utterance.  There are of course great\nvariations in the accounts of the last supper.\n\n[17] xxii, 28.\n\n[18] The author of _Rab and his Friends_.\n\n[19] ix, 36.\n\n[20] Cf. _ad Diognetum_, cited on p. 177.\n\n[21] I quote this from a friend to whom a Jew said as much; of course\nevery general statement requires modification.  Still the predominantly\ntribal character of Judaism implies contempt for the spiritual life of\nthe Gentile Christian and pagan.  If the knowledge of God was or is of\nvalue to the Jew, he has made little effort to share it.\n\n[22] _e.g._ Mark x, 24.\n\n[23] Titus iii, 4.\n\n[24] _Second Clement_ (so-called), 6, 7.\n\n[25] Tert. _de Or._ 1 (end).  Cf. also c. 4, on the prayer in the\nGarden; and _de fuga_, 8.\n\n\n\n\n{141}\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE FOLLOWERS OF JESUS\n\nTwo things stand out, when we study the character of the early\nchurch--its great complexity and variety, and its unity in the\npersonality of Jesus of Nazareth.  In spite of the general levelling\nwhich Greek culture and Roman government had made all over the\nMediterranean world, the age-long influences of race and climate and\ncult were still at work.  Everywhere there was a varnish of Greek\nliterature; everywhere a tendency to uniformity in government, very\ncarefully managed with great tenderness for local susceptibilities, but\nnone the less a fixed object of the Emperors; everywhere cult was\nblended with cult with the lavish hospitality of polytheism; and yet,\napart from denationalized men of letters, artists and dilettanti, the\nold types remained and reproduced themselves.  And when men looked at\nthe Christian community, it was as various as the Empire--\"Thou wast\nslain,\" runs the hymn in the Apocalypse, \"and thou hast redeemed us to\nGod by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and\nnation.\"  There soon appeared that desire for uniformity which animated\nthe secular government, and which appears to be an ineradicable\ninstinct of the human mind.  Yet for the first two centuries--the\nperiod under our discussion--the movement toward uniformity had not\ngrown strong enough to overcome the race-marks and the place-marks.\nThere are great areas over which in Christian life and thought the same\ngeneral characteristics are to be seen, which were manifested in other\nways before the Christian era.  There is the great West of Italy, Gaul\nand Africa, Latin in outlook, but with strong local variations.  There\nis the region of Asia Minor and Greece,--where the church is\nHellenistic in every sense of the word, very Greek upon the surface and\nless Greek underneath, again with marked contrasts due to geography and\nrace-distribution.  Again there is the Christian South--Alexandria,\nwith its Christian community, Greek and {142} Jewish, and a little\nknown hinterland, where Christian thought spread, we do not know how.\nThere was Palestine with a group of Jewish Christians, very clearly\ndifferentiated.  And Eastward there rose a Syrian Christendom, which as\nlate as the fourth century kept a character of its own.[1]\n\nInto all these great divisions of the world came men eager to tell\n\"good news\"--generally quite commonplace and unimportant people with a\n\"treasure in earthen vessels.\"  Their message they put in various ways,\nwith the aphasia of ill-educated men, who have something to tell that\nis far too big for any words at their command.  It was made out at last\nthat they meant a new relation to God in virtue of Jesus Christ.  From\na philosophic point of view they talked \"foolishness,\" and they lapsed\nnow and then, under the pressure of what was within them, into\ninarticulate and unintelligible talk, from which they might emerge into\nutterance quite beyond their ordinary range.  Such symptoms were\nfamiliar enough, but these people were not like the usual exponents of\n\"theolepsy\" and \"enthusiasm.\"  They were astonishingly upright, pure\nand honest; they were serious; and they had in themselves inexplicable\nreserves of moral force and a happiness far beyond anything that the\nworld knew.  They were men transfigured, as they owned.  Some would\nconfess to wasted and evil lives, but something had happened,[2] which\nthey connected with Jesus or a holy spirit, but everything in the long\nrun turned upon Jesus.\n\nClearer heads came about them, and then, as they put it, the holy\nspirit fell upon them also.  These men of education and ideas were\n\"converted,\" and began at once to analyse their experience, using\nnaturally the language with which they were familiar.  It was these men\nwho gave the tone to the groups of believers in their various regions,\nand that tone varied with the colour of thought in which the more\nreflective converts had grown up.  A great deal, of course, was common\nto all regions of the world,--the new story and the new experience, an\nunphilosophized group of facts, which now, under the stimulus of man's\nunconquerable habit of speculation, began to be interpreted {143} and\nto be related in all sorts of ways to the general experience of men.\nNo wonder there was diversity.  It took centuries to achieve a uniform\naccount of the Christian faith.\n\nThe unity of the early church lay in the reconciliation with God, in\nthe holy spirit, and Jesus Christ,--a unity soon felt and treasured.\n\"There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of\nyour calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of\nall, who is above all and through all and in you all.\"[3]  The whole\nbody of Christians was conscious of its unity, of its distinctness and\nits separation.  It was a \"peculiar people\"[4]--God's own; a \"third\nrace,\" as the heathen said.[5]\n\n[Sidenote: The recruits]\n\nTo go further into detail we may consider the recruits and their\nexperience, their explanations of this experience, and the new life in\nthe world.\n\nThe recruits came, as the Christians very soon saw, from every race of\nmankind, and they brought with them much that was of value in national\npreconceptions and characteristics.  The presence of Jew, Greek, Roman,\nSyrian and Phrygian, made it impossible for the church to be anything\nbut universal; and if at times her methods of reconciling somewhat\nincompatible contributions were unscientific, still in practice she\nachieved the task and gained accordingly.  Where the Empire failed in\nimposing unity by decree, the church produced it instinctively.\n\nIt was on Jewish ground that Christianity began, and it was from its\nnative soil and air that it drew, transmuting as it drew them, its\npassionate faith in One God, its high moral standard and its lofty\nhopes of a Messianic age to come.  For no other race of the\nMediterranean world was the moral law based on the \"categoric\nimperative.\"  Nowhere else was that law written in the inward parts, in\nthe very hearts of the people,[6] and nowhere was it observed so\nloyally.  The absurdity and scrupulosity which the Greek ridiculed in\nthe Jew, were the outcome of his devotion to the law of the Lord; and,\nwhen once the law was reinterpreted and taken to a higher plane by\nJesus, the {144} old passion turned naturally to the new morality.  It\nwas the Jew who brought to the common Christian stock the conception of\nSin, and the significance of this is immense in the history of the\nreligion.  It differentiated Christianity from all the religious and\nphilosophical systems of the ancient world.\n\n  'Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart\n    At the head of a lie--taught Original Sin,\n  The Corruption of Man's Heart.\n\n\nSeneca and the Stoics played with the fancy of man's being equal, or in\nsome points superior, to God--a folly impossible for a Jewish mind.  It\nwas the Jews who gave the world the \"oracles of God\" in the Old\nTestament, who invested Christianity for the moment with the dignity of\nan ancient history and endowed it for all time with a unique\ninheritance of religious experience.  Nor is it only the Old Testament\nthat the church owes to the Jew; for the Gospels are also his\ngift--anchors in the actual that have saved Christianity from all kinds\nof intellectual, spiritual and ecclesiastical perils.  And, further, at\nthe difficult moment of transition, when Christian ideas passed from\nthe Jewish to the Gentile world, there were Jews of the Hellenistic\ntype ready to mediate the change.  They of all men stood most clearly\nat the universal point of view; they knew the grandeur and the weakness\nof the law; they understood at once the Jewish and the Greek mind.  It\nis hard to exaggerate what Christianity owes to men of this school--to\nPaul and to \"John,\" and to a host of others, Christian Jews of the\nDispersion, students of Philo, and followers of Jesus.  On Jewish soil\nthe new faith died; it was transplantation alone that made Christianity\npossible; for it was the true outcome of the teaching of Jesus, that\nthe new faith should be universal.\n\nThe chief contribution of the Greek was his demand for this very\nthing--that Christianity must be universal.  He made no secret of his\ncontempt for Judaism, and he was emphatic in insisting on a larger\noutlook than the Jewish.  No man could seem more naturally unlikely to\nwelcome the thoughts of Jesus than the \"little Greek\" (_Graaeculus_) of\nthe Roman world; yet he was won; and then by making it impossible for\nChristianity to remain an amalgam of the ideas of Jesus and of Jewish\nlaw, {145} the Greek really secured the triumph of Jesus.  He\neliminated the tribal and the temporary in the Gospel as it came from\npurely Jewish teachers, and, with all his irregularities of conduct and\nhis flightiness of thought, he nevertheless set Jesus before the world\nas the central figure of all history and of all existence.[7]  Even the\nfaults of the Greek have indirectly served the church; for the Gospels\ngained their place in men's minds and hearts, because they were the\nreal refuge from the vagaries of Greek speculation, and offered the\nultimate means of verifying every hypothesis.  The historic Jesus is\nnever of such consequence to us as when the great intellects tell us\nthat the true and only heaven is Nephelococcygia.  For Aristophanes was\nright--it was the real Paradise of the Greek mind.  What relief the\nplain matter-of-fact Gospel must have brought men in a world, where\nnothing throve like these cities of the clouds, would be inconceivable,\nif we did not know its value still.  While we recognize the real\ncontribution of the Greek Christians, it is good to see what\nChristianity meant to men who were not Greeks.\n\n[Sidenote: Tatian]\n\nThere was one Christian of some note in the second century, whose\nattitude toward everything Greek is original and interesting.  Tatian\nwas \"born in the land of the Assyrians.\"[8] He travelled widely in the\nGraeco-Roman world,[9] and studied rhetoric like a Greek; he gave\nattention to the great collections of Greek art in Rome--monuments of\nshame, he called them.  He was admitted to the mysteries, but he became\nshocked at the cruelty and licentiousness tolerated and encouraged by\npaganism.  While in this mind, seeking for the truth, \"it befel that I\nlit upon some barbarian writings, older than the dogmata of the Greeks,\ndivine in their contrast with Greek error; and it befel too that I was\nconvinced by them, because, their style was simple, because there was\nan absence of artifice in the speakers, because the structure of the\nwhole was intelligible, and also because of the fore-knowledge of\nfuture {146} events, the excellence of the precepts and the\nsubordination of the whole universe to One Ruler (_to ton holon\nmonarchikon_).  My soul was taught of God, and I understood that while\nGreek literature (_ta men_) leads to condemnation, this ends our\nslavery in the world and rescues us from rulers manifold and ten\nthousand tyrants.\"[10]  He now repudiated the Greeks and all their\nworks, the grammarians who \"set the letters of the alphabet to quarrel\namong themselves,\"[11] the philosophers with their long hair and long\nnails and vanity,[12] the actors, poets and legislators; and \"saying\ngood-bye to Roman pride and Attic pedantry (_psychrologia_) I laid hold\nof our barbarian philosophy.\"[13]  He made the first harmony of the\nGospels--an early witness to the power of their sheer simplicity in a\nworld of literary affectations.\n\nAnother famous Syrian of the century was Ignatius of Antioch, whose\nstory is collected from seven letters he wrote, in haste and\nexcitement, as he travelled to Rome to be thrown to the beasts in the\narena--his guards in the meantime being as fierce as any leopards.  The\nburden of them all is that Jesus Christ _truly_ suffered on the cross.\nMen around him spoke of a phantom crucified by the deluded soldiers\namid the deluded Jews.--No! cries Ignatius, over and over, he _truly_\nsuffered, he _truly_ rose, ate and drank, and was no daemon without a\nbody (_daimonion asomaton_)--none of it is _seeming_, it is all truly,\ntruly, truly.[14]  He has been called hysterical, and his position\nmight make any nervous man hysterical--death before him, his Lord's\nreality denied, and only time for one word--_Truly_.  Before we pass\nhim by, let us take a quieter saying of his to illustrate the deepest\nthought of himself and his age--\"He that hath the word of Jesus truly\ncan hear his silence also.\"[15]\n\nThe Roman came to the Church as he came to a new province.  He gravely\nsurveyed the situation, considered the existing arrangements, accepted\nthem, drew up as it were a _lex provinciae_ to secure their proper\nadministration, and thereafter interpreted it in accordance with the\nusual principles of Roman {147} law, and, like the procurator in Achaea,\nleft the Greeks to discuss any abstract propositions they pleased.\nTertullian and Cyprian were lawyers, and gave Latin Christendom the\nlanguage, in which in later days the relations of man with his Divine\nSovereign were worked out by the great Latin Fathers.\n\n[Sidenote: Freedom from daemons]\n\nThe confession of Tatian, above cited, emphasizes as one of the great\nfeatures of the barbarian literature--its \"monarchic\" teaching--\"it\nsets man free from ten thousand tyrants\"--and this may be our\nstarting-point in considering the new experience.  To be rid of the\nwhole daemon-world, to have left the daemons behind and their \"hatred of\nmen,\"[16] their astrology,[17] their immorality and cruelty, their\nsacrifices, and the terror of \"possession\" and theolepsy and\nenchantment,[18] was happiness in itself.  \"We are above fate,\" said\nTatian, \"and, instead of daemons that deceive, we have learnt one master\nwho deceiveth not.\"[19]  \"Christ,\" wrote an unknown Christian of a\nbeautiful spirit--\"Christ wished to save the perishing, and such mercy\nhas he shown us that we the living do not serve dead gods, but through\nhim we know the Father of truth.\"[20]  \"Orpheus sang to beguile men,\nbut my Singer has come to end the tyranny of daemons,\" said Clement.[21]\nThe perils of \"meats offered to idols\" impressed some, who feared that\nby eating of them they would come under daemoniac influence.  With what\nrelief they must have read Paul's free speech on the subject--\"the\nearth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof\"--\"for us there is one\nGod, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all\nthings, and we through him.\"[22]  \"Even the very name of Jesus is\nterrible to the daemons\"[23]--the \"name that is above every name.\"  In\nno other name was there salvation from daemons, for philosophy had made\nterms with them.\n\nNo one can read the Christian Apologists without remarking the stress\nwhich they lay upon the _knowledge_ of God, which the new faith made\nthe free and glad possession of the humblest.  {148} \"They say of us\nthat we babble nonsense among females, half-grown people, girls and old\npeople.  No! all our women are chaste and at their distaffs our maidens\nsing of things divine,\" said Tatian, and rejoined with observations on\nfamous Greek women, Lais, Sappho and others.  Justin, always kindlier,\nspeaks of Socrates who urged men to seek God, yet owned that \"it would\nbe a hard task to find the father and maker of this All, and when one\nhad found him, it would not be safe to declare him to all,\"[24] but, he\ngoes on, \"our Christ did this by his power.  No man ever believed\nSocrates so much as to die for his teaching.  But Christ, who was known\nto Socrates in part, (for he was and is the Word that is in\neverything...)--on Christ, I say, not only philosophers and scholars\n(_philologoi_) believed, but artisans, men quite without learning\n(_idiotai_), and despised glory and fear and death.\"  \"There is not a\nChristian workman but finds out God and manifests him,\" said\nTertullian.[25] This knowledge of God was not merely a desirable thing\nin theory, for it is clear that it was very earnestly sought.  To\nJustin's quest for God, allusion has been made--\"I hoped I should have\nthe vision of God at once (_katophesthai_)\" he says.  \"Who among men\nhad any knowledge of what God was, before he came?\"[26]  \"This,\" wrote\nthe fourth evangelist, \"is eternal life--that they may know thee, the\none true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.\"\n\n[Sidenote: The holy spirit]\n\nBut it is one thing to be a monotheist, and another to be a child of\n\"Abba Father,\" and this is one of the notes of the early Christian.  It\nis impossible to over-emphasize the significance of Christian happiness\namid the strain and doubt of the early Empire.  Zeno and Isis each had\nsomething to say, but who had such a message of forgiveness and\nreconciliation and of the love of God?  \"God is within you,\" said\nSeneca; but he knew nothing of such an experience as the Christian\nsummed up as the \"grace of God,\" \"grace sufficient\" and \"grace {149}\nabounding.\"  It is hard to think of these familiar phrases being new\nand strange--the coining of Paul to express what no man had said\nbefore--and this at the moment when Seneca was writing his \"moral\nletters\" to Lucilius.  Verbal coincidences may be found between Paul\nand Seneca, but they are essentially verbal.  The Stoic Spermaticos\nLogos was a cold and uninspiring dogma compared with \"Abba Father\" and\nthe Spirit of Jesus--it was not the same thing at all.  The one\ndoctrine made man self-sufficient--in the other, \"our sufficiency\n(_hikanotes_) is of God.\" It was the law of nature, contrasted with the\nfather of the prodigal son--\"our kind and tender-hearted father\" as\nClement of Rome calls him [27]--the personal God, whose \"problem is\never to save the flock of men; that is why the good God has sent the\ngood shepherd.\"[28]\n\nThe more lettered of Christian writers like to quote Plato's saying\nthat man was born to be at home with God (_oikeios echein pros theon_)\nand that he was \"a heavenly plant.\"  Falsehood, they say, and error\nobscured all this, but now \"that ancient natural fellowship with\nheaven\" has \"leapt forth from the darkness and beams upon us.\"[29]\n\"God,\" says Clement, \"out of his great love for men, cleaves to man,\nand as when a little bird has fallen out of the nest, the mother-bird\nhovers over it, and if perchance some creeping beast open its mouth\nupon the little thing,\n\n  Wheeling o'er his head, with screams the dam\n  Bewails her darling brood;\n\nso God the Father seeks his image, and heals the fall, and chases away\nthe beast, and picks up the little one again.\"[30]\n\nGod has \"anointed and sealed\" his child and given him a pledge of the\nnew relation--the holy spirit.  This is distinctly said by St Paul,[31]\nand the variety of the phenomena, to which he refers, is a little\ncurious.  Several things are covered by the phrase, and are classed as\nmanifestations with a common origin.  There are many allusions to\n\"speaking with tongues\"; Paul, however, clearly shows that we are not\nto understand a miraculous gift in using actual languages, reduced to\ngrammar and {150} spoken by men, as the author of the _Acts_ suggests\nwith a possible reminiscence of a Jewish legend of the law-giving from\nSinai.  The \"glossolaly\" was inarticulate and unintelligible; it was a\nfeature of Greek \"mantic,\" an accompaniment of over-strained emotion,\nand even to be produced by material agencies, as Plutarch lets us see.\nPaul himself is emphatic upon its real irrelevance to the Christian's\nmain concern, and he deprecates the attention paid to it.  Other\n\"spiritual\" manifestations were visions and prophecies.  With these Dr\nWilliam James has dealt in his _Varieties of Religious Experience_,\nshowing that in them, as in \"conversion,\" there is nothing\ndistinctively Christian.  The content of the vision and the outcome of\nthe conversion are the determining factors.  Where men believe that an\nordinary human being can be temporarily transformed by the presence\nwithin him of a spirit, the very belief produces its own evidence.  If\nthe tenet of the holy spirit rested on nothing else, it would have\nfilled a smaller place in Christian thought.\n\n[Sidenote: Jesus the saviour]\n\nBut when Paul speaks of the holy spirit whereby the Christians are\nsealed, calling it now the spirit of God and now the spirit of Jesus,\nhe is referring to a profounder experience.  Explain conversion as we\nmay, the word represents a real thing.  Men were changed, and were\nconscious of it.  Old desires passed away and a new life began, in\nwhich passion took a new direction, finding its centre of warmth and\nlight, not in morality, not in religion, but in God as revealed in\nJesus Christ.  \"To me to live is Christ,\" cried Paul, giving words to\nthe experience of countless others.  Life had a new centre; and duty,\npain and death were turned to gladness.  The early Christian was\nconscious of a new spirit within him.  It was by this spirit that they\ncould cry \"Abba, Father\"; it was the spirit that guided them into all\ntruth; it was the spirit that united them to God,[32] that set them\nfree from the law of sin and death, that meant life and peace and joy\nand holiness.  Paul trusted everything to what we might call the\nChristian instinct and what he called the holy spirit, and he was\njustified.  No force in the world has done so much as this nameless\nthing that has controlled and guided and illumined--whatever we call\nit.  Any one who has breathed the quiet air of a gathering of men and\nwomen consciously surrendered to the influence of Jesus Christ, with\nall its {151} sobering effect, its consecration, its power and\ngladness, will know what Paul and his friends meant.  It is hardly to\nbe known otherwise.  In our documents the spirit is closely associated\nwith the gathering of the community in prayer.\n\nFreedom from daemons, forgiveness and reconciliation with God, gladness\nand moral strength and peace in the holy spirit--of such things the\nearly Christians speak, and they associate them all invariably with one\nname, the living centre of all.  \"Jesus the beloved\" is a phrase that\nlights up one of the dullest of early Christian pages.[33]  \"No! you do\nnot so much as listen to anyone, if he speaks of anything but Jesus\nChrist in truth,\" says Ignatius.[34]  \"What can we give him in return?\nHe gave us light ... he saved us when we were perishing ... We were\nlame in understanding, and worshipped stone and wood, the works of men.\nOur whole life was nothing but death....  He pitied us, he had\ncompassion, he saved us, for he saw we had no hope of salvation except\nfrom him; he called us when we were not, and from not being he willed\nus to be.\"[35] \"The blood of Jesus, shed for our salvation, has brought\nto all the world the grace of repentance.\"[36]  \"Ye see what is the\npattern that has been given us; what should we do who by him have come\nunder the yoke of his grace?\"[37]  \"Let us be earnest to be imitators\nof the Lord.\"[38]  These are a few words from Christians whose writings\nare not in the canon.  Jesus is pre-eminently and always the Saviour;\nthe author of the new life; the revealer of God; the bringer of\nimmortality.  It made an immense impression upon the ancient world to\nsee the transformation of those whom it despised,--women, artisans,\nslaves and even slave-girls.  Socrates with the hemlock cup and the\nbrave Thrasea were figures that men loved and honoured.  But here were\nall sorts of common people doing the same thing as Socrates and\nThrasea, cheerfully facing torture and death \"for the name's sake\"--and\nit was a name of contempt, too.  \"Christ's people\"--_Christianoi_--was\na bantering improvisation by the people of Antioch, who were notorious\nin antiquity for impudent wit:[39] it was a happy shot {152} and\ntouched the very centre of the target.  \"The name\" and \"his name,\" are\nconstantly recurring phrases.  But it was not only that men would die\nfor the name--men will die for anything that touches their imagination\nor their sympathy--but they lived for it and showed themselves to be\nindeed a \"new creation.\"  \"Our Jesus\"[40] was the author of a new life,\nand a very different one from that of Hellenistic cities.  That\nChristianity retained its own character in the face of the most\ndesperate efforts of its friends to turn it into a philosophy congenial\nto the philosophies of the day, was the result of the strong hold it\nhad taken upon innumerable simple people, who had found in it the power\nof God in the transformation of their own characters and instincts, and\nwho clung to Jesus Christ--to the great objective facts of his\nincarnation and his death upon the cross--as the firm foundations laid\nin the rock against which the floods of theory might beat in vain.  For\nnow we have to consider another side of early Christian activity--the\nexplanation of the new experience.\n\nThe early Christian community found \"the unexamined life\" as impossible\nas Plato had, and they framed all sorts of theories to account for the\nchange in themselves.  Of most immediate interest are the accounts\nwhich they give of the holy spirit and of Jesus.  Here we must remember\nthat in all definition we try to express the less known through the\nmore known, and that the early Christians necessarily used the best\nlanguage available to them, and tried to communicate a new series of\nexperiences by means of the terms and preconceptions of the thinking\nworld of their day--terms and preconceptions long since obsolete.\n\nMuch in the early centuries of our era is unintelligible until we form\nsome notion of the current belief in spiritual beings, evidence of\nwhich is found in abundance in the literature of the day, pagan and\nChristian.  A growing consensus among philosophers made God more and\nmore remote, and emphasized the necessity for intermediaries.  We have\nseen how Plutarch pronounced for the delegation of rule over the\nuniverse and its functions to ministering spirits.  The Jews had a\nparallel belief in angels, and had come to think of God's spirit and\nGod's intelligence as somehow detachable from his being.  In abstract\n{153} thought this may be possible just as we think of an angle without\nreference to matter.  The great weakness in the speculation of the\nearly Empire was this habit of supposing that men can be as certain of\ntheir deductions as of their premisses; and God's Logos, being\nconceivable, passed into common religious thought as a separate and\nproven existence.\n\n[Sidenote: The holy spirit]\n\nAt the same time there was abundant evidence of devil-possession as\nthere is in China to-day.  Modern medicine distinguishes four classes\nof cases which the ancients (and their modern followers) group under\nthis one head:--Insanity, Epilepsy, Hysteria major and the mystical\nstate.  To men who had no knowledge of modern medicine and its\ndistinctions, the evidence of the \"possessed\" was enough, and it was\napt to be quite clear and emphatic as it is in such cases to-day.  The\nman said he \"had a devil\"--or even a \"legion of devils.\"  The priestess\nat the oracle said that a god was within her (_entheos_).  In both\ncases the ocular evidence was enough to convince the onlookers of the\ntruth of the explanation, for the persons concerned were clearly\nchanged and were not themselves.[41]  Plato played with the idea that\npoetry even might be, as poets said, a matter of inspiration.  The poet\ncould not be merely himself when he wrote or sang words of such\ntransforming power.  The Jews gave a similar account of prophecy--the\nSpirit of the Lord descended upon men, as we read in the Old Testament.\nThe Spirit, says Athenagoras to the Greeks, used the Hebrew prophets,\nas a flute-player does a flute, while they were in ecstasy (_kat\nekstasin_)[42]--the holy spirit, he adds, is an effluence (_aporroia_)\nof God.[43]\n\nThe Christians, finding ecstasy, prophecy, trance, and glossolaly among\ntheir own members, and having before them the parallel of Greek\npriestesses and Hebrew prophets, and making moreover the same _very_\nslight distinction as their pagan {154} neighbours between matter and\nspirit, and, finally, possessing all the readiness of unscientific\npeople in propounding theories,--they assumed an \"effluence\" from God,\na spirit which entered into a man, just as in ordinary life evil demons\ndid, but here it was a holy spirit.  This they connected with God after\nthe manner familiar to Jewish thinkers, and following the same lead,\nbegan to equate it with God, as a separate being.  It is not at first\nalways quite clear whether it is the spirit of God or of Jesus--or even\na manifestation of the risen Jesus.[44]\n\nWhen we pass to the early explanations of Jesus, we come into a region\npeculiarly difficult.  A later age obscured the divergences of early\ntheory.  Some opinions the church decisively rejected--Christians would\nhave nothing to do with a Jesus who was an emanation from an absolute\nand inconceivable Being, a Jesus who in that case would be virtually\nindistinguishable from Asclepios the kindly-natured divine healer.  Nor\nwould they tolerate the notion of a phantom-Jesus crucified in show,\nwhile the divine Christ was far away--like Helen in Euripides'\nplay.[45]  \"Spare,\" says Tertullian, \"the one hope of all the\nworld.\"[46]  They would not have a \"daimonion without a body.\"  But two\ntheories, one of older Jewish, and the other of more recent Alexandrian\norigin, the church accepted and blended, though they do not necessarily\nbelong to each other.\n\n[Sidenote: Paul]\n\nThe one theory is especially Paul's--sacred to all who lean with him to\nthe Hebrew view of things, to all who, like him, are touched with the\nsense of sin and feel the need of another's righteousness, to all who\nhave come under the spell of the one great writer of the first century.\nA Jew, a native of a Hellenistic city--and \"no mean one\"[47]--a citizen\nof the Roman Empire, a man of wide outlooks, with a gift for\nexperience, he passed from {155} Pharisaism to Christ.  The mediating\nidea was righteousness.  He knew his own guilt before God, and found\nthat by going about to establish his own righteousness he was achieving\nnothing.\n\nAt the same time a suffering Messiah was a contradiction in terms,\nunspeakably repulsive to a Jew.  We can see this much in the tremendous\nefforts of the Apologists to overcome Jewish aversion by producing Old\nTestament prophecies that Christ was to suffer.  _Pathetos_ (subject to\nsuffering) was a word that waked rage and contempt in every one, who\nheld to contemporary views of God, or even had dabbled in Stoic or\nsimilar conceptions of human greatness.  But it seems that the serenity\nand good conscience of Christian martyrs impressed their persecutor,\nwho was not happy in his own conscience; and at last the thought\ncame--along familiar lines--that Christ's sufferings might be for the\nbenefit of others.  And then he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus.\nWhat exactly happened is a matter of discussion, but Paul was\nsatisfied--he was \"a man in Christ.\"\n\nMuch might be said in criticism of Paul's Christology--if it were not\nfor Paul and his followers.  They have done too much and been too much\nfor it to be possible to dissect their great conception in cold blood.\nPaul's theories are truer than another man's experiences--they pulse\nwith life, they have (in Luther's phrase) hands and feet to carry a man\naway.  The man is so large and so strong, so simple and true, so\nvarious in his knowledge of the world, so tender in his feeling for\nmen--\"all things to all men\"--such a master of language, so sympathetic\nand so open--he is irresistible.  The quick movement of his thought,\nhis sudden flashes of anger and of tenderness, his apostrophes, his\nejaculations--one feels that pen and paper never got such a man written\ndown before or since.  Every sentence comes charged with the whole\nman--half a dozen Greek words, and not always the best Greek--and the\nChristian world for ever will sum up its deepest experience in \"God\nforbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,\nby whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.\"\n\nClose examination reveals a good deal of Judaism surviving in Paul,--a\ncurious way of playing with the text of Scripture, {156} odd\nreminiscences of old methods, and deeper infiltrations of a Jewish\nthought which is not that of Jesus.  Yet it does not affect our feeling\nfor him--he stands too close to us as a man, too much over us as the\nteacher of Augustine, Calvin and Luther--a man, whom it took more\ngenius to explain than the church had for fifteen centuries, and yet\nthe man to whom the church owes its universal reach and unity, its\ntheology and the best of the language in which it has expressed its\nlove for his master.\n\n[Sidenote: Explanation of Jesus]\n\nPaul went back to the Jewish conception of a Messiah, modified, in the\nreal spirit of Jesus, by the thought of suffering.  But when we put\nside by side the Messiah of Jesus and the Messiah of Paul, we become\nconscious of a difference.  The latter is a mediator between God and\nman, making atonement, transferring righteousness by a sort of legal\nfiction, and implying a conception of God's fatherhood far below that\ntaught by Jesus.  At the same time Paul has other thoughts of a\nprofounder and more permanent value.  It is hard, for instance, to\nimagine that any change, which time and thought may bring, can alter a\nword in his statement that \"God was in Christ, reconciling the world to\nhimself\"--here there is no local or temporal element even in the\nwording.  It may be noted that Paul has his own names for Jesus, for\nwhile he uses \"Messiah\" (in Greek) and \"Son of God,\" he is the first to\nspeak of \"the Lord\" and \"the Saviour.\"  Paul held the door open for the\nother great theory of the early church, when he emphasized the\npre-existence of the heavenly Christ and made him the beginning, the\ncentre and the end of all history.\n\nThe Logos, as we have seen, was not an original idea of the Christian\nworld.  It was long familiar to Greek philosophy, and Philo and the\nStoics base much of their thought upon it.  It must have come into the\nchurch from a Greek or Hellenistic source, perhaps as a translation of\nPaul's \"heavenly Christ.\"  As it stands, it is a peculiarly bold\nannexation from Philosophy.  No Stoic would have denied that the\nSpermaticos Logos was in Jesus, but the bold identification of the\nLogos with Jesus must have been \"foolishness to the Greek.\"  Still in\ncontemporary thought there was much to dispose men to believe in such\nan incarnation of the Logos in a human being, though there is no\nsuggestion that a spiritual being of any at all commensurate {157}\ngreatness was ever so incarnated before.  But the thought appealed to\nthe Christian mind, when once the shock to Greek susceptibilities was\novercome.  Once accepted, it \"solved all questions in the earth and out\nof it.\"  It permitted the congenial idea of Greek theology to\nremain--the transcendence of God being saved by this personification of\nhis Thought.  It was a final blow to all theories that made Jesus an\nemanation, a phantom or a demi-god, and it kept his historic\npersonality well in the centre of thought, though leaving it now\ncomparatively much less significance.\n\nSurveying the two accounts, Jewish and Greek, we cannot help remarking\nthat they belong to other ages of thought than our own.  Columbus,\nCopernicus and Darwin were neither philosophers nor theologians, but\nthey have changed the perspectives of philosophy and theology, and we\nthink to-day with a totally different series of preconceptions from\nthose of Jew and Greek of the first century.  The Greek himself never\nthought much of the \"chosen race,\" and it was only when he realized\nthat Jesus was not a tribal hero, that he accepted him.  To the Greek\nthe Messiah was as strange a thought as to ourselves.  To us the Logos\nis as strange as the Messiah was to the Greek.  We have really at\npresent no terms in which to express what we feel to be the permanent\nsignificance of Jesus, and the old expressions may repel us until we\nrealize, first, that they are not of the original essence of the\nGospel, and second, that they represent the best language which Greek\nand Jew could find for a conviction which we share--that Jesus of\nNazareth does stand in the centre of human history, that he has brought\nGod and man into a new relation, that he is the personal concern of\neveryone of us, and that there is more in him than we have yet\naccounted for.\n\nInto the question of the organization adopted by the early Christians\nand the development of the idea of the church, it is not essential to\nour present purpose to inquire.  Opinion varies as to how far we should\nseek the origin of the church in the teaching and work of Jesus.  If\nhis mind has been at all rightly represented in this book, it seems to\nfollow that he was not responsible either for the name or the idea of\nthe church.  Minds of the class to which his belongs have as a rule\nlittle or no interest in organizations and arrangements, and nothing\ncan {158} be more alien to the tone and spirit of his thinking than the\necclesiastical idea as represented by Cyprian and Ignatius.  That out\nof the group of followers who lived with Jesus, a society should grow,\nis natural; and societies instinctively organize themselves.  The Jew\noffered the pattern of a theocracy, and the Roman of a hierarchy of\nofficials, but it took two centuries to produce the church of Cyprian.\nThe series of running fights with Greek speculation in the second\ncentury contributed to the natural and acquired instincts for order and\nsystem,--particularly in a world where such instincts had little\nopportunity of exercise in municipal, and less in political, life.  The\nname was, as Harnack says, a masterly stroke--the \"ecclesia of God\"\nsuggested to the Greek the noble and free life of a self-governing\norganism such as the ancient world had known, but raised to a higher\nplane and transfigured from a Periclean Athens to a Heavenly Jerusalem.\nFine conceptions and high ideals clung about the idea of the church in\nthe best minds,[48] but in practice it meant the transformation of the\ngospel into a code, the repression of liberty of thought, and the final\nextinction of prophecy.  For the view that every one of these results\nwas desirable, reason might be shown in the vagaries of life and\nspeculation which the age knew, but it was obviously a departure from\nthe ideas of Jesus.\n\n[Sidenote: The new life]\n\nThe rise of the church was accompanied by the rise of mysteries.  There\nis a growing consensus of opinion among independent scholars that Jesus\ninstituted no sacraments, yet Paul found the rudiments of them among\nthe Christians and believed he had the warrant of Jesus for the\nheightening which he gave to them.  Ignatius speaks of the Ephesians\n\"breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality (_pharkmakon\nathanasias_) and the antidote that we should not die\"--the former\nphrase reappearing in Clement of Alexandria.[49]  That such ideas\nshould emerge in the Christian community is natural enough, when we\nconsider its environment--a world without natural science, steeped in\nbelief in every kind of magic and enchantment, and full of public and\nprivate religious societies, every one of which had its mysteries and\nmiracles and its blood-bond with its peculiar deity.  It was from such\na world {159} and such societies that most of the converts came and\nbrought with them the thoughts and instincts of countless generations,\nwho had never conceived of a religion without rites and mysteries.\nBaptism similarly took on a miraculous colour--men were baptized for\nthe dead in Paul's time--and before long it bore the names familiarly\ngiven by the world to all such rituals of admission--enlightenment\n(_photismos_) and initiation; and with the names came many added\nsymbolic practices in its administration.  The Christians readily\nrecognized the parallel between their rites and those of the heathen,\nbut no one seems to have perceived the real connexion between them.\nQuite naively they suggest the exact opposite--it was the daemons, who\nforesaw what the Christian rites (_hiera_) would be, and forestalled\nthem with all sorts of pagan parodies.[50]\n\nBut, after all, the force of the Christian movement lay neither in\nchurch, nor in sacrament, but in men.  \"How did Christianity rise and\nspread among men?\" asks Carlyle, \"was it by institutions, and\nestablishments, and well arranged systems of mechanism?  No! ... It\narose in the mystic deeps of man's soul; and was spread by the\n'preaching of the word,' by simple, altogether natural and individual\nefforts; and flew, like hallowed fire, from heart to heart, till all\nwere purified and illuminated by it.  Here was no Mechanism; man's\nhighest attainment was accomplished Dynamically, not Mechanically.\"[51]\nNothing could be more just.  The Gospel set fire to men's hearts, and\nthey needed to do nothing but live to spread their faith.  The ancient\nevidence is abundant for this.  The Christian had an \"insatiable\npassion for doing good\"[52]--not as yet a technical term--and he \"did\ngood\" in the simplest kind of ways.  \"Even those things which you do\nafter the flesh are spiritual,\" says Ignatius himself, \"for you do all\nthings in Jesus Christ.\"[53]  \"Christians,\" says a writer whose name is\nlost, \"are not distinguishable from the rest of mankind in land or\nspeech or customs.  They inhabit no special cities of their own, nor do\nthey use any different form of speech, nor do they cultivate any\nout-of-the-way life....  But while they live in Greek and barbarian\ncities as their lot may be {160} cast, and follow local customs in\ndress and food and life generally, ... yet they live in their own\ncountries as sojourners only; they take part in everything as citizens\nand submit to everything as strangers.  Every strange land is native to\nthem, and every native land is strange.  They marry and have children\nlike everyone else--but they do not expose their children.  They have\nmeals in common, but not wives.  They are in the flesh, but they do not\nlive after the flesh.  They continue on earth, but their citizenship is\nin heaven.  They obey the laws ordained, and by their private lives\nthey overcome the laws....  In a word, what the soul is in the body,\nthat is what Christians are in the world.\"[54]\n\n\"As a rule,\" wrote Galen, \"men need to be educated in parables.  Just\nas in our day we see those who are called Christians[55] have gained\ntheir faith from parables.  Yet they sometimes act exactly as true\nphilosophers would.  That they despise death is a fact we all have\nbefore our eyes; and by some impulse of modesty they abstain from\nsexual intercourse--some among them, men and women, have done so all\ntheir lives.  And some, in ruling and controlling themselves, and in\ntheir keen passion for virtue, have gone so far that real philosophers\ncould not excel them.\"[56]  So wrote a great heathen, and Celsus admits\nas much himself.  In life at least, if not in theory, the Christians\ndaily kept to the teaching of their Master.  \"Which is ampler?\" asks\nTertullian, \"to say, Thou shalt not kill; or to teach, Be not even\nangry?  Which is more perfect, to forbid adultery or to bid refrain\nfrom a single lustful look?\"[57]  There was as yet no flight from the\nworld, though Christians had no illusions about it or about the devil\nwho played so large a part in its affairs.  They lived in an age that\nsaw Antinous deified.[58]  They stood for marriage and family life,\nwhile all around \"holy\" men felt there was an unclean and daemonic\nelement in marriage.[59]  One Christian writer even speaks of women\nbeing {161} saved by child-bearing.[60]  Social conditions they\naccepted--even slavery among them--but they brought a new spirit into\nall; love and the sense of brotherhood could transform every thing.\nSlavery continued, but the word \"slave\" is not found in Christian\ncatacombs.[61]\n\nAbove all, they were filled with their Master's own desire to save men.\n\"I am debtor,\" wrote Paul, \"both to Greeks and to barbarians, wise and\nunwise.\"[62]  If modern criticism is right in detaching the \"missionary\ncommission\" (in Matthew) from the words of Jesus, the fact remains that\nthe early Christians were \"going into all the world\" and \"preaching the\ngospel to every creature\" for half a century before the words were\nwritten.  Why?  \"He that has the word of Jesus truly can hear his\nsilence,\" said Ignatius; and if Jesus did not speak these words, men\nheard his silence to the same effect.  Celsus, like Julian long after\nhim, was shocked at the kind of people to whom the gospel was\npreached.[63]\n\nThe Christian came to the helpless and hopeless, whom men despised, and\nof whom men despaired, with a message of the love and tenderness of\nGod, and he brought it home by a new type of love and tenderness of his\nown.  Kindness to friends the world knew; gentleness, too, for the sake\nof philosophic calm; clemency and other more or less self-contained\nvirtues.  The \"third race\" had other ideas--in all their virtues there\nwas the note of \"going out of oneself,\" the unconsciousness which Jesus\nloved--an instinctive habit of negating self (_aparnesasthai heauton_),\nwhich does not mean medieval asceticism, nor the dingy modern virtue of\nself-denial.  There was no sentimentalism in it; it was the spirit of\nJesus spiritualizing and transforming and extending the natural\ninstinct of brotherliness by making it theocentric.  Christians for a\ncentury or two never thought of _ataraxia_ or apathy, and, though\nClement of Alexandria plays with them, he tries to give them a new\nturn.  Fortunately the Gospels were more read than the _Stromateis_ and\n\"Christian apathy\" never succeeded.  The heathen recognized sympathy as\na Christian characteristic--\"How these {162} Christians love each\nother!\" they said.  Lucian bears the same testimony to the mutual care\nand helpfulness of Christians.  \"You see,\" wrote Lucian, \"these poor\ncreatures have persuaded themselves that they are immortal for all time\nand will live for ever, which explains why they despise death and\nvoluntarily give themselves up, as a general rule; and then their\noriginal law-giver persuaded them that they are all brothers, from the\nmoment that they cross over and deny the gods of Greece and worship\ntheir sophist who was gibbeted, and live after his laws.  All this they\naccept, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike and\ncount them common property.\"  In a later century Julian, perhaps\nfollowing Maximin Daza, whom he copied in trying to organize heathenism\ninto a new catholic church, urged benevolence on his fellow-pagans, if\nthey wished to compete with the Christians.  It was the only thing, he\nfelt, that could revive paganism, and his appeal met with no response.\n\"Infinite love in ordinary intercourse\" is the Christian life, and it\nmust come from within or nowhere.  No organization can produce it, and,\nhowever much we may have to discount Christian charity in some\ndirections as sometimes mechanical, the new spirit of brotherhood in\nthe world presupposed a great change in the hearts of men.\n\nIt was not Stoic cosmopolitanism.  The Christian was not \"the citizen\nof the world\" nor \"the Friend of Man\"; he was a plain person who gave\nhimself up for other people, cared for the sick and the worthless, had\na word of friendship and hope for the sinful and despised, would not go\nand see men killed in the amphitheatre, and--most curious of all--was\ncareful to have indigent brothers taught trades by which they could\nhelp themselves.  A lazy Christian was no Christian, he was a \"trader\nin Christ.\"[64]  If the Christians' citizenship was in heaven, he had a\nsocial message for this world in the meantime.\n\n[Sidenote: Woman]\n\nEvery great religious movement coincides with a new discovery of truth\nof some kind, and such discoveries induce a new temper.  Men inquire\nmore freely and speak more freely the truth they feel.  Mistakes are\nmade and a movement begins {163} for \"quenching the spirit.\"  But the\ngains that have been made by the liberated spirits are not lost.  Thus\nthe early Christian rose quickly to a sense of the value of woman.  Dr\nVerrall pronounces that \"the radical disease, of which, more than of\nanything else, ancient civilization perished \"was\" an imperfect ideal\nof woman.\"[65]  In the early church woman did a good many things, which\nin later days the authorities preferred not to mention.  Thekla's name\nis prominent in early story, and the prophetesses of Phrygia, Prisca\nand Maximilla, have a place in Church History.  They were not popular;\nbut the church was committed to the Gospel of Luke and the ministry of\nwomen to the Lord.  And whatever the Christian priesthood did or said,\nJesus and his followers had set woman on a level with man.  \"There is\nneither male nor female.\"  The same freedom of spirit is attested by\nthe way in which pagan prophets and their dupes classed Christians with\nEpicureans[66]--they saw and understood too much.  The Christians were\nthe only people (apart from the Jews) who openly denounced the folly of\nworshipping and deifying Emperors.  Even Ignatius, who is most famous\nfor his belief in authority, breaks into independence when men try to\nmake the Gospel dependent on the Old Testament--\"for me the documents\n(_ta archeia_) are Jesus Christ; my unassailable documents are his\ncross, and his death and resurrection, and the faith that is through\nhim; in which things I hope with your prayers to be saved.\"[67]  \"Where\nthe spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,\" as Paul said.\n\nGod and immortality were associated in Christian thought.  Christians,\nsaid a writer using the name of Peter, are to be \"partakers of the\ndivine nature.\"  \"If the soul,\" says Tatian, \"enters into union with\nthe divine spirit, it is no longer helpless, but ascends to regions\nwhither the spirit guides it; for the dwelling-place of the spirit is\nabove, but the origin of the soul is from beneath.\"[68]  \"God sent\nforth to us the Saviour and Prince of immortality, by whom he also made\nmanifest to us the truth and the heavenly life.\"[69]  The Christian's\nlife is \"hid with Christ in God,\" and Christ's resurrection is to the\n{164} early church the pledge of immortality--\"we shall be ever with\nthe Lord.\"  For the transmigration of souls and \"eternal re-dying,\"\nlife was substituted.[70]  \"We have believed,\" said Tatian, \"that there\nwill be a resurrection of our bodies, after the consummation of all\nthings--not, as the Stoics dogmatize, that in periodic cycles the same\nthings for ever come into being and pass out of it for no good\nwhatever,--but once for all,\" and this for judgment.  The judge is not\nMinos nor Rhadamanthus, but \"God the maker is the arbiter.\"[71]  \"They\nshall see him (Jesus) then on that day,\" wrote the so-called Barnabas,\n\"wearing the long scarlet robe upon his flesh, and they will say 'Is\nthis not he whom we crucified, whom we spat upon, and rejected?'\"[72]\nPersecution tempted the thought of what \"that day\" would mean for the\npersecutor.  But it was a real concern of the Christian himself.  \"I\nmyself, utterly sinful, not yet escaped from temptation, but still in\nthe midst of the devil's engines,--I do my diligence to follow after\nrighteousness that I may prevail so far as at least to come near it,\nfearing the judgment that is to come.\"[73] Immortality and\nrighteousness--the two thoughts go together, and both depend upon Jesus\nChrist.  He is emphatically called \"our Hope\"--a favourite phrase with\nIgnatius.[74]\n\n[Sidenote: Martyrdom and happiness]\n\nSome strong hope was needed--some \"anchor of the soul, sure and\nsteadfast.\"[75]  Death lay in wait for the Christian at every turn,\nnever certain, always probable.  The daemons whom he had renounced took\ntheir revenge in exciting his neighbours against him.[76]  The whim of\na mob[77] or the cruelty of a governor[78] might bring him face to face\nwith death in no man knew what horrible form.  One writer spoke of \"the\nburning that came for trial,\"[79] and the phrase was not exclusively a\nmetaphor.  {165} \"Away with the atheists--where is Polycarp?\" was a\nsudden shout at Smyrna--the mob already excited with sight of \"the\nright noble Germanicus fighting the wild beasts in a signal way.\"  The\nold man was sought and found--with the words \"God's will be done\" upon\nhis lips.  He was pressed to curse Christ.  \"Eighty-six years I have\nbeen his slave,\" he said, \"and he has done me no wrong.  How can I\nblaspheme my King who saved me?\"[80]  The suddenness of these attacks,\nand the cruelty, were enough to unnerve anyone who was not \"built upon\nthe foundation.\"  Nero's treatment of the Christians waked distaste in\nRome itself.  But it was the martyrdoms that made the church.\nStephen's death captured Paul.  \"I delighted in Plato's teachings,\"\nsays Justin, \"and I heard Christians abused, but I saw they were\nfearless in the face of death and all the other things men count\nfearful.\"[81]  Tertullian and others with him emphasize that \"the blood\nof martyrs is the seed of the church.\"  It was the death of Jesus over\nagain--the last word that carried conviction with it.\n\nWith \"the sentence of death in themselves\" the early Christians faced\nthe world, and astonished it by more than their \"stubbornness.\"  They\nwere the most essentially happy people of the day--Jesus was their\nhope, their sufficiency was of God, their names were written in heaven,\nthey were full of love for all men--they had \"become little children,\"\nas Jesus put it, glad and natural.  Jesus had brought them into a new\nworld of possibilities.  A conduct that ancient moralists dared not\nask, the character of Jesus suggested, and the love of Jesus made\nactual.  \"I can do all things,\" said Paul, \"in him that strengtheneth\nme.\"  They looked to assured victory over evil and they achieved it.\n\"This is the victory that _has_ overcome the world--our faith.\"  Very\nsoon a new note is heard in their words.  Stoicism was never\n\"essentially musical\"; Epictetus announces a hymn to Zeus,[82] but he\nnever starts the tune.  Over and over again there is a sound of singing\nin Paul--as in the eighth chapter of the _Romans_, and the thirteenth\nof _First Corinthians_,[83] and it repeats itself.  \"Children of joy\"\nis Barnabas' name for his friends.[84] {166} \"Doing the will of Christ\nwe shall find rest,\" wrote the unknown author of \"Second Clement.\"[85]\n\"Praising we plough; and singing we sail,\" wrote the greater\nClement.[86]  \"Candidates for angelhood, even here we learn the strain\nhereafter to be raised to God, the function of our future glory,\" said\nTertullian.[87] \"Clothe thyself in gladness, that always has grace with\nGod and is welcome to him--and revel in it.  For every glad man does\nwhat is good, and thinks what is good....  The holy spirit is a glad\nspirit ... yes, they shall all live to God, who put away sadness from\nthemselves and clothe themselves in all gladness.\"  So said the angel\nto Hermas,[88] and he was right.  The holy spirit was a glad spirit,\nand gladness--joy in the holy spirit--was the secret of Christian\nmorality.  Nothing could well be more gay and happy than Clement's\n_Protrepticus_.  Augustine was attracted to the church because he saw\nit _non dissolute hilaris_.  Such happiness in men is never without a\npersonal centre, and the church made no secret that this centre was\n\"Jesus Christ, whom you have not seen, but you love him; whom yet you\nsee not, but you believe in him and rejoice with joy unspeakable and\nglorified.\"[89]\n\n\nChapter V Footnotes:\n\n[1] See Burkitt's _Early Eastern Christianity_.\n\n[2] See Justin, _Apology_, i, 14, a vivid passage on the change of\ncharacter that has been wrought in men by the Gospel.  Cf. Tert. _ad\nScap._ 2, _nec aliunde noscibiles quam de emendatione vitiorum\npristinorum_.\n\n[3] Ephesians iv, 4.\n\n[4] 1 Peter ii, 7.\n\n[5] Tertullian, _ad Nationes_, i, 8, _Plane, tertium genus dicimur ...\nverum recogitate ne quos tertium genus dicitis principem locum\nobtineant, siquidem non ulla gens non Christiana_.\n\n[6] Cf. Jeremiah xxxi, 31--a favourite passage with Christian\napologists.\n\n[7] Professor Percy Gardner (_Growth of Christianity_, p. 49)\nillustrates this by comparison of earlier and later stages in Christian\nArt.  On some early Christian sarcophagi Jesus is represented with\nmarkedly Jewish features; soon however he is idealized into a type of\nthe highest humanity.\n\n[8] Tatian, 42.\n\n[9] _Id._ 35.\n\n[10] Tatian, 29.  Cf. the account Theophilus gives of the influence\nupon him of the study of the prophets, i, 14.\n\n[11] 26.\n\n[12] 25.\n\n[13] 35.\n\n[14] Ignatius, _Magn._ 11; _Trall_, 9, 10; _Smyrn._ 1, 2, 3, 12.\n\n[15] Ignatius, _Eph._ 15, _logon Iesoi kektemenos alethos dynatai kai\ntes hesychias autou akoueis_.\n\n[16] Tatian, 16, 17.  Cf. Plutarch (cited on p. 107) on malignant\ndaemons.  See Tertullian, _Apol._ 22; Justin, _Apol._ ii. 5; Clem. Alex.\n_Protr._ 3, 41, on the works of daemons.\n\n[17] Tatian, 7, 8.\n\n[18] See Tertullian, _de Idol._ 9, on the surprising case of a\nChristian who wished to pursue his calling of astrologer--a claim\nTertullian naturally will not allow.\n\n[19] Tatian, 9.\n\n[20] The so-called second letter of Clement of Rome, c. 3.\n\n[21] Clem. Alex. _Protr._ 3.\n\n[22] 1 Cor. vi, etc.\n\n[23] Justin, _Dial. c. Tryph._ 30.\n\n[24] Tatian, 33; Justin, _Apol._ ii, 10.  It may be noted that Justin\nquotes the famous passage in the Timaeus (28 C) not quite correctly.\nSuch passages \"familiar in his mouth as household words\" are very\nrarely given with verbal accuracy.  Tertullian, _Apol._ 46, and\nClement, _Strom._ v, 78, 92, also quote this passage.\n\n[25] _Apol._ 46.  Compare Theophilus, i, 2; \"If you say 'Show me your\nGod,' I would say to you, 'Show me your man and I will show you my\nGod,' or show me the eyes of your soul seeing, and the ears of your\nheart hearing.\"\n\n[26] _ad Diogn._ 8, 1.\n\n[27] Clem. R. 29, 1, _ton epieike kai eusplagchnon patera hemon_.\n\n[28] Clem. Alex. _Protr._ 116.\n\n[29] Clem. Alex. _Protr._ 25, _emphytos archaia koinonia_.\n\n[30] Clem. Alex. _Protr._ 91, citing _Iliad_, 2, 315 (Cowper).\n\n[31] 2 Cor. i, 22; v, 5.\n\n[32] Cf. Tatian, 15.\n\n[33] Barnabas, 4, 8.\n\n[34] Ign. _Eph._ 6, 2.\n\n[35] II. Clem. 1, 3-7 (abridged a little).\n\n[36] Clem. R. 7, 4.\n\n[37] Clem. R. 16, 17.\n\n[38] Ign. _Eph._ 10, 3.\n\n[39] Cf. Socr. _e.h._ iii, 17, 4, the Antiochenes mocked the Emperor\nJulian, _euripistoi gar oi anthropoi eis hubreis_.\n\n[40] II. Clem. 14, 2.\n\n[41] See Tertullian, _Apol._ 22.\n\n[42] Athenagoras, _Presbeia_, 9.\n\n[43] See a very interesting chapter in Philo's _de migr. Abr._ 7 (441\nM), where he gives a very frequent experience of his own (_muriakis\npathon_) as a writer.  Sometimes, though he \"saw clearly\" what to say,\nhe found his mind \"barren and sterile\" and went away with nothing done,\nwith \"the womb of his soul closed.\"  At other times he \"came empty and\nsuddenly became full, as thoughts were imperceptibly sowed and snowed\nupon him from above, so that, as if under Divine possession (_katoches\nentheou_), he became frenzied (_korubantian_) and utterly knew not the\nplace, nor those present, nor himself, nor what was said or written.\"\nSee Tert. _de Anima_, 11, on the spirits of God and of the devil that\nmay come upon the soul.\n\n[44] It may be remarked, in passing, that the contemporary worship of\nthe Emperor is to be explained by the same theory of the possibility of\nan indwelling daimonion.  It was helped out by the practice, which had\nnever so far died out in the East and in Egypt, of regarding the King\nand his children as gods incarnate.  See J. G. Frazer, _Early History\nof Kingship_.\n\n[45] Tertullian, _adv._ Marc, iii, 8, _nihil solidam ab inani, nihil\nplenum a vacuo perfici licuit ... imaginarius operator, imaginariae\noperae_.\n\n[46] Tertullian, _de carne Christi_, 5.\n\n[47] His Tarsiot feeling is perhaps shown by his preference that women\nshould be veiled.  Dio Chrysostom (_Or._ 33, 48) mentions that in\nTarsus there is much conservatism shown in the very close veiling of\nthe women's faces.\n\n[48] Tert. _Apol._ 39, _Corpus sumus de conscientia religionis et\ndisciplinae unitate et spei foedere_.\n\n[49] Ign. _Eph._ 20; Clem. Alex. _Protr._ 106.\n\n[50] Justin, _Apol._ i, 66, the use of bread and cup in the mysteries\nof Mithras; Tertullian, _de Bapt._ 5, on baptism in the rites of Isis\nand Mithras, the mysteries of Eleusis, etc.\n\n[51] Carlyle, _Signs of the Times_, (Centenary edition of Essays, ii,\np. 70.)\n\n[52] Clem. R. 2, 2, _akorestos pothos eis agathopoiian_.\n\n[53] Ign. _Eph._ 8, 2.\n\n[54] Auctor _ad Diognetum_, 5-6.\n\n[55] He apologizes for the use of the name, as educated people did in\nhis day, when it was awkward or impossible to avoid using it.  It was a\nvulgarism.\n\n[56] Galen, extant in Arabic in _hist. anteislam_.  _Abulfedae_ (ed.\nFleischer, p. 109), quoted by Harnack, _Expansion of Christianity_, i,\np. 266.\n\n[57] Tertullian, _Apol._ 45; cf. Justin, _Apol._ i, 15.\n\n[58] Cf. Justin, _Apol._ i, 29.\n\n[59] The feeling referred to is associated with the primitive sense of\nthe mystery of procreation and conception surviving, it is said, among\nthe Arunta of Australia, and very widely in the case of twins; see\nRendel Harris, _Cult of the Dioscuri_.\n\n[60] Tim. 2, 15.  Cf. Tert. _adv. Marc._ iv, 17, _nihil impudentius si\nille nos sibi filio faciet qui nobis filios facere non permisit\naufercndo conubium_.\n\n[61] de Rossi, cited by Harnack, _Expansion_, i, 208 n.\n\n[62] Romans 1, 14.\n\n[63] See p. 241; and cf. Justin, _Apol._ i, 15.\n\n[64] _Didache_, 12.  _ei de ouk echei technen, kata ten synesin humon\npronoesate, pos me argos meth hymon zesetai christianos.  ei de ou\nthelei outo poiein, christemporos estin prosechete apo ton toiouton_.\nSee Tert. _Apol._ 39, on provision for the needy and the orphan, the\nshipwrecked, and those in jails and mines.\n\n[65] Euripides the Rationalist, p. 111 n.\n\n[66] Lucian, _Alexander_, 38, Alexander said: \"If any atheist, or\nChristian, or Epicurean comes as a spy upon our rites let him flee!\"\nHe said _exo christianous_, and the people responded _exo Epikoureious_.\n\n[67] Ignatius, _Philad._ 8.\n\n[68] Tatian, 13.\n\n[69] II. Clem. 20, 5.\n\n[70] See Tertullian, _de Testim. Animae_, 4, the Christian opinion much\nnobler than the Pythagorean.\n\n[71] Tatian, 6.  Cf. Justin, _Apol._ i, 8; and Tertullian, _de\nSpectaculis_, 30, quoted on p. 305.\n\n[72] Barnabas, 7, 9.  Cf. Rev. i, 7.  Behold he Cometh with the clouds\nand every eye shall see him--and they that pierced him.  Cf.\nTertullian, _de Spect._ 30, once more.\n\n[73] II. Clem. 18, 2.\n\n[74] Ignatius, _Eph._ 21; _Magn._ 11; _Trall._ int. 2, 2; _Philad._ 11.\n\n[75] _Hebrews_ 6, 19.\n\n[76] Justin, Apol. i, 5, the daemons procured the death of Socrates,\n_kai homoios eph hymon to auto energouoi_: 10, they spread false\nreports against Christians; _Apol._ ii, 12; Minucius Felix, 27, 8.\n\n[77] The mob, with stones and torches, Tert. _Apol._ 37; even the dead\nChristian was dragged from the grave, _de asylo quodam mortis_, and\ntorn to pieces.\n\n[78] Stories of governors in Tert. _ad Scap._ 3, 4, 5; one provoked by\nhis wife becoming a Christian.\n\n[79] I. Peter 4, 12.\n\n[80] _Martyrium Polycarpi_, 3, 7-11.\n\n[81] Justin, _Apol._ ii, 12.\n\n[82] _D._ i, 16, the hymn he proposes is quoted on p. 62.  It hardly\nsings itself, and he does not return to it.  The verbal parallel of the\npassage with that in Clement, _Strom._ vii, 35, heightens the contrast\nof tone.\n\n[83] See Norden, _Kunstprosa_, ii, 509.\n\n[84] Barnabas, 7, 1.\n\n[85] II. Clem. 6, 7.\n\n[86] _Strom._ vii, 35.\n\n[87] _de orat._ 3.\n\n[88] Hermas, _M._ 10, 31,--the word is _ilaros_; which Clement (_l.c._)\nalso uses, conjoining it with _semnos_.  Cf. Synesius, _Ep._ 57, p.\n1389, Migne, who says that when he was depressed about becoming a\nbishop (410 A.D.), old men told him _hos ilaron esti to pneuma to\nhagion kai ilarunei tous metochous autou_.\n\n[89] 1 Peter, 1, 8.\n\n\n\n\n{167}\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE CONFLICT OF CHRISTIAN AND JEW\n\nIt is a much discussed question as to how far Jesus realized the\nprofound gulf between his own religious position and that of his\ncontemporaries.  Probably, since tradition meant more to them, they\nwere quicker to see declension from orthodox Judaism than a mind more\nopen and experimental; and when they contrived his death, it was with a\nclear sense of acting in defence of God's Law and God's Covenant with\nIsrael.  From their own point of view they were right, for the triumph\nof the ideas of Jesus was the abolition of tribal religions and their\nsupersession by a new mind or spirit with nothing local or racial about\nit.\n\nThe death of Jesus meant to the little community, which he left behind\nhim, a final cleavage with the system of their fathers, under which\nthey had been born, and with which was associated every religious idea\nthey had known before their great intimacy began.  It was a moment of\nboundless import in the history of mankind.  Slowly and reluctantly\nthey moved out into the great unknown,--pilgrim fathers, unconscious of\nthe great issues they carried, but obedient to an impulse, the truth of\nwhich history has long since established.  Once again it was their\nopponents who were the quickest to realize what was involved, for\naffection blinded their own eyes.\n\nThe career of Paul raised the whole question between Judaism and\nChristianity.  He was the first to speak decisively of going to the\nGentiles.  The author of the _Acts_ cites precedents for his action;\nand, as no great movement in man's affairs comes unheralded, it is easy\nto believe that even before Paul \"the word\" reached Gentile ears.  None\nthe less the leader in the movement was Paul; and whatever we may\nimagine might have been the history of Christianity without him, it\nremains that he declared, decisively and for all time, the church's\nindependence of the synagogue.  It is {168} not unlikely that, even\nbefore his conversion, he had grasped the fact that church and\nsynagogue were not to be reconciled, and that, when \"it pleased God to\nreveal his Son in him,\" he knew at once that he was in \"a new creation\"\nand that he was to be a prophet of a new dispensation.\n\n[Sidenote: The Jewish heritage]\n\nThere is no doubt that the hostile Jews very quickly realised Paul's\nsignificance, but the Christians were not so quick.  Paul was a\nnewcomer and very much the ablest man among them--they were \"not many\nwise, not many learned,\" and Paul, though he does not mention it, was\nboth.  He was moreover proposing to take them into regions far beyond\ntheir range; he had not personally known \"the Lord\" and they had; and\nthere was no clear word of Jesus on the Gentile question.  There was a\nconference.  What took place, Paul tries in the Galatians to tell; but\nhe is far too quick a thinker to be a master of mere narrative; the\nquestion of Christian freedom was too hot in his heart to leave him\nfree for reminiscence, and the matter is not very clear.  The author of\nthe Acts was not at the council, and, whatever his authorities may have\nbeen, there is a constant suggestion in his writing that he has a\npurpose in view--a purpose of peace between parties.  Whether they\nliked the result or not, the Christian community seem loyally to have\nsubmitted themselves to \"the Spirit of Jesus.\"  \"It seemed good to the\nholy spirit and to us\" tells the story of their deliberations, whether\nthey put the phrase at the top of a resolution or did not.  Paul came\nto the personal followers of Jesus with a new and strange conception of\nthe religion of their Master.  They laid it alongside of their memories\nof their Master, and they heard him say \"Go ye into all the world\"; and\nthey went.\n\nThe natural outcome of this forward step at once became evident.  Paul\ndid not go among the Gentiles to \"preach circumcision,\" and there\nquickly came into being, throughout Asia Minor and in the Balkan\nprovinces, many groups of Christians of a new type--Gentile in mind and\ntradition, and in Christian life no less Gentile.  They remained\nuncircumcised, they did not observe the Sabbath nor any other\ndistinctive usage of Judaism--they were a new people, a \"third race.\"\nTheir very existence put Judaism on the defensive; for, if their\nposition was justified, it was hard to see {169} what right Judaism had\nto be.  It was not yet quite clear what exactly the new religion was,\nnor into what it might develope; but if, as the Gentile Christians and\ntheir Apostle claimed, they stood in a new relation to God, a higher\nand a more tender than the greatest and best spirits in Israel had\nknown, and this without the seal of God's covenant with Israel and\nindependently of his law, then it was evident that the unique\nprivileges of Israel were void, and that, as Paul put it, \"there is\nneither Jew nor Greek.\"\n\nThat part of the Jewish race, and it was the larger part, which did not\naccept the new religion, was in no mind to admit either Paul's\npremisses or his conclusions.  They stood for God's covenant with\nIsrael.  Nor did they stand alone, for it took time to convince even\nChristian Jews that the old dispensation had yielded to a new one, and\nthat the day of Moses was past.  To the one class the rise of the\nChristian community was a menace, to the other a problem.  The one left\nno means untried to check it.  By argument, by appeals to the past, by\nworking on his superstitions, they sought to make the Christian convert\ninto a Jew; and, when they failed, they had other methods in reserve.\nThemselves everywhere despised and hated, as they are still, for their\nability and their foreign air, they stirred up their heathen neighbours\nagainst the new race.  Again and again, in the _Acts_ and in later\ndocuments, we read of the Jews being the authors of pagan\npersecution.[1]  The \"unbelieving Jew\" was a spiritual and a social\ndanger to the Christian in every city of the East.  The converted Jew\nwas, in his way, almost as great a difficulty within the community.\n\nIt is not hard to understand the feeling of the Jews within or without\nthe Church.  Other races had their ancient histories, and the Jew had\nhis--a history long and peculiar.  From the day of Abraham, the friend\nof God, the chosen race had been the special care of Jehovah.  Jehovah\nhad watched over them; he had saved them from their enemies; he had\nvisited them for their iniquities; he had sent them prophets; he had\ngiven them his law.  In a long series of beautiful images, which move\nus yet, Jehovah had spoken, through holy men of old, of his love for\nIsrael.  To Israel belonged the oracles of God {170} and his promises.\nFor here again the national consciousness of Israel differed from that\nof every other race.  It was something that in the past God had spoken\nto no human family except the seed of Abraham; it was more that to\nthem, and to them alone, he had assured the future.  Deeply as Israel\nfelt the trials of the present, the Roman would yet follow the Persian\nand the Greek, and the day of Israel would dawn.  The Messiah was to\ncome and restore all things.\n\n\"He shall destroy the ungodly nations with the word of his mouth, so\nthat at his rebuke the nations may flee before him, and he shall\nconvict the sinners in the thoughts of their hearts.\n\n\"And he shall gather together a holy people whom he shall lead in\nrighteousness; and shall judge the tribes of his people that hath been\nsanctified by the Lord his God.\n\n\"And he shall not suffer iniquity to lodge in their midst, and none\nthat knoweth wickedness shall dwell with them....\n\n\"And he shall possess the nations of the heathen to serve him beneath\nhis yoke; and he shall glorify the Lord in a place to be seen of the\nwhole earth;\n\n\"And he shall purge Jerusalem and make it holy, even as it was in the\ndays of old.\n\n\"So that the nations may come from the ends of the earth to see his\nglory, bringing as gifts her sons that had fainted,\n\n\"And may see the glory of the Lord, wherewith God hath glorified her.\"\n\nSo runs one of the _Psalms of Solomon_ written between 70 and 40\nB.C.[2]  Parallel passages might be multiplied, but one may suffice,\nwritten perhaps in the lifetime of Jesus.\n\n\"Then thou, O Israel, wilt be happy, and thou wilt mount upon the neck\nof the eagle, and [the days of thy mourning] will be ended,\n\n\"And God will exalt thee, and he will cause thee to approach to the\nheaven of the stars, and he will establish thy habitation among them,\n\n\"And thou wilt look from on high, and wilt see thine {171} enemies in\nGe[henna], and thou wilt recognize them and rejoice, and wilt give\nthanks and confess thy Creator.\"[3]\n\nNo people in the Mediterranean world had such a past behind them, and\nnone a future so sure and so glorious before them--none indeed seems to\nhave had any great hope of the future at all; their Golden Ages were\nall in the past, or far away in mythical islands of the Eastern seas or\nbeyond the Rhine.  And if the Christian doctrine was true, that great\npast was as dead as Babylon, and the Messianic Kingdom was a\nmockery--Israel was \"feeding on the east wind,\" and the nation was not\nJehovah's chosen.  At one stroke Israel was abolished, and every\nnational memory and every national instinct, rooted in a past of\nsuffering and revelation, and watered with tears in a present of pain,\nwere to wither like the gardens of Adonis.  No man with a human heart\nbut must face the alternative of surrendering national for Christian\nideals, or hating and exterminating the enemy of his race.\n\nSo much for the nation, and what Christianity meant for it, but much\nbeside was at stake.  There was the seal of circumcision, the\nhereditary token of God's covenant with Abraham, a sacrament passed on\nfrom father to son and associated with generations of faith and piety.\nWeek by week the Sabbath came with its transforming memories--the\n\"Princess Sabbath,\" for Heine was not the first to feel the magic that\nat sunset on Friday restores the Jew to the \"halls of his royal father,\nthe tents of Jacob.\"  Every one of their religious usages spoke\nirresistibly of childhood.  \"When your children shall say unto you\n'What mean ye by this service,' ye shall say...,\" so ran the old law,\nbinding every Jew to his father by the dearest and strongest of all\nbonds.  To become a Christian was thus to be alienated from the\ncommonwealth of Israel, to renounce a father's faith and his home.  If\nthe pagan had to suffer for his conversion, the Jew's heritage was\nnobler and holier, and the harder to forego.  Even the friendly Jew\npleads, \"Cannot a man be saved who trusts in Christ and also keeps the\nlaw--keeps it so far as he {172} can under the conditions of the\ndispersion,--the Sabbath, circumcision, the months, and certain\nwashings?\"[4]\n\n[Sidenote: The Jewish attack on Jesus]\n\nBut this was not all.  Israel had stood for monotheism and that not the\nmonotheism of Greek philosophy, a dogma of the schools consistent with\nthe cults of Egypt and Phrygia, with hierodules and a deified Antinous.\nThe whole nation had been consecrated to the worship of One God, a\npersonal God, who had, at least where Israel was concerned, no hint of\nphilosophic Apathy.  The Jew was now asked by the Christian to admit a\nsecond God--a God beside the Creator (_allos theos para ton poieten ton\nholon_[5])--and such a God!  The Jews knew all about Jesus of\nNazareth--it was absurd to try to pass him off even as the Messiah.\n\"Sir,\" said Trypho, \"these scriptures compel us to expect one glorious\nand great, who receives from 'the Ancient of Days' the 'eternal\nKingdom' as 'Son of Man'; but this man of yours--your so-called\nChrist--was unhonoured and inglorious, so that he actually fell under\nthe extreme curse that is in the law of God; for he was crucified.\"[6]\nThe whole thing was a paradox, incapable of proof.[7]  \"It is an\nincredible thing, and almost impossible that you are trying to\nprove--that God endured to be begotten and to become a man.\"[8]\n\nThe Jews had a propaganda of their own about Jesus.  They sent\nemissaries from Palestine to supply their countrymen and pagans with\nthe truth.[9]  Celsus imagines a Jew disputing with a Christian,--a\nmore life-like Jew, according to Harnack, than Christian apologists\ndraw,--and the arguments he uses came from Jewish sources.  Jesus was\nborn, they said, in a village, the bastard child of a peasant woman, a\npoor person who worked with her hands, divorced by her husband (who was\na carpenter) for adultery.[10]  The father was a soldier called\nPanthera.  As to the Christian story, what could have attracted the\nattention of God to her?  Was she pretty?  The carpenter at all events\nhated her and cast her out.[11] {173} (\"I do not think I need trouble\nabout this argument,\" is all Origen says.)  Who saw the dove, or heard\nthe voice from heaven, at the baptism?  Jesus suffered death in\nPalestine for the guilt he had committed (_plemmelesanta_).  He\nconvinced no one while he lived; even his disciples betrayed him--a\nthing even brigands would not have done by their chief--so far was he\nfrom improving them, and so little ground is there for saying that he\nforetold to them what he should surfer.  He even complained of thirst\non the cross.  As for the resurrection, that rests on the evidence of a\nmad woman (_paroistros_)--or some other such person among the same set\nof deceivers, dreaming, or deluded, or \"wishing to startle the rest\nwith the miracle, and by a lie of that kind to give other impostors a\nlead.\"  Does the resurrection of Jesus at all differ from those of\nPythagoras or Zamolxis or Orpheus or Herakles--\"or do you think that\nthe tales of other men both are and seem myths, but that the\ncatastrophe of your play is a well-managed and plausible piece of\ninvention--the cry upon the gibbet, when he died, and the earthquake\nand the darkness?\"[12]  The Christians systematically edited and\naltered the Gospels to meet the needs of the moment;[13] but Jesus did\nnot fulfil the prophecies of the Messiah--\"the prophets say he shall be\ngreat, a dynast, lord of all the earth and all its nations and\narmies.\"[14]  There are ten thousand other men to whom the prophecies\nare more applicable than to Jesus,[15] and as many who in frenzy claim\nto \"come from God.\"[16]  In short the whole story of the Christians\nrests on no evidence that will stand investigation.\n\nEven men who would refrain from the hot-tempered method of controversy,\nwhich these quotations reflect, might well feel the contrast between\nthe historic Jesus and the expected Messiah--between the proved failure\nof the cross and the world-empire of a purified and glorious Israel.\nAnd when it was suggested further that Jesus was God, an effluence\ncoming from God, as light is lit by light--even if this were true, it\nwould seem that the Jew was asked to give up the worship of the One\nGod, which he had learnt of his fathers, and to turn to a being not\nunlike the pagan gods around him in every land, who also, their\napologists said, came from the {174} Supreme, and were his emanations\nand ministers and might therefore be worshipped.\n\nThus everything that was distinctive of their race and their\nreligion--the past of Israel, the Messiah and the glorious future, the\nbeautiful symbols of family religion, and the One God Himself--all was\nto be surrendered by the man who became a Christian.  We realize the\nextraordinary and compelling force of the new religion, when we\nremember that, in spite of all to hold them back, there were those who\nmade the surrender and \"suffered the loss of all things to win Christ\nand be found in him.\"  Paul however rested, as he said, on revelation,\nand ordinary men, who were not conscious of any such distinction, who\nmistrusted themselves and their emotions, and who rested most naturally\nupon the cumulative religious experience of their race, might well ask\nwhether after all they were right in breaking with a sacred\npast--whether, apart from subjective grounds, there were any clear\nwarrant from outside to enable them to go forward.  The Jew had of\ncourse oracles of God given by inspiration (_theopneustos_[17]),\nwritten by \"holy men of God, moved by the holy spirit.\"  These were his\nwarrant.  Here circumcision, the Sabbath, the Passover, and all his\nreligious life was definitely and minutely prescribed in what was\nalmost, like the original two tables, the autograph of the One God.\nThe law had its own history bound up with that of the race, and the\nexperience and associations of every new generation made it more deeply\nawful and mysterious.  Had the Christian any law? had he any oracles,\napart from the unintelligible glossolalies of men possessed\n(_enthousiontes_)?  When Justin spoke of the gifts of the Spirit,\nTrypho interjected, \"I should like you to know that you are talking\nnonsense.\"[18]\n\n[Sidenote: The problem]\n\nNot unnaturally then did men say to Ignatius (as we have seen), \"If I\ndo not find it in the ancient documents, I do not believe it in the\ngospel.\"  And when Ignatius rejoined, \"It is written\"; \"That is the\nproblem,\" said they.[19]  It was their problem, though it was not his.\nFor him Judaism is \"a leaven old and sour,\" and \"to use the name of\nJesus Christ and yet observe Jewish customs is absurd (_atopon_)\" or\nreally \"to confess we have not received grace.\"[20]  His documents were\n{175} Jesus Christ, his cross and death and resurrection, and faith\nthrough him.\n\n\"That is the problem\"--can it be shown from the infallible Hebrew\nScriptures that the crucified Jesus is the Messiah of prophecy, that he\nis a \"God beside the Creator,\" that Sabbath and Circumcision are to be\nsuperseded, that Israel's covenant is temporary, and that the larger\noutlook of the Christian is after all the eternal dispensation of which\nthe Jewish was a copy made for a time?  If this could be shown, it\nmight in some measure stop the mouths of hostile Jews, and calm the\nuneasy consciences of Jews and proselytes who had become Christians.\nAnd it might serve another and a distinct purpose.  It was one of the\ndifficulties of the Christian that his religion was a new thing in the\nworld.  Around him were men who gloried in ancient literatures and\nhistoric cults.  All the support that men can derive from tradition and\nauthority, or even from the mere fact of having a past behind them, was\nwanting to the new faith, as its opponents pointed out.  If, by\nestablishing his contention against the Jew, the Christian could\nachieve another end, and could demonstrate to the Greek that he too had\na history and a literature, that his religion was no mere accident of a\nday, but was rooted in the past, that it had been foretold by God\nhimself, and was part of the divine scheme for the destiny of mankind,\nthen, resting on the sure ground of Providence made plain, he could\ncall upon the Greek in his turn to forsake his errors and superstitions\nfor the first of all religions, which should also be the last--the\nfaith of Jesus Christ.\n\nThe one method thus served two ends.  Justin addressed an _Apology_ to\nAntoninus Pius, and one-half of his book is occupied with the\ndemonstration that every major characteristic of Christianity had been\nprophesied and was a fulfilment.  The thirty chapters show what weight\nthe sheer miracle of this had with the apologist, though, if the\nEmperor actually read the _Apology_, it was probably his first contact\nwith Jewish scripture.  Some difference of treatment was necessary,\naccording as the method was directed to Jew or Gentile.  For the Jew it\nwas axiomatic that Scripture was the word of God, and, if he did not\ngrant the Christian's postulate of allegory, he was withholding from an\nopponent what had been allowed to Philo.  {176} The Greek would\nprobably allow the allegory, and the first task in his case was to show\nby chronological reckoning that the greater prophets, and above all\nMoses, antedated the bloom of Greek literature, and then to draw the\ninference that it was from Hebrew sources that the best thoughts of\nHellas had been derived.  Here the notorious interest of early Greek\nthinkers in Egypt helped to establish the necessary, though rather\nremote, connexion.  When once the priority of the Hebrew prophets had\nbeen proved, and, by means of allegory, a coincidence (age by age more\nstriking) had been established between prophecy and event, the\ndemonstration was complete.  There could be only one interpretation of\nsuch facts.\n\nA number of these refutations of the Jew survive from early times.\nJustin's _Dialogue with Trypho_ is the most famous, as it deserves to\nbe.  It opens in a pleasant Platonic style with a chance meeting one\nmorning in a colonnade at Ephesus.[21]  Trypho accosts the philosopher\nJustin--\"When I see a man in your garb, I gladly approach him, and that\nis why I spoke to you, hoping to hear something profitable from you.\"\nWhen Trypho says he is a Jew, Justin asks in what he expects to be more\nhelped by philosophy than by his own prophets and law-giver.  Is not\nall the philosophers' talk about God? Trypho asks.  Justin then tells\nhim of his own wanderings in philosophy,--how he went from school to\nschool, and at last was directed by an old man to read the Jewish\nprophets, and how \"a fire was kindled in my soul, and a passion seized\nme for the prophets and those men who are Christ's friends; and so,\ndiscussing their words with myself, I found this philosophy alone to be\nsafe and helpful.  And that is how and why I am a philosopher.\"[22]\nTrypho smiled, but, while approving Justin's ardour in seeking after\nGod, he added that he would have done better to philosophize with Plato\nor one of the others, practising endurance, continence and temperance,\nthan \"to be deceived by lies and to follow men who are worthless.\"\nThen the battle begins, and it is waged in a courteous and kindly\nspirit, as befits philosophers, till after two days they part with\nprayers and goodwill for each other--Trypho unconvinced.  Other writers\nhave less {177} skill, and the features of dialogue are sadly whittled\naway.  Others again abandon all pretence of discussion and frankly\ngroup their matter as a scheme of proof-texts.  In what follows, Justin\nshall be our chief authority.\n\nWe may start with the first point that Trypho raises.  \"If you will\nlisten to me (for I count you a friend already), first of all be\ncircumcised, and then keep, in the traditional way, the Sabbath and the\nfeasts and new moons of God, and, in a word, do all that is written in\nthe law, and then perhaps God will have mercy upon you.  As for Christ,\nif indeed he has been born and already exists, he is unknown--nay! he\ndoes not even know himself yet, nor has he any power, till Elijah come\nand anoint him and make him manifest to all men.  You people have\naccepted an empty tale, and are imagining a Christ for yourselves, and\nfor the sake of him you are perishing quite aimlessly.\"[23]\n\nSalvation, according to the Jew, was inconceivable outside the pale of\nJudaism.  \"Except ye be circumcised, ye cannot be saved,\" men had said\nin Paul's time.  Paul's repudiation of this assertion is to be read in\nhis Epistle to the _Galatians_--in his whole life and mind.  But genius\nsuch as Paul's was not to be found in the early church, and men looked\noutside of themselves for arguments to prove what he had seen and known\nof his own experience and insight.\n\n[Sidenote: The letter to Diognetus]\n\nSome apologists merely laughed at the Jew.  Thus the brilliant and\nwinsome writer known only by his _Epistle to Diognetus_ has a short and\nready way of dealing with Jewish usages, which is not conciliatory.\n\"In the next place I think you wish to hear why Christians do not\nworship in the same way as the Jews.  Now the Jews do well in\nabstaining from the mode of service I have described [paganism], in\nthat they claim to reverence One God of the universe and count Him\ntheir master; but, in offering this worship to Him in the same way as\nthose I have mentioned, they go far astray.  For the Greeks offer those\nthings to senseless and deaf images and so give an exhibition of folly,\nwhile the Jews--considering they are presenting them to God as if He\nhad need of them--ought in all reason to count it foolery and not\npiety.  For He that made the heaven and the earth and all {178} that is\nin them, and gives freely to every one of us what we need, could not\nHimself need any of the things which He Himself actually gives to those\nwho imagine they are giving them to Him....\n\n\"But again of their nervousness (_psophodees_) about meats, and their\nsuperstition about the Sabbath, and the quackery (_aladoneia_) of\ncircumcision, and the pretence (_eironeia_) of fasts and new\nmoons--ridiculous and worthless as it all is, I do not suppose you wish\nme to tell you.  For to accept some of the things which God has made\nfor man's need as well created, and to reject others as useless and\nsuperfluous, is it not rebellion (_athemiston_)?  To lie against God as\nif He forbade us to do good on the Sabbath day, is not that impiety?\nTo brag that the mutilation of the flesh is a proof of election--as if\nGod specially loved them for it--ridiculous!  And that they should keep\na look-out on the stars and the moon and so observe months and days and\ndistinguish the ordinances of God and the changes of the seasons, as\ntheir impulses prompt them to make some into feasts and some into times\nof mourning--who would count this a mark of piety towards God and not\nmuch rather of folly?\n\n\"That Christians are right to keep aloof from the general silliness and\ndeceit of the Jews, their fussiness and quackery, I think you are well\nenough instructed.  The mystery of their own piety towards God you must\nnot expect to be able to learn from man.\"[24]\n\nThis was to deal with the distinctive usages of Judaism on general\nprinciples and from a standpoint outside it.  It would doubtless be\nconvincing enough to men who did not need to be convinced, but of\nlittle weight with those to whom the Scriptures meant everything.\nAccordingly the Apologists went to the Scriptures and arrayed their\nevidence with spirit and system.\n\nWe may begin, as the writer to Diognetus begins, with sacrifices.  Here\nthe Apologists could appeal to the Prophets, who had spoken of\nsacrifice in no sparing terms.  Tertullian's fifth chapter in his book\n_Against the Jews_ presents the evidence shortly and clearly.  I will\ngive the passages cited in a tabular form:--\n\n{179}\n\n_Malachi_ 1, 10: I will not receive sacrifice from your hands, since\nfrom the rising sun to the setting my name is glorified among the\nGentiles, saith the Lord Almighty, and in every place they offer pure\nsacrifices to my name.\n\n_Psalm_ 96, 7: Offer to God glory and honour, offer to God the\nsacrifices of his name; away with victims (tollite) and enter into his\ncourt.\n\n_Psalm_ 51, 17: A heart contrite and humbled is a sacrifice for God.\n\n_Psalm_ 50, 14: Sacrifice to God the sacrifice of praise and render thy\nvows to the Most High.\n\n_Isaiah_ 1, 11: Wherefore to me the multitude of your sacrifices?  ....\nWhole burnt offerings and your sacrifices and the fat of goats and the\nblood of bulls I will not ... Who has sought these from your hands?\n\nJustin has other passages as decisive.  Does not God say by Amos (5,\n21) \"I hate, I loathe your feasts, and I will not smell [your\nofferings] in your assemblies.  When ye offer me your whole burnt\nofferings and your sacrifices, I will not receive them,\" and so forth,\nin a long passage quoted at length.  And again\n\n_Jeremiah_ 7, 21-22: Gather your flesh and your sacrifices and eat, for\nneither concerning sacrifices nor drink offerings did I command your\nfathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of\nEgypt.[25]\n\n\nNext as to circumcision and the Sabbath.  \"You need a second\ncircumcision,\" says Justin, \"and yet you glory in the flesh; the new\nlaw bids you keep a perpetual Sabbath, while you idle for one day and\nsuppose you are pious in so doing; you do not understand why it was\nenjoined upon you.  And, if you eat unleavened bread, you say you have\nfulfilled the will of God.\"[26]  Even by Moses, who gave the law, God\ncried \"You shall circumcise the hardness of your hearts and stiffen\nyour necks no more\";[27] and Jeremiah long afterwards said the same\nmore than once.[28]  On the Sabbath question, Tertullian and the others\ndistinguished two Sabbaths, an eternal and a temporal,[29] citing:--\n\n{180}\n\n_Isaiah_ 1, 14: My soul hates your sabbaths.\n\n_Ezekiel_ 22, 8: Ye have profaned my sabbath.\n\nThe Jew is referred back to the righteous men of early days--Was Adam\ncircumcised, or did he keep the Sabbath? or Abel, or Noah, or Enoch, or\nMelchizedek?  Did Abraham keep the Sabbath, or any of the patriarchs\ndown to Moses?[30]  \"But,\" rejoins the Jew, \"was not Abraham\ncircumcised?  Would not the son of Moses have been strangled, had not\nhis mother circumcised him?\"[31]\n\n[Sidenote: Old law or new covenant]\n\nTo this the Christian had several replies.  Circumcision was merely\ngiven for a sign, as is shown by the fact that a woman cannot receive\nit, \"for God has made women as well able as men to do what is just and\nright.\"  There is no righteousness in being of one sex rather than of\nthe other.[32] Circumcision then was imposed upon the Jews \"to mark you\noff from the rest of the nations and from us, that you alone might\nsuffer what now you are suffering, and so deservedly suffering--that\nyour lands should be desolate and your cities burnt with fire, that\nstrangers should eat your fruits before your faces, and none of you set\nhis foot in Jerusalem.  For in nothing are you known from other men\napart from the circumcision of your flesh.  None of you, I suppose,\nwill venture to say that God did not foresee what should come to pass.\nAnd it is all deserved; for you slew the Righteous one and his prophets\nbefore him; and now you reject and dishonour--so far as you can--those\nwho set their hopes on him and on the Almighty God, maker of all\nthings, who sent him; and in your synagogues you curse those who\nbelieve on Christ.\"[33]  The Sabbath was given to remind the Jews of\nGod; and restrictions were laid on certain foods because of the Jewish\nproclivity to forsake the knowledge of God.[34]  In general, all these\ncommands were called for by the sins of Israel,[35] they were signs of\njudgment.\n\nOn the other hand the so-called Barnabas maintains that the Jews never\nhad understood their law at all.  Fasts, feasts {181} and sacrifices\nwere prescribed, not literally, but in a spiritual sense which the Jews\nhad missed.  The taboos on meats were not prohibitions of the flesh of\nweasels, hares and hyaenas and so forth, but were allegoric warnings\nagainst fleshly lusts, to which ancient zoologists and modern Arabs\nhave supposed these animals to be prone.[36]  Circumcision was meant,\nas the prophets showed, to be that of the heart; evil daemons had misled\nthe Jews into practising it upon the flesh.[37]  The whole Jewish\ndispensation was a riddle, and of no value, unless it is understood as\nsignifying Christianity.\n\nThis line of attack was open to the criticism that it robbed the\nreligious history of Israel of all value whatever, and the stronger\nApologists do not take it.  They will allow the Jews to have been so\nfar right in observing their law, but they insist that it had a higher\nsense also, which had been overlooked except by the great prophets.\nThe law was a series of types and shadows, precious till the substance\ncame, which the shadows foretold.  That they were mere shadows is shown\nby the fact that Enoch walked with God and Abraham was the friend of\nGod.  For this could not have been, if the Jewish contention were true\nthat without Sabbath and circumcision man cannot please God.\nOtherwise, either the God of Enoch was not the God of Moses--which was\nabsurd; or else God had changed his mind as to right and wrong--which\nwas equally absurd.[38]  No, the legislation of Moses was for a people\nand for a time; it was not for mankind and eternity.  It was a prophecy\nof a new legislator, who should repeal the carnal code and enact one\nthat should be spiritual, final and eternal.[39] Here, following the\nwriter to the Hebrews, the Apologists quote a great passage of\nJeremiah, with the advantage (not always possible) of using it in the\ntrue sense in which it was written.  \"Behold! the days come, saith the\nLord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with\nthe house of Judah; not that which I made with their fathers in the day\nwhen I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt; which my\ncovenant they brake, although I was an {182} husband unto them, saith\nthe Lord.  But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the\nhouse of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in\ntheir inward parts and write it in their hearts, and I will be their\nGod and they shall be my people.\"[40]\n\nWith the law, the privilege of Israel passes away and the day of the\nGentiles comes.  It was foretold that Israel would not accept\nChrist--\"their ears they have closed\";[41] \"they have not known nor\nunderstood\";[42] \"who is blind but my servants?\"[43] \"all these words\nshall be unto you as words of a book that is sealed.\"[44]  \"By Isaiah\nthe prophet, God, knowing beforehand what you would do, cursed you\nthus\";[45] and Justin cites Isaiah 3, 9-15, and 5, 18-25.  Leah is the\ntype of the synagogue and of the Jewish people and Rachel of \"our\nchurch\"; the eyes of Leah were weak, and so are the eyes of your\nsoul--very weak.[46]  No less was it prophesied that the Gentiles\nshould believe on Christ--\"in thee shall all tribes of the earth be\nblest\"; \"Behold!  I have manifested him as a witness to the nations, a\nprince and a ruler to the races.  Races which knew thee not shall call\nupon thee and peoples who were ignorant of thee shall take refuge with\nthee.\"[47]\n\n\"By David He said 'A people I knew not has served me, and hearkened to\nme with the hearing of the ear.'  Let us, the Gentiles gathered\ntogether, glorify God,\" says Justin, \"because he has visited us ... for\nhe is well pleased with the Gentiles, and receives our sacrifices with\nmore pleasure than yours.  What have I to do with circumcision, who\nhave the testimony of God?  What need of that baptism to me, baptized\nwith the holy spirit?  These things, I think, will persuade even the\nslow of understanding.  For these are not arguments devised by me, nor\ntricked out by human skill,--nay! this was the theme of David's lyre,\nthis the glad news Isaiah brought, that Zechariah proclaimed and Moses\nwrote.  Do you recognize them, Trypho?  They are in your books--no! not\nyours, but ours--for we believe them--and you, when you {183} read, do\nnot understand the mind that is in them.\"[48]  And with that Justin\npasses on to discuss whether Jesus is the Messiah.  Such a passage\nraises the question as to how far he is reporting an actual\nconversation.  In his 80th chapter he says to Trypho that he will make\na book (_syntaxis_) of their conversation--of the whole of it--to the\nbest of his ability, faithfully recording all that he concedes to\nTrypho.  Probably he takes Plato's liberty to develop what was\nsaid--unless indeed the dialogue is from beginning to end merely a\nliterary form imposed upon a thesis.  In that case, it must be owned\nthat Justin manages to give a considerable suggestion of life to\nTrypho's words.\n\n[Sidenote: Jesus the Messiah]\n\nBut, even if the law be temporary, and the Sabbath spiritual, if Israel\nis to be rejected and the Gentiles chosen, we are still far from being\nassured on the warrant of the Old Testament that Jesus is the Messiah,\nwho shall accomplish this great change.  Why he rather than any of the\n\"ten thousand others\" who might much more plausibly be called the\nMessiah?[49]\n\nTo prove the Messiahship of Jesus, a great system of Old Testament\ncitations was developed, the origins of which are lost to us.  Paul\ncertainly applied Scripture to Jesus in a free way of his own, though\nhe is not more fanciful in quotation than his contemporaries.  But he\nnever sought to base the Christian faith on a scheme of texts.\nLactantius, writing about 300 A.D., implies that Jesus is the author of\nthe system.  \"He abode forty days with them and interpreted the\nScriptures, which up to that time had been obscure and involved.\"[50]\nSomething of the kind is suggested by Luke (24, 27).  But it is obvious\nthat the whole method is quite alien to the mind and style of Jesus, in\nspite of quotations in the vein of the apologists which the evangelists\nhere and there have attributed to him.\n\nWe may discover two great canons in the operations of the Apologists.\nIn the first place, they seek to show that all things prophesied of the\nMessiah were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth; and, secondly, that\neverything which befel Jesus was prophesied of the Messiah.  These\ncanons need only to be stated to show the sheer impossibility of the\nenterprise to {184} anyone who attaches meaning to words.  But in the\nearly centuries of our era there was little disposition with Jew or\nGreek to do this where those books were concerned, whose age and beauty\ngave them a peculiar hold upon the mind.  In each case the\npreconception had grown up, as about the myths of Isis, for example,\nthat such books were in some way sacred and inspired.  The theory gave\nmen an external authority, but it presented some difficulties; for,\nboth in Homer and in _Genesis_ as in the Egyptian myths, there were\nstories repugnant to every idea of the divine nature which a\nphilosophic mind could entertain.  They were explained away by the\nallegoric method.  Plutarch shows how the grossest features of the Isis\nlegend have subtle and spiritual meanings and were never meant to be\ntaken literally--that the myths are _logoi_ in fact; and Philo\nvindicates the Old Testament in the same way.[51] The whole procedure\nwas haphazard and unscientific; it closely resembled the principles\nused by Artemidorus for the interpretation of dreams--a painful\nanalogy.  But, in the absence of any kind of historic sense, it was\nperhaps the only way in which the continuity of religious thought could\nthen be maintained.  It is not surprising in view of the prevalence of\nallegory that the Christians used it--they could hardly do anything\nelse.  Thus with the fatal aid of allegory, the double thesis of the\nApologists became easier and easier to maintain.\n\nThe most accessible illustration of this line of apology is to be found\nin the second chapter of _Matthew_.  We may set out in parallel columns\nthe events in the life of Jesus and the prophecies which they fulfil.\n\n  (a) The Virgin-Birth.              _Isaiah_ 7, 14: Behold a virgin\n                                       shall conceive.\n\n  (b) Bethlehem.                     _Micah_ 5,2: And thou, Bethlehem,\n                                       etc.\n\n  (c) The Flight into Egypt.         _Hosea_ 11, 1: Out of Egypt\n                                       have I called my son.\n\n  (d) The Murder of the children.    _Jerem._ 31, 15: Rachel weeping.\n\n  (e) Nazareth.                      _Judges_ 13, 5: A Nazarene.\n\n{185} It is hardly unfair to say that the man who cited these passages\nin these connexions had no idea whatever of their original meaning,\neven where he quotes them correctly.\n\nHere is a fuller scheme taken from the _Apology_ which Justin addressed\nto the Emperor Antoninus Pius.  (The numbers on the left refer to the\nchapter in the first _Apology_.)\n\n\n  32. Jesus Christ foretold by        _Gen._ 49, 10 f: (the blessing\n        Judah).                         of Moses.\n\n                                      _Numbers_ 24, 17: There shall\n                                        dawn a star, etc.\n\n      Jesus Christ foretold by        _Isaiah_ 11, i: the rod of Jesse,\n        Isaiah.                         etc.\n\n  33.  Jesus Christ to be born        _Is._ 7, 14: (the sign to\n         of a virgin.                   Ahaz).\n\n  34.  Jesus Christ to be born at     _Micah_ 5, 2: Thou, Bethlehem,\n         Bethlehem.                     etc.\n\n  35.  The triumphal entry into       _Zech._ 9, 9: Thy king cometh\n         Jerusalem.                     riding on an ass, etc.\n\n       The Crucifixion: the Cross.    _Is._ 9,6: The government upon\n                                        his shoulders.\n\n                                      _Is._ 65, 2: I have stretched out\n                                        my hands, etc.\n\n       The Crucifixion: the           _Is._ 58, 2: They ask me for\n         mockery.                       judgment, etc.\n\n       The Crucifixion: the nails     _Psalm_ 22, 16, 18: They\n         and the casting of lots.       pierced my feet and my\n                                        hands; they cast lots upon\n                                        my raiment.\n\n  38.  The Crucifixion: the           _Is._ 50, 6-8: I gave my back\n         scourging.                     to the lashes and my cheeks\n                                        to blows, etc.\n\n       The Crucifixion: the           _Ps._ 22, 7: they wagged the\n         mocking.                       head, saying, etc.\n\n       The Crucifixion: the           _Ps._ 3, 5: I slept and slumbered\n         resurrection.                  and I rose up (_anesten_)\n                                        because the Lord laid hold of\n                                        me.\n\n{186}\n\n  39. The sending of the twelve       _Is._ 2, 3 f.: Out of Sion shall\n        Apostles.                       go forth the law.\n\n  40. The proclamation of the         _Ps._ 19, 2-5: Day unto day,\n        Gospel.                         etc.\n\n      Christ, Pilate, the Jews        _Psalms_ 1 and 2: cited _in\n        and Herod.                      extenso_.\n\n  41. Christ to reign after the       1 _Chron._ 16, 23, 25-31: (a\n        Crucifixion.                    psalm).  Cf. _Ps._ 96, i, 2,\n                                        4-11, with ending: \"The\n                                        Lord hath reigned from the\n                                        tree.\"\n\n  45. The Ascension.                  _Ps._ 110, 1-3: Sit thou at my\n                                        right hand, etc.\n\n  47. The desolation of Jerusalem.    _Is._ 64, 10-12: Sion has become\n                                        desert, etc.\n\n                                      _Is._ 1, 7, and _Jer._ 50, 3:\n                                        Their land is desert.\n\n  48. The miracles of Christ.         _Is._ 35, 5, 6: The lame shall\n                                        leap ... the dead shall rise\n                                        and walk, etc.\n\n      Christ's death.                 _Is._ 57, 1 f.: Behold, how the\n                                        Just Man has perished, etc.\n\n  49. The Gentiles to find Christ     _Is._ 65, 1-3: I was visible to\n        but not the Jews.               them that asked not for me\n                                        ... I spread out my hands\n                                        to a disobedient people.\n\n  50. Christ's humiliation and        _Is._ 53, 12: For that they gave\n        the glorious second             his soul to death ... he\n        advent.                         shall be exalted.\n\n                                      _Is._ 52, 13-53, 8: ... he was\n                                        wounded, etc.\n\n  51. His sufferings, origin,         _Is._ 53, 8-12.\n        reign and ascension.\n\n      His second coming.              \"Jeremiah\" = _Daniel_ 7, 13, as\n                                        it were a son of man cometh\n                                        upon the clouds and his\n                                        angels with him.\n\n{187}\n\n  52. The final resurrection.         _Ezek._ 37, 7-8: Bone shall be\n                                        joined to bone.\n\n                                      _Is._ 45, 23: Every knee shall\n                                        bow to the Lord.\n\n                                      _Is._ 66, 24: The worm shall\n                                        not sleep nor the fire be\n                                        quenched.\n\n                                      Also a composite quotation\n                                        with phrases mingled from\n                                        Isaiah and Zechariah,\n                                        attributed to the latter.\n\n  53. More Gentiles than Jews         _Is._ 54, 1: Rejoice, O barren,\n        will believe.                   etc.\n\n                                      \"Isaiah\" = _Jerem._ 9, 26:\n                                        Israel uncircumcised in\n                                        heart.\n\n  60. The Cross foretold in the       _Num._ 21, 8: If ye look at this\n        brazen serpent.                 type(_typo_) I believe ye shall\n                                        be saved in it (_en auto_).\n\n  61. Baptism.                        _Is._ 1, 16: Wash you ... I\n                                        will whiten as wool.\n\n\n[Sidenote: The God beside the Creator]\n\nWhat in the _Apology_ is a bare outline, is developed at great length\nand with amazing ingenuity in the dialogue with Trypho.  We may begin\nwith the question of a \"God beside the Creator.\"\n\nWhen Moses wrote in _Genesis_ (1, 26) \"And God said, 'Let us make man\nin our image after our likeness,'\" and again (3, 22) \"And the Lord God\nsaid, 'Behold the man is become as one of us,'\"[52] why did he use the\nplural, unless there is a God beside God?  Again, when Sodom is\ndestroyed why does the holy text say \"The Lord rained upon Sodom and\nGomorrha sulphur and fire from the Lord from heaven\"?[53]  And again in\nthe _Psalms_ (110) what is meant by \"The Lord said unto my Lord\"?[54]\nand by \"Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ... therefore God, thy\nGod, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows?\"[55]\n\nThe Old Testament abounds in theophanies, which are {188} brought up in\nturn.  Justin cites the three men who appeared to Abraham--\"they were\nangels,\" says Trypho, and a long argument follows to show from the\npassage that one of them is not to be explained as an angel,[56] nor of\ncourse as the Creator of all things.  Trypho owns this.  Justin pauses\nat his suggestion to discuss the meal which Abraham had served, but is\nsoon caught up with the words: \"Now, come, show us that this God who\nappeared to Abraham and is the servant of God, the Maker of all, was\nborn of a virgin, and became, as you said, a man of like passions with\nall men.\"  But Justin has more evidence to unfold before he reaches\nthat stage.  Without following the discussion as it sways from point to\npoint, we may take the passage in which he recapitulates this line of\nargument.  \"I think I have said enough, so that, when my God says 'God\nwent up from Abraham,' or 'The Lord spoke to Moses,' or 'The Lord\ndescended to see the tower which the sons of men had built,' or 'The\nLord shut the ark of Noah from without,' you will not suppose the\nunbegotten God Himself went down or went up.  For the ineffable Father\nand Lord of all neither comes anywhere, nor 'walks' [as in the garden\nof Eden], nor sleeps, nor rises, but abides in his own region wherever\nit is, seeing keenly and hearing keenly, but not with eyes or ears, but\nby power unspeakable; and he surveys all things and knows all things,\nand none of us escapes his notice; nor does he move, nor can space\ncontain him, no, nor the whole universe, him, who was before the\nuniverse was made.\"[57]\n\n[Sidenote: The virgin-birth]\n\nWho then was it who walked in the garden, who wrestled with Jacob, who\nappeared in arms to Joshua, who spoke with Moses and with Abraham, who\nshut Noah into the ark, who was the fourth figure in the fiery furnace?\nScripture gives us a key.  Can the Jew say, who it is whom Ezekiel\ncalls the \"angel of great counsel;\" and the \"man\"; whom Daniel\ndescribes \"as the Son of man\"; whom Isaiah called \"child,\" and David\n\"Christ\" and \"God adored\"; whom Moses called \"Joseph\" and \"Jacob\" and\n\"the star\"; whom Zechariah called \"the daystar\"; whom {189} Isaiah\nagain called the \"sufferer\" (_pathetos_), \"Jacob\" and \"Israel\"; whom\nothers have named \"the Rod,\" \"the Flower,\" \"the Chief Corner-stone\" and\n\"the Son of God\"?[58]  The answer is more clearly given by Solomon in\nthe eighth chapter of _Proverbs_--it is the Divine Wisdom, to whom all\nthese names apply.  When it is said \"Let _us_ make man,\" it is to be\nunderstood that the Ineffable communicated his design to his Wisdom,\nhis Logos or Son, and the Son made man.  The Son rained upon Sodom the\nfire and brimstone from the Father.  It was the Son who appeared to men\nin all the many passages cited--the Son, Christ the Lord, God and Son\nof God--inseparable and unseverable from the Father, His Wisdom and His\nWord and His Might (_dynamis_).[59]\n\nBut, while all this might be accepted by a Jew, it still seemed to\nTrypho that it was \"paradoxical, and foolish, too,\" to say that Christ\ncould be God before all the ages, and then tolerate to be born a man,\nand yet \"not a man of men.\"  The offence of the Cross also remained.\nThe Apologist began by explaining the mysteries of the two comings of\nChrist, first in humiliation, and afterwards in glory, as Jacob\nprophesied in his last words.[60]  For the First Coming Tertullian\nquotes Isaiah--\"he is led as a sheep to the slaughter\"; and the\n_Psalms_--\"made a little lower than the angels,\" \"a worm and not a\nman\"; while the Second Coming is to be read of in Daniel and the\nforty-fifth _Psalm_, and in the more awful passage of Zechariah \"and\nthen they shall know him whom they pierced.\"[61]  The paschal lamb is a\ntype of the First Coming--especially as it was to be roasted whole and\ntrussed like a cross; and the two goats of _Leviticus_ (16) are types\nof the two Comings.[62]\n\n\"And now,\" says Justin, \"I took up the argument again to show that he\nwas born of a virgin, and that it had been prophesied by Isaiah that he\nshould be born of a virgin; and I again recited the prophecy itself.\nThis is it: 'And the Lord said moreover unto Ahaz, saying: 'Ask for\nthyself a sign from the Lord thy God in the depth or in the height.\nAnd Ahaz {190} said: I will not ask nor tempt the Lord.  And Isaiah\nsaid: Hear ye then, O house of David!  Is it a little thing with you to\nstrive with men? and how will ye strive with the Lord?  Therefore shall\nthe Lord himself give you a sign.  Behold, the virgin shall conceive\nand bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.  Butter and\nhoney shall he eat.  Before he shall either have knowledge or choose\nevil, he shall choose good; because, before the child knows evil or\ngood, he refuses evil to choose good.  Because, before the child knows\nto call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the\nspoils of Samaria before the King of the Assyrians.  And the land shall\nbe taken, which thou shalt bear hardly from before the face of two\nkings.  But God will bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon the\nhouse of thy father, days which have never come, from the day when\nEphraim removed from Judah the King of the Assyrians.'  And I added,\n'That, in the family of Abraham according to the flesh, none has ever\nyet been born of a virgin, or spoken of as so born, except our Christ,\nis manifest to all.'\"  It may be noted that the passage is not only\nmisquoted, but is a combination of clauses from two distinct\nchapters.[63]  The explanation is perhaps that Justin found it so in a\nmanual of proof-texts and did not consult the original.  Similar\nmisquotations in other authors have suggested the same explanation.\n\n\"Trypho rejoined: 'The scripture has not: Behold the virgin shall\nconceive and bear a son; but: Behold the young woman shall conceive and\nbear a son: and the rest as you said.  The whole prophecy was spoken of\nHezekiah and was fulfilled of him.  In the myths of the Greeks it is\nsaid that Perseus was born of Danae, when she was a virgin--after their\nso-called Zeus had come upon her in the form of gold.  You ought to be\nashamed to tell the same story as they do.  You would do better to say\nthis Jesus was born a man of men, and--if you show from the Scriptures\nthat he is the Christ--say that it was by his lawful and perfect life\nthat he was counted worthy of being chosen as Christ.  Don't talk\nmiracles of that kind, or you will be proved to talk folly beyond even\nthat of the Greeks.\"'[64]\n\nTrypho has the Hebrew text behind him, which says {191} nothing about a\nvirgin, though the Septuagint has the word.  The sign given to Ahaz has\na close parallel in a prophecy of Muhammad.  Before he became known, an\nold man foretold that a great prophet should come, and on being\nchallenged for a sign he pointed to a boy lying in rugs by the\ncamp-fire--\"That boy should _see_ the prophet\"; and he did.  Isaiah's\nsign is much the same; a young woman shall conceive and have a son, and\nbefore that son is two or three years old, Damascus and Syria will fall\nbefore the King of Assyria.\n\nBut Justin and the Apologists are not to be diverted.  As for Danae,\nthe Devil (_diabolos_) has there anticipated the fulfilment of God's\nprophecy, as in many other instances, _e.g._:--Dionysus rode an ass, he\nrose from the dead and ascended to heaven; Herakles is a parody of the\nverse in _Psalm_ xix--the strong man rejoicing to run a race, a\nMessianic text; AEsculapius raised the dead; and the cave of Mithras is\nDaniel's \"stone cut without hands from the great mountains.\" \"I do not\nbelieve your teachers; they will not admit that the seventy elders of\nPtolemy, King of Egypt, translated well, but they try to translate for\nthemselves.  And I should like you to know that they have cut many\npassages out of the versions made by Ptolemy's elders which prove\nexpressly that this man, who was crucified, was prophesied of as God\nand man, crucified and slain.  I know that all your race deny this; so,\nin discussions of this kind I do not quote those passages, but I have\nrecourse to such as come from what you still acknowledge.\"[65]  The\nobjection to the rendering \"young woman\" is that it completely\nnullifies the sign given to Ahaz, for children are born of young women\nevery day--\"what would really be a sign and would give confidence to\nmankind,--to wit, that the firstborn of all creations should take flesh\nand really be born a child of a virgin womb--that was what he\nproclaimed beforehand by the prophetic spirit.\"[66]\n\nThe whole story is parable.  It would be absurd to suppose that an\ninfant could be a warrior and reduce great states.  The spoils are\nreally the gifts of the Magi, as is indicated by passages in Zechariah\n(\"he shall gather all the strength of the peoples round about, gold and\nsilver,\" 14, 14) and the seventy second _Psalm_ (\"Kings of the Arabs\nand of Saba shall bring {192} gifts to him; and to him shall be given\ngold from the East\").  Samaria again is a common synonym with the\nprophets for idolatry.  Damascus means the revolt of the Magi from the\nevil daemon who misdirected their arts to evil.  The King of Assyria\nstands, says Justin, for King Herod, and so says Tertullian, writing\nagainst Marcion, though in the tract _Against the Jews_ (if it is\nTertullian's) he says the devil is intended.[67]  The usual passages\nfrom Micah and Jeremiah are cited to add Bethlehem and the Murder of\nthe infants to the prophetic story.\n\n\"At this Trypho, with some hint of annoyance, but overawed by the\nScriptures, as his face showed, said to me: 'God's words are holy, but\nyour expositions [or translations] are artificial--or blasphemous, I\nshould say.'\"[68]\n\nTo complete the proof, it is shown that the very name of Jesus was\nforetold.  When Moses changed the name of his successor from _Auses_ to\n_Jesus_, it was a prophecy, as Scripture shows.  \"The Lord said unto\nMoses: Say to this people, Behold I send my angel before thy face that\nhe may guard thee in the way, that he may lead thee into the land that\nI have prepared for thee.  Give heed unto him ... for he will not let\nthee go, for my name is in him.\"[69]  This is confirmed by Zechariah's\naccount of the High Priest Joshua.  Furthermore, the chronology of the\nbook of Daniel, when carefully worked out, proves to have contained the\nprediction of the precise date at which Christ should come, and at that\nprecise date Christ came.\n\nBarnabas discovers another prophecy of Jesus in an unlikely place.\n\"Learn, children of love,\" he says,\" that Abraham, who first gave\ncircumcision, looked forward in spirit unto Jesus, when he circumcised,\nfor he received dogmata in three letters.  For it saith: And Abraham\ncircumcised of his house men 18 and 300.  What then was the knowledge\ngiven unto him?  Mark that it says 18 first, and then after a pause\n300.  18 [IH in Greek notation] there thou hast Jesus.  And because the\ncross in T [= 300 in Greek notation] was to have grace, it {193} saith\n300 as well.  It shows Jesus in the two letters, and in the one the\ncross.\"[70]\n\nWe now reach the prophecies of the cross, and, as the method is plain,\na few references may suffice, taken this time from Tertullian (_c._\n10):--\n\n\n_Genesis_ 22, 6: Isaac carrying the wood for the sacrifice of himself.\n\n_Genesis_ 37, 28: Joseph sold by his brethren.\n\n_Deuteronomy_ 33,17: Moses' blessing of Joseph.  (The unicorn's horns,\nwith some arrangement, form a cross: cf. _Psalm_ 22).\n\n_Exodus_ 17, 11: Moses with his arms spread wide.\n\n_Numbers_ 21, 9: The brazen serpent.\n\n_Psalm_ 96, 10: The Lord hath reigned _from the tree, e ligno_ (though\nthe Jews have cut out the last words).\n\n_Isaiah_ 9, 6: The government upon his shoulder.\n\n_Jeremiah_ 11, 19: Let us cast wood (_lignum_) into his bread.\n\n_Isaiah_ 53, 8, 9: For the transgression of my people is he stricken\n... and his sepulture is taken from the midst (_i.e._ the resurrection).\n\n_Amos_ 8, 9: I will cause the sun to go down at noon.\n\n\nFor a long time before Justin was done with his exposition, Trypho was\nsilent--the better part, perhaps, in all controversy.  At last, writes\nJustin, \"I finished.  Trypho said nothing for a while, and then he\nsaid, 'You see, we came to the controversy unprepared.  Still, I own, I\nam greatly pleased to have met you, and I think my friends have the\nsame feeling.  For we have found more than we expected,--or anyone\ncould have expected.  If we could do it at more length, we might be\nbetter profited by looking into the passages themselves.  But, since\nyou are on the point of sailing and expect to embark every day now,--be\nsure you think of us as friends, if you go.'\"[71] So, with kindly\nfeelings, Trypho went away unconvinced.  And there were others, as\nclear of mind, who were as little convinced,--Marcion, for instance,\nand Celsus.  \"The more reasonable among Jews and Christians,\" says\nCelsus, \"try to allegorize them [the Scriptures], but they are beyond\nbeing {194} allegorized and are nothing but sheer mythology of the\nsilliest type.  The supposed allegories that have been made are more\ndisgraceful than the myths and more absurd, in their endeavour to\nstring together what never can in any way be harmonized--it is folly\npositively wonderful for its utter want of perception.\"[72] The modern\nreader may not be so ready as Origen was to suggest that Celsus\nprobably had Philo in mind.[73]\n\n[Sidenote: Results]\n\nIt is clear that, in the endeavour to give Christianity a historical\nbackground and a prophetic warrant, the Apologists lost all\nperspective.[74]  The compelling personality of Jesus receded behind\nthe vague figure of the Christ of prophecy; and, in their\npre-occupation with what they themselves called \"types and shadows,\"\nmen stepped out of the sunlight into the shade and hardly noticed the\nchange.  Yet there is still among the best of them the note of love of\nJesus--\"do not speak evil of the crucified,\" pleads Justin, \"nor mock\nat his stripes, whereby all may be healed, as _we_ have been\nhealed.\"[75] And after all it was an instinct for the truth and\nuniversal significance of Jesus that carried them away.  He must be\neternal; and they, like the men of their day, thought much of the\nbeginning and the end of creation, and perhaps found it easier than we\ndo,--certainly more natural,--to frame schemes under which the Eternal\nMind might manifest itself.  Eschatology, purpose, foreknowledge,\npervade their religious thought, and they speak with a confidence which\nthe centuries since the Renaissance have made more and more impossible\nfor us, who find it hard enough to be sure of the fact without\nadventuring ourselves in the possibilities that lie around it.  None\nthe less the centre of interest was the same for them as for us--what\n_is_ the significance of Jesus of Nazareth?  For them the facts of his\nlife and of his mind had often less value than the fancy that they\nfulfilled prophecy; Celsus said outright that the Christians altered\nthem, and there is some evidence that, in the accommodation of prophecy\nand history, {195} the latter was sometimes over-developed.  For us,\nthe danger is the opposite; we risk losing sight of the eternal\nsignificance in our need of seeing clearly the historic lineaments.\n\nIn the conflict of religions, Christianity had first to face Judaism,\nand, though the encounter left its record upon the conquering faith, it\nsecured its freedom from the yoke of the past.  It gained background\nand the broadening of the historic imagination.  It made the prophets\nand psalmists of Israel a permanent and integral part of Christian\nliterature--and in all these ways it became more fit to be the faith of\nmankind, as it deepened its hold upon the universal religious\nexperience.  Yet it did so at the cost of a false method which has\nhampered it for centuries, and of a departure (for too long a time)\nfrom the simplicity and candour of the mind of Jesus.  In seeking to\nrecover that mind to-day we commit ourselves to the belief that it is\nsufficient, and that, when we have rid ourselves of all that in the\ncourse of ages has obscured the great personality, in proportion as we\nregain his point of view, we shall find once more (in the words of a\nfar distant age) that his spirit will guide us into all truth.\n\n\nChapter VI Footnotes:\n\n[1] Justin, _Trypho_, c. 17; Tert. _adv. Jud._ 13.\n\n[2] _Psalm. Solom._ xvii, 27-35.  Ed. Ryle and James.\n\n[3] _Assumption of Moses_, x, 8-10, tr. R. H. Charles.  \"Gehenna\" is a\nrestoration which seems probable, the Latin _in terram_ representing\nwhat was left of the word in Greek.  See Dr Charles' note.\n\n[4] Justin, _Trypho_, 46, 47.  The question is still asked; I have\nheard it asked.\n\n[5] Justin, _Trypho_, 50.\n\n[6] Justin, _Trypho_, 32; the quotations are from Daniel.\n\n[7] Justin, _Trypho_, 48.\n\n[8] Justin, _Trypho_, 68.\n\n[9] Justin, _Trypho_, 17, 108.\n\n[10] Cf. Tert. _de Spect._ 30, _fabri aut quaestuariae filius_.\n\n[11] Origen, _c. Cels._ i, 28, 32, 39.  The beauty of the woman is an\nelement in the stories of Greek demi-gods.\n\n[12] _c. Cels._ ii, 55.\n\n[13] ii, 27.\n\n[14] ii, 29.\n\n[15] ii, 28.\n\n[16] i, 50.\n\n[17] 2 Tim. 8, 15.\n\n[18] _Trypho_, 39.\n\n[19] Ign. _Philad._ 8, 2.\n\n[20] Ign. _Magn._ 10, 3; 8, 1.\n\n[21] So says Eusebius, _E.H._ iv, 18.  Justin does not name the city.\n\n[22] _Trypho_, 8.\n\n[23] Justin, _Trypho_, 8.\n\n[24] _ad Diogn._ 3, 4.\n\n[25] _Trypho_, 22.\n\n[26] _Ibid._ 12.\n\n[27] _Deut._ 10, 16, 17; _Trypho_, 16.\n\n[28] _Jerem._ 4, 4; 9, 25; _Trypho_, 28.\n\n[29] Tert. _adv. Jud._ 4.\n\n[30] Justin, _Trypho_, 19; Tert. _adv. Jud._ 2; Cyprian, _Testim._ 1,\n8.  Tertullian had to face a similar criticism of Christian life--was\nAbraham _baptized_?  _de Bapt._ 13.\n\n[31] Tert. _adv. Jud._  3.\n\n[32] _Trypho_, 23; Cyprian, _Testim._ 1, 8.\n\n[33] _Trypho_, 16 (slightly compressed).\n\n[34] _Trypho_, 19, 20; cf. Tert. _adv. Jud. _\n\n[35] _Trypho_, 22.\n\n[36] Barnabas, 10; cf. Pliny, _N.H._ 8, 218, on the hare; and Plutarch,\n_de Iside et Osiride_, 353 F, 363 F, 376 E, 381 A (weasel), for similar\nzoology and symbolism.  Clem. Alex. _Str._ ii, 67; v, 51; refers to\nthis teaching of Barnabas (cf. _ib._ ii, 105).\n\n[37] Barnabas, 9.\n\n[38] _Trypho_, 23.\n\n[39] _Ibid._ 11.\n\n[40] _Jerem._ 31, 31; _Trypho_, 11; Tert. _adv. Jud._ 3.\n\n[41] _Is._ 6, 10; _Trypho_, 12; Cyprian, _Testim._ i, 3.\n\n[42] _Ps._ 82, 5; _Trypho_, 124; Cyprian, _Testim._ i, 3.\n\n[43] _Is._ 42, 19; _Trypho_, 123, where the plural is used.\n\n[44] _Is._ 29, 11; Cyprian, _Testim._ i, 4.\n\n[45] _Trypho_, 133.\n\n[46] _Trypho_, 134.\n\n[47] Cyprian, _Testim._ i, 21; Justin, _Trypho_, 12; Tert. _adv. Marc._\niii, 20.\n\n[48] _Trypho_, 29.\n\n[49] _c. Cels._ ii, 28,\n\n[50] Lactantius, _de mort. persec._ 2.\n\n[51] Tertullian lays down the canon (_adv. Marc._ iii, 5) _pleraque\nfigurate portenduntur per aenigmata et allegorias et parabolas, aliter\nintelligenda quam scripta sunt_; but (_de resurr. carnis_, 20) _non\nomnia imagines sed et veritates, nec omnia umbrae sed et corpora, e.g._\nthe Virgin-birth is not foretold in figure.\n\n[52] _Trypho_, 62, 129; Barnabas, 5, 5; Tert. _adv. Prax._ 12.\n\n[53] _Trypho_, 56.\n\n[54] _Ibid._ 56.\n\n[55] _Ibid._ 56.\n\n[56] _Trypho_, 56, 57.\n\n[57] Trypho, 127.  Tert. _adv. Marc._ ii, 27.  Quaecunque exigitis\ndeodigna, habebuntur in patre invisibili incongressibilique et placido\net, ut ita dixerim, philosophorum deo.  Quaecunque autem ut indigna\nreprehenditis, deputabuntur in filio, etc.  Cf. on the distinction\nTert. _adv. Prax._ 14 ff.  Cf. the language of Celsus on God\n\"descending,\" see p. 248.\n\n[58] _Trypho_, 126.  Other titles are quoted by Justin, _Trypho_, 61.\n\n[59] _Trypho_, 128.  Cf. Tertullian, _adv. Marc._ ii, 27, _Ille est qui\ndescendit, ille qui interrogat, ille qui postulat, ille qui jurat; adv.\nPrax._ 15, _Filius itaque est qui...._\n\n[60] _Gen._ 49, 8-12; _Trypho_, 52, 53; _Apol._ i, 32; Cyprian,\n_Testim._ i, 21.\n\n[61] Tert. _adv. Jud._ 14.\n\n[62] _Trypho_, 40; Tert. _adv. Jud._ 14; Barnabas, 7.\n\n[63] _Trypho_, 66.  Isaiah vii and viii.\n\n[64] _Trypho_, 67.\n\n[65] _Trypho_, 71.\n\n[66] _Trypho_, 84.  Cf. Tert. _adv. Jud._ 9 = _adv. Marc._ iii, 13.\n\n[67] _Trypho_, 77: Tert. _adv. Jud._ 9 = _adv. Marc._ iii, 13; both\nreferring to _Psalm_ 71.\n\n[68] _Trypho_, 79.\n\n[69] _Trypho_, 75; _Exodus_ 23, 20.\n\n[70] Barnabas, 9, 8 (the subject of 'saith' may in each case be 'he').\nClement of Alexandria cites this and adds a mystic and mathematical\naccount of this suggestive figure 318.  _Strom._ vi. 84.\n\n[71] _Trypho_, 142.\n\n[72] Celsus _ap._ Orig. _c. Cels._ iv, 50, 51.\n\n[73] Especially when he finds Celsus referring to the dialogue of Jason\nand Papiscus as \"more worthy of pity and hatred than of laughter\"; _c.\nCels._ iv, 52.\n\n[74] Porphyry (cited by Euseb. _E.H._ vi, 19), says they made riddles\nof what was perfectly plain in Moses, their expositions would not hang\ntogether, and they cheated their own critical faculty, _to kritikon tes\npsyches katagoeteusantes_.\n\n[75] _Trypho_, 137.\n\n\n\n\n{196}\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\"GODS OR ATOMS?\"\n\nIn the first two centuries of our era a great change came over the\nancient world.  A despised and traditional religion, under the stimulus\nof new cults coming from the East, revived and re-asserted its power\nover the minds of men.  Philosophy, grown practical in its old age,\nforsook its youthful enthusiasm for the quest of truth, and turned\naside to the regulation of conduct, by means of maxims now instead of\ninspiration, and finally, as we have seen, to apology for the ancient\nfaith of the fathers.  Its business now was to reconcile its own\nmonotheistic dogma with popular polytheistic practice.  It was perhaps\nthis very reconciliation that threw open the door for the glowing\nmonotheism of the disciples of Jesus; but, whatever the cause,\nChristianity quickly spread over the whole Roman Empire.  We are apt to\nwonder to-day at the great political and national developments that\nhave altered the whole aspect of Europe since the French Revolution,\nand to reflect rather idly on their rapidity.  Yet the past has its own\nstories of rapid change, and not the least striking of them is the\ndisappearance of that world of thought which we call Classical.  By 180\nA.D. nearly every distinctive mark of classical antiquity is gone--the\nold political ideas, the old philosophies, the old literatures, and\nmuch else with them.  Old forms and names remain--there are still\nconsuls and archons, poets and philosophers, but the atmosphere is\nanother, and the names have a new meaning, if they have any at all.\nBut the mere survival of the names hid for many the fact that they were\nliving in a new era.\n\n[Sidenote: Marcus Aurelius]\n\nIn the reign of Marcus Aurelius, however, the signs of change became\nmore evident, and men grew conscious that some transformation of the\nworld was in progress.  A great plague, the scanty records of which\nonly allow us to speak in {197} vague terms of an immense reduction in\npopulation[1]--barbarism active upon the frontier of an Empire not so\nwell able as it had fancied to defend itself--superstitions, Egyptian\nand Jewish, diverting men from the ordinary ways of civic duty--such\nwere some of the symptoms that men marked.  Under the weight of\nabsurdity, quietism and individualism, the state seemed to be sinking,\nand all that freedom of mind which was the distinctive boast of\nHellenism was rapidly being lost.\n\nIt happens that, while the historical literature of the period has\nlargely perished, a number of authors survive, who from their various\npoints of view deal with what is our most immediate subject--the\nconflict of religions.  Faith, doubt, irritation and fatalism are all\nrepresented.  The most conspicuous men of letters of the age are\nundoubtedly the Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself and his two brilliant\ncontemporaries, Lucian of Samosata, and Apuleius of Madaura.[2]\nCelsus, a man of mind as powerful as any of the three, survives in\nfragments, but fragments ample enough to permit of re-construction.\nAmong the Christians too there was increased literary activity, but\nTertullian and Clement will suffice for our purpose.\n\nThough not in his day regarded as a man of letters, it is yet in virtue\nof his writing that Marcus Aurelius survives.  His journal, with the\ntitle that tells its nature--\"To Himself,\" is to-day perhaps the most\npopular book of antiquity with those whose first concern is not\nliterature.  It is translated again and again, and it is studied.  The\npeculiar mind of the solitary Emperor has made him, as Mr F. W. H.\nMyers put it, \"the saint and exemplar of Agnosticism.\"  Meditative,\ntender and candid, yet hesitant and so far ineffectual, he is sensitive\nto so much that is positive and to so much that is negative, that the\ndiary, in which his character is most intimately revealed, gives him a\nplace of his own in the hearts of men perplext in the extreme.  He is a\nman who neither believes, nor disbelieves,--\"either gods or atoms\"[3]\nseems to be the necessary antithesis, and there is so much to be said\nboth for {198} and against each of the alternatives that decision is\nimpossible.  He is attracted by the conception of Providence, but he\nhesitates to commit himself.  There are arguments--at least of the kind\nthat rest on probability--in favour of immortality, but they are\ninsufficient to determine the matter.  In his public capacity he became\nfamous for the number and magnificence of his sacrifices to the gods of\nthe state; he owns in his journal his debt to the gods for warnings\ngiven in dreams, but he suspects at times that they may not exist.\nMeanwhile he persecutes the Christians for their disloyalty to the\nstate.  Their stubborn convictions were so markedly in contrast with\nhis own wavering mind that he could not understand them--perhaps their\nmotive was bravado, he thought; they were too theatrical altogether;\ntheir pose recalled the tragedies composed by the pupils of the\nrhetoricians--large language with nothing behind it.[4]\n\nIn the absence of any possibility of intellectual certainty, Marcus\nfell back upon conduct.  Here his want of originality and of spiritual\nforce was less felt, for conduct has tolerably well-established rules\nof neighbourliness, purity, good temper, public duty and the like.  His\nStoic guides, too, might in this region help him to follow with more\nconfidence the voice of his own pure and delicate conscience--the\nconscience of a saint and a quietist rather than that of a man of\naction.  Yet even in the realm of conduct he is on the whole\nineffectual.  Pure, truthful, kind, and brave he is, but he does not\nbelieve enough to be great.  He is called to be a statesman and an\nadministrator; he does not expect much outcome from all his energies,\nand he preaches to himself the necessity of patience with his\nprospective failure to achieve anything beyond the infinitesimal.\n\"Ever the same are the cycles of the universe, up and down, for ever\nand for ever.  Either the intelligence of the Whole puts itself in\nmotion for each separate effect--in which case accept the result it\ngives; or else it did so once for all, and everything is sequence, one\nthing in another ... [The text is doubtful for a line] ... In a word,\neither God, and all goes well; or all at random--live not thou at\nrandom.\n\n\"A moment, and earth will cover us all; then it too in its turn will\nchange; and what it changes to, will change again {199} and again for\never; and again change after change to infinity.  The waves of change\nand transformation--if a man think of them and of their speed, he will\ndespise everything mortal.\n\n\"The universal cause is like a winter torrent; it carries all before\nit.  How cheap then these poor statesmen, these who carry philosophy\ninto practical affairs, as they fancy--poor diminutive creatures.\nDrivellers.  Man, what then?  Do what now Nature demands.  Start, if it\nbe given thee, and look not round to see if any will know.  Hope not\nfor Plato's Republic;[5] but be content if the smallest thing advance;\nto compass that one issue count no little feat.\n\n\"Who shall change one of their dogmata [the regular word of Epictetus]?\nAnd without a change of dogmata, what is there but the slavery of men\ngroaning and pretending to obey?  Go now, and talk of Alexander, and\nPhilip and Demetrius of Phalerum; whether they saw the will of Nature\nand schooled themselves, is their affair; if they played the tragic\nactor, no one has condemned me to copy them.  Simplicity and modesty\nare the work of philosophy; do not lead me astray into vanity.\n\n\"Look down from above on the countless swarms of men, their countless\ninitiations, and their varied voyage in storm and calm, their changing\ncombinations, as they come into being, meet, and pass out of being.\nThink too of the life lived by others of old, of the life that shall be\nlived by others after thee, of the life now lived among the barbarian\nnations; and, of how many have never heard thy name, and how many will\nat once forget it, and how many may praise thee now perhaps but will\nvery soon blame thee; and how neither memory is of any account, nor\nglory, nor anything else at all....\n\n\"The rottenness of the material substance of every individual\nthing--water, dust, bones, stench....  And this breathing element is\nanother of the same, changing from this to that....\n\n\"Either the gods have no power, or they have power.  If they have not,\nwhy pray?  If they have, why not pray for deliverance from the fear, or\nthe desire, or the pain, which the thing causes, rather than for the\nwithholding or the giving of the particular thing?  For certainly, if\nthey can co-operate with men, it is for these purposes they can\nco-operate.  But perhaps {200} thou wilt say, The gods have put all\nthese in my own power.  Then is it not better to use what is in thine\nown power and be free, than to be set on what is not in thy power--a\nslave and contemptible?  And who told thee that the gods do not help us\neven to what is in our own power?\"[6]\n\nThis handful of short passages all from the same place, with a few\nomitted, may be taken as representing very fairly the mind of Marcus\nAurelius.  The world was his to rule, and he felt it a duty to remember\nhow slight a thing it was.  This was not the temper of Alexander or of\nCaesar,--of men who make mankind, and who, by their belief in men and in\nthe power of their own ideas to lift men to higher planes of life,\nactually do secure that advance is made,--and that advance not the\nsmallest.  Yet he speaks of Alexander as a \"tragic actor.\"[7] For a\nstatesman, the attitude of Marcus is little short of betrayal.  He\nworked, he ruled, he endowed, he fought--he was pure, he was\nconscientious, he was unselfish--but he did not believe, and he was\nineffectual.  The Germans it might have been beyond any man's power to\nrepel at that day, but even at home Marcus was ineffectual.  His wife\nand his son were by-words.  He had almost a morbid horror of defilement\nfrom men and women of coarse minds,--a craving too for peace and\nsympathy; he shrank into himself, condoned, ignored.  Among his\nbenefactors he does not mention Hadrian, who really gave him the\nEmpire--and it is easy to see why.  In everything the two are a\ncontrast.  Hadrian's personal vices and his greatness as a ruler, as a\nman handling men and moving among ideas[8]--these were impossible for\nMarcus.\n\nNor was the personal religion of this pure and candid spirit a possible\none for mankind.  \"A genuine eternal Gospel,\" wrote Renan of this diary\nof Marcus, \"the book of the _Thoughts_ will never grow old, for it\naffirms no dogma.  The Gospel has grown old in certain parts; Science\nno longer allows us to admit the naive conception of the supernatural\nwhich is its base....  Yet Science might destroy God and the soul, and\nthe book of the _Thoughts_ would remain young in its life and truth.\"\n{201} Renan is right; when Science, or anything else, \"destroys God and\nthe soul,\" there is no Gospel but that of Marcus; and yet for men it is\nimpossible; and it is not young--it is senile.  Duty without\nenthusiasm, hope or belief--belief in man, of course, for \"God and the\nsoul\" are by hypothesis \"destroyed\"--duty, that is, without object,\nreason or result, it is a magnificent fancy, and yet one recurs to the\ncriticism that Marcus passed upon the Christians.  Is there not a hint\nof the school about this?  Is it not possible that the simpler\ninstincts of men,--instincts with a history as ludicrous as\nAnthropologists sometimes sketch for us,--may after all come nearer the\ntruth of things than semi-Stoic reflexion?  At all events the instincts\nhave ruled the world so far with the co-operation of Reason, and are as\nyet little inclined to yield their rights to their colleague.  They\nhave never done so without disaster.\n\nThe world did not accept Marcus as a teacher.  Men readily recognized\nhis high character, but for a thousand years and more nobody dreamed of\ntaking him as a guide--nobody, that is, outside the schools.  For the\nworld it was faith or unbelief, and the two contemporaries already\nmentioned represent the two poles to which the thoughts of men\ngravitated, who were not yet ready for a cleavage with the past.\n\n[Sidenote: Lucian]\n\n\"I am a Syrian from the Euphrates,\"[9] wrote Lucian of himself; and\nelsewhere he has a playful protest against a historian of his day,\nmagnificently ignorant of Eastern geography, who \"has taken up my\nnative Samosata, and shifted it, citadel, walls and all, into\nMesopotamia,\" and by this new feat of colonization has apparently\nturned him into a Parthian or Mesopotamian.[10]  Samosata lay actually\nin Commagene, and there Lucian spent his boyhood talking Syriac, his\nnative language.[11]  He was born about 125 A.D.  His family were poor,\nand as soon as he left school, the question of a trade was at once\nraised, for even a boy's earnings would be welcome.  At school he had\nhad a trick of scraping the wax from his tablets and making little\nfigures of animals and men, so his father handed him over to his\nmother's brother, who was one of a family of statuaries.  But a blunder\nand a breakage resulted in his uncle thrashing him, and he ran home to\nhis mother.  It was his first and last day in the sculptor's shop, and\nhe went to {202} bed with tears upon his face.  In later life he told\nthe story of a dream which he had that night--a long and somewhat\nliterary dream modelled on Prodicus' fable of the _Choice of Herakles_.\nHe dreamed that two women appeared to him, one dusty and workmanlike,\nthe other neat, charming and noble.  They were Sculpture and Culture,\nand he chose the latter.  He tells the dream, he says, that the young\nmay be helped by his example to pursue the best and devote themselves\nto Culture, regardless of immediate poverty.[12]  He was launched\nsomehow on the career of his choice and became a rhetorician.  It may\nbe noted however that an instinctive interest in art remained with him,\nand he is reckoned one of the best art-critics of antiquity.\n\nRhetoric, he says, \"made a Greek of him,\" went with him from city to\ncity in Greece and Ionia, \"sailed the Ionian sea with him and attended\nhim even as far as Gaul, scattering plenty in his path.\"[13]  For, as\nhe explains elsewhere, he was among the teachers who could command high\nfees, and he made a good income in Gaul.[14]  But, about the age of\nforty, he resolved \"to let the gentlemen of the jury rest in\npeace--tyrants enough having been arraigned and princes enough\neulogized.\"[15]  From now onward he wrote dialogues--he had at last\nfound his proper work.\n\n[Sidenote: Lucian's Dialogues]\n\nDialogue in former days had been the vehicle of speculation--\"had\ntrodden those aerial plains on high above the clouds, where the great\nZeus in heaven is borne along on winged car.\"  But it was to do so no\nmore, and in an amusing piece Lucian represents Dialogue personified as\nbringing a suit against him for outrage.  Had Lucian debased Dialogue,\nby reducing him to the common level of humanity and making him\nassociate with such persons as Aristophanes and Menippus, one a\nlight-hearted mocker at things sacred, the other a barking, snarling\ndog of a Cynic,--thus turning Dialogue into a literary Centaur, neither\nfit to walk nor able to soar?  Or was Dialogue really a musty, fusty,\nsuperannuated creature, and greatly improved now for having a bath and\nbeing taught to smile and to go genially in the company of Comedy?\nBetween the attack and the defence, the case is fairly stated.[16]\nLucian created a new {203} mode in writing--or perhaps he revived it,\nfor it is not very clear how much he owes to his favourite Menippus,\nthe Gadarene Cynic and satirist of four centuries before.\n\nMenippus however has perished and Lucian remains and is read; for,\nwhatever else is to be said of him, he is readable.  He has not lost\nall the traces of the years during which he consorted with Rhetoric; at\ntimes he amplifies and exaggerates, and will strain for more point and\npiquancy than a taste more sure would approve.  Yet he has the instinct\nto avoid travesty, and his style is in general natural and simple,\ndespite occasional literary reminiscences.  His characters talk,--as\nmen may talk of their affairs, when they are not conscious of being\noverheard,--with a naive frankness not always very wise, with a freedom\nand common sense, and sometimes with a folly, that together reveal the\nspeaker.  They rarely declaim, and they certainly never reach any high\nlevel of thought or feeling.  The talk is slight and easy--it flickers\nabout from one idea to another, and gives a strong impression of being\nreal.  If it is gods who are talking, they become surprisingly\nhuman--and even _bourgeois_, they are so very much at home among\nthemselves.  Lucian's skill is amazing.  He will take some episode from\nHomer and change no single detail, and yet, as we listen to the\noff-hand talk of the gods as they recount the occurrence, we are\nstartled at the effect--the irony is everywhere and nowhere; the\nsurprises are irresistible.  Zeus, for instance, turns out to have more\nliterary interests than we suppose; he will quote Homer and make a\nDemosthenic oration to the gods, though alas! his memory fails him in\nthe middle of a sentence;[17] he laments that his altars are as cold as\nPlato's _Laws_ or the syllogisms of Chrysippus.  He is the frankest\ngentleman of heaven, and so infinitely obliging!\n\nIn short, for sheer cleverness Lucian has no rival but Aristophanes in\nextant Greek literature.  His originality, his wit, his humour (not at\nall equal, it may be said, to his wit), his gifts of invention and\nfancy, his light touch, and his genius for lively narrative, mark him\nout distinctively in an age when literature was all rhetoric, length\nand reminiscence.  But as we read him, we become sensible of defects as\nextraordinary as his gifts.  For all his Attic style, he belongs to his\nage.  He {204} may renounce Rhetoric, but no man can easily escape from\nhis past.  The education had intensified the cardinal faults of his\ncharacter, impatience, superficiality, a great lack of sympathy for the\nmore tender attachments and the more profound interests of\nmen--essential unbelief in human grandeur.  An expatriated adventurer,\nliving for twenty years on his eloquence, with the merest smattering of\nphilosophy and no interest whatever in nature and natural science or\nmathematics, with little feeling and no poetry,--it was hardly to be\nexpected that he should understand the depths of the human soul,\nlynx-eyed as he is for the surface of things.  He had a very frank\nadmiration for his own character, and he drew himself over and over\nagain under various names.  Lykinos, for example, is hardly a disguise\nat all.  \"Free-Speech, son of True-man, son of Examiner,\" he calls\nhimself in one of his mock trials, \"hater of shams, hater of impostors,\nhater of liars, hater of the pompous, hater of every such variety of\nhateful men--and there are plenty of them\"; conversely, he loves the\nopposites, when he meets them, which, he owns, is not very often.[18]\n\n[Sidenote: Lucian and philosophy]\n\nWith such a profession, it is not surprising that a man of more wit\nthan sympathy, found abundance of material in the follies of his age.\nMen were taking themselves desperately seriously,--preaching\ninterminable Philosophy, saving their souls, and communing with gods\nand daemons in the most exasperating ways.  Shams, impostures, and\nliars--so Lucian summed them up, and he did not conceal his opinion.\nGranted that the age had aspects quite beyond his comprehension, he\ngives a very vivid picture of it from the outside.  This is what men\nwere doing and saying around him--but why?  Why, but from vanity and\nfolly?  Gods, philosophers, and all who take human life seriously, are\ndeluged with one stream of badinage, always clever but not always in\ngood taste.  He has no purpose, religious or philosophic.  If he\nattacks the gods, it is not as a Sceptic--the Sceptics are ridiculed as\nmuch as any one else in the _Sale of Lives_--men who know nothing,\ndoubt of their own experience, and avow the end of their knowledge to\nbe ignorance.[19]  If he is what we nowadays loosely call sceptical, it\nis not on philosophic grounds.  We should hardly expect him in his\nsatirical pamphlets really to {205} grapple with the question of\nPhilosophy, but he seems not to understand in the least why there\nshould be Philosophy at all.  He is master of no single system, though\nhe has the catch-words of them all at his finger-ends.\n\nHis most serious dialogue on Philosophy is the _Hermotimus_.  \"Lykinos\"\nmeets Hermotimus on his way to a lecture--a man of sixty who for many\nyears has attended the Stoics.  Into their argument we need not go, but\none or two points may be noted.  Hermotimus is a disciple, simple and\npersevering, who owns that he has not reached the goal of Happiness and\nhardly expects to reach it, but he presses bravely on, full of faith in\nhis teachers.  Under the adroit questions of Lykinos, he is forced to\nadmit that he had chosen the Stoics rather than any other school by\nsheer intuition--or because of general notions acquired more or less\nunconsciously--like a man buying wine, he knew a good thing when he\ntasted it, and looked no further.  Yes, says Lykinos, take the first\nstep and the rest is easy--Philosophy depends on a first\nassumption--take the Briareus of the poets with three heads and six\nhands, and then work him out,--six eyes, six ears, three voices talking\nat once, thirty fingers--you cannot quarrel with the details as they\ncome; once grant the beginning, and the rest comes flooding in,\nirresistible, hardly now susceptible of doubt.  So in Philosophy, your\npassion, like the longing of a lover, blinded you to the first\nassumptions, and the structure followed.[20]  \"Do not think that I\nspeak against the Stoics, through any special dislike of the school; my\narguments hold against all the schools.\"[21]  The end is that\nHermotimus abandons all Philosophy for ever--not a very dramatic or\nprobable end, as Plato and Justin Martyr could have told Lucian.\n\nThe other point to notice is the picture of Virtue under the image of a\nCelestial City, and here one cannot help wondering whether the irony\nhas any element of personal reminiscence.  Virtue Lykinos pictures as a\nCity, whose citizens are happy, wise and good, little short of gods, as\nthe Stoics say.  All there is peace, unity, liberty, equality.  The\ncitizens are all aliens and foreigners, not a native among\nthem--barbarians, slaves, misformed, dwarfs, poor; for wealth and birth\nand beauty are not reckoned there.  \"In good truth, we {206} should\ndevote all our efforts to this, and let all else go.  We should take no\nheed of our native-land, nor of the clinging and weeping of children or\nparents, if one has any, but call on them to take the same journey, and\nthen, if they will not or cannot go with us, shake them off, and march\nstraight for the city of all bliss, leaving one's coat in their hands,\nif they won't let go,--for there is no fear of your being shut out\nthere, even if you come without a coat.\"  Fifteen years ago an old man\nhad urged Lykinos to go there with him.  \"If the city had been near at\nhand and plain for all to see, long ago, you may be sure, with never a\ndoubt I would have gone there, and had my franchise long since.  But as\nyou tell us, it lieth far away\"----and there are so many professed\nguides and so many roads, that there is no telling whether one is\ntravelling to Babylon or to Corinth.[22]  \"So for the future you had\nbetter reconcile yourself to living like an ordinary man, without\nfantastic and vain hopes.\"[23]\n\nLucian never ceases to banter the philosophers.  When he visits the\nIslands of the Blest, he remarks that, while Diogenes and the\nEpicureans are there, Plato prefers his own Republic and Laws, the\nStoics are away climbing their steep hill of Virtue, and the Academics,\nthough wishful to come, are still suspending their judgment, uncertain\nwhether there really is such an island at all and not sure that\nRhadamanthus himself is qualified to give judgment.[24]  Diogenes in\nthe shades, Pan in his grotto, Zeus in heaven, and the common man in\nthe streets, are unanimous that they have had too much Philosophy\naltogether.  The philosophers have indeed embarked on an impossible\nquest, for they will never find Truth.  Once Lucian represents Truth in\nperson, and his portrait is characteristic.  She is pointed out to\nhim--a female figure, dim and indistinct of complexion; \"I do not see\nwhich one you mean,\" he says, and the answer is, \"Don't you see the\nunadorned one there, the naked one, ever eluding the sight and slipping\naway?\"[25]\n\n[Sidenote: Lucian's _Lover of Lies_]\n\nBut still more absurd than Philosophy was the growth of belief in the\nsupernatural.  Lucian's _Lover of Lies_ is a most illuminating book.\nHere are gathered specimens of the various {207} types of contemporary\nsuperstition--one would suspect the author of the wildest parody, if it\nwere not that point by point we may find parallels in the other writers\nof the day.  Tychiades (who is very like Lucian himself) tells how he\nhas been visiting Eucrates and has dropped into a nest of absurdities.\nEucrates is sixty and wears the solemn beard of a student of\nphilosophy.  He has a ring made of iron from gibbets and is prepared to\nbelieve everything incredible.  His house is full of professed\nphilosophers, Aristotelian, Stoic, and Platonic, advising him how to\ncure the pain in his legs, by wrapping round them a lion's skin with\nthe tooth of a field mouse folded within it.[26]  Tychiades asks if\nthey really believe that a charm hung on outside can cure the mischief\nwithin, and they laugh at his ignorance.  The Platonist tells a number\nof stories to prove the reasonableness of the treatment,--how a\nvine-dresser of his father's had died of snake-bite and been recovered\nby a Chaldaean, and how the same Chaldaean charmed (like the Pied Piper)\nall the snakes off their farm.  The Stoic narrates how he once saw a\nHyperborean flying and walking on water--\"with those brogues on his\nfeet that his countrymen habitually wear\"--a man whose more ordinary\nfeats were raising spirits, calling the dead from their graves, and\nfetching down the moon.  Ion, the Platonist, confirms all this with an\naccount of another miracle-worker--\"everybody knows the Syrian of\nPalestine\" who drives daemons out of men; \"he would stand by the patient\nlying on the ground and ask whence they have come into the body; and,\nthough the sick person does not speak, the daemon answers in Greek, or\nin some barbarian tongue, or whatever his own dialect may be, and\nexplains how he entered into the man and whence he came.  Then the\nSyrian would solemnly adjure him, or threaten him if he were obstinate,\nand so drive him out.  I can only say I saw one, of a black smoky hue,\nin the act of coming out.\"[27]  The Syrian's treatment was expensive,\nit appears.  Celsus, as we shall see later on, has some evidence on\nthis matter.  The nationality of the magicians quoted in the book may\nbe remarked--they are Libyan, Syrian, Arab, Chaldaean, Egyptian, and\n\"Hyperborean.\"\n\nOther tales of magical statues, a wife's apparition, an {208} uneasy\nghost,[28] a charm for bringing an absent lover, and the familiar one\nof the man who learns the spell of three syllables to make a pestle\nfetch water, but unhappily not that which will make it stop, and who\nfinds on cutting it in two that there are now two inanimate\nwater-carriers and a double deluge--these we may pass over.  We may\nnote that this water-fetching spell came originally from a sacred\nscribe of Memphis, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who\nlived underground in the temple for three and twenty years and was\ntaught his magic there by Isis herself.[29]  Interviews with daemons are\nso common that instances are not given.[30]\n\nMore significant are the stories of the other world, for here we come\nagain, from a different point of approach, into a region familiar to\nthe reader of Plutarch.  Eucrates himself, out in the woods, heard a\nnoise of barking dogs; an earthquake followed and a voice of thunder,\nand then came a woman more than six hundred feet high, bearing sword\nand torch, and followed by dogs \"taller than Indian elephants, black in\ncolour.\"  Her feet were snakes--here we may observe that Pausanias the\ntraveller pauses to dismiss \"the silly story that giants have serpents\ninstead of feet,\" for a coffin more than eleven ells long was found\nnear Antioch and \"the whole body was that of a man.\"[31]  So the\nsnake-feet are not a mere fancy of Lucian's.  The woman then tapped the\nearth with one of these feet of hers, and disappeared into the chasm\nshe made.  Eucrates, peeping over the edge, \"saw everything in Hades,\nthe river of fire and the lake, Cerberus and the dead\"--what is more,\nhe recognized some of the dead.  \"Did you see Socrates and Plato?\" asks\nIon.  Socrates he thought he saw, \"but Plato I did not recognize; I\nsuppose one is bound to stick to the exact truth in talking to one's\nfriends.\"  Pyrrhias the slave confirms the story as an eye-witness.[32]\nAnother follows with a story of his trance in illness, and how he saw\nthe world below, Fates, Furies, and all, and was brought before Pluto,\nwho {209} dismissed him with some irritation, as not amenable yet to\nhis Court, and called for the smith Demylos; he came back to life and\nannounced that Demylos would shortly die, and Demylos did die.  \"Where\nis the wonder?\" says another--the physician, \"I know a man raised from\nthe dead twenty days after his burial, for I attended him both before\nhis death and after his resurrection.\"[33]\n\nIn all this, it is clear that there is a strong element of mockery.\nMockery was Lucian's object, but he probably kept in all these stories\na great deal nearer to what his neighbours would believe than we may\nimagine.  AElian, for example, has a story of a pious cock, which made a\npoint of walking gratefully in the processions that took place in\nhonour of AEsculapius; and he does not tell it in the spirit of the\nauthor of the _Jackdaw of Rheims_.\n\n[Sidenote: Lucian and the gods]\n\nAs one of the main preoccupations of his age was with the gods, Lucian\nof course could not leave them alone.  His usual method is to accept\nthem as being exactly what tradition made them, and then to set them in\nnew and impossible situations.  The philosopher Menippus takes \"the\nright wing of an eagle and the left of a vulture,\" and, after some\ncareful practice, flies up to heaven to interview Zeus.  He has been so\nterribly distracted by the arguments of the schools, that he wants to\nsee for himself--\"I dared not disbelieve men of such thundering voices\nand such imposing beards.\"  Zeus most amiably allows him to stand by\nand watch him at work, hearing prayers as they come up through tubes,\nand granting or rejecting them, then settling some auguries, and\nfinally arranging the weather--\"rain in Scythia, snow in Greece, a\nstorm in the Adriatic, and about a thousand bushels of hail in\nCappadocia.\"[34]  Zeus asks; rather nervously what men are saying about\nhim nowadays--mankind is so fond of novelty.  \"There was a time,\" he\nsays, \"when I was everything to them--\n\n  Each street, each market-place was full of Zeus--\n\nand I could hardly see for the smoke of sacrifice\"; but other gods,\nAsklepios, Bendis, Anubis and others, have set up shrines and the\naltars of Zeus are cold--cold as Chrysippus.[35] Altogether the\ndialogue is a masterpiece of humour and irony.\n\nIn another piece, we find Zeus and the other gods in {210} assembly\nlistening to an argument going on at Athens.  An Epicurean, Damis, and\na singularly feeble Stoic are debating whether gods exist, and whether\nthey exercise any providence for men.  Poseidon recommends the prompt\nuse of a thunderbolt \"to let them see,\" but Zeus reminds him that it is\nDestiny that really controls the thunderbolts--and, besides, \"it would\nlook as if we were frightened.\"  So the argument goes on, and all the\nfamiliar proofs from divine judgments, regularity of sun and season,\nfrom Homer and the poets, from the consensus of mankind and oracles,\nare produced and refuted there and then, while the gods listen, till it\nbecomes doubtful whether they do exist.  The Stoic breaks down and runs\naway.  \"What are we to do?\" asks Zeus.  Hermes quotes a comic poet in\nHamlet's vein--\"there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes\nit so\"--and what does it matter, if a few men are persuaded by Damis?\nwe still have the majority--\"most of the Greeks and all the\nbarbarians.\"[36]\n\nIn _Zeus Cross-examined_ the process is carried further.  Cyniscus\nquestions Zeus, who is only too good-natured and falls into all the\nquestioner's traps.  He admits Destiny to be supreme, and gets\nentangled in a terrible net of problems about fore-knowledge, the value\nof sacrifice and of divination, divine wrath, sin and so forth, till he\ncries \"You leave us nothing!--you seem to me to despise me, for sitting\nhere and listening to you with a thunderbolt on my arm.\"  \"Hit me with\nit,\" says Cyniscus, \"if it is so destined,--I shall have no quarrel\nwith you for it, but with Clotho.\"  At last Zeus rises and goes away\nand will answer no more.  But perhaps, reflects Cyniscus, he has said\nenough, and it was \"not destined for me to hear any more.\"[37]  The\nreader feels that Zeus has said more than enough.\n\nFrom the old gods of Greece, we naturally turn to the newcomers.  When\nZeus summoned the gods to discuss the question of atheism at Athens, a\ngood many more came than understood Greek, and it was they who had the\nbest seats as they were made of solid gold--Bendis, Anubis, Attis and\nMithras for example.  Elsewhere Momus (who is a divine Lucian)\ncomplains to Zeus about them--\"that Mithras with his Persian robe and\ntiara, who can't talk Greek, nor even understand when one drinks {211}\nto him\"--what is he doing in heaven?  And then the dog-faced Egyptian\nin linen--who is he to bark at the gods?  \"Of course,\", says Zeus,\n\"Egyptian religion--yes! but all the same there are hidden meanings,\nand the uninitiated must not laugh at them.\"  Still Zeus is provoked\ninto issuing a decree--on second thoughts, he would not put it to the\nvote of the divine assembly, for he felt sure he would be outvoted.\nThe decree enacts that, whereas heaven is crowded with polyglot aliens,\ntill there is a great rise in the price of nectar, and the old and true\ngods are being crowded out of their supremacy, a committee of seven\ngods shall be appointed to sit on claims; further, that each god shall\nattend to his own function, Athene shall not heal nor Asklepios give\noracles, etc.; that philosophers shall talk no more nonsense; and that\nthe statues of deified men shall be replaced by those of Zeus, Hera,\netc., the said men to be buried in the usual way.[38]\n\n[Sidenote: Lucian's _Alexander_]\n\nMore than one reference has been made to new gods and new oracles.\nLucian in his _Alexander_ gives a merciless account of how such shrines\nwere started.  He came into personal contact--indeed into\nconflict--with Alexander, the founder of the oracle of Abonoteichos,\nand his story is full of detail.  The man was a quack of the vulgarest\ntype, and, yet by means of a tame snake and some other simple\ncontrivances, he imposed himself upon the faith of a community.  His\nrenown spread far and wide.  By recognizing other oracles he secured\ntheir support.  Men came to him even from Rome.  Through one of these\ndevotees, he actually sent an oracle to Marcus Aurelius among the\nMarcomanni and Quadi, bidding him throw two lions with spices into the\nDanube, and there should be a great victory.  This was done, Lucian\nsays; the lions swam ashore on the farther side, and the victory fell\nto the Germans.[39]  Lucian himself trapped the prophet with some\ncunningly devised inquiries, which quite baffled god, prophet, snake\nand all.  He also tried to detach an eminent adherent.  Alexander\nrealized what was going on, and Lucian got a guard of two soldiers from\nthe governor of Cappadocia.  Under their protection he went to see the\nprophet who had sent for him.  The prophet, as he usually did with his\nfollowers, offered him {212} his hand to kiss, and Lucian records with\nsatisfaction that he bit the proffered hand and nearly lamed it.\nThanks to his guard, he came away uninjured.  Alexander, however, after\nthis tried still more to compass his death, which is not\nsurprising.[40]  There is other evidence than Lucian's, though it is\nnot unnaturally slight, for the existence of this remarkable impostor.\n\n[Sidenote: Lucian and Peregrinus]\n\nLucian has one or two incidental references to Christians.[41]\nAlexander warned them, in company with the Epicureans, to keep away\nfrom his shrine.  But we hear more of them in connexion with Proteus\nPeregrinus.  Lucian is not greatly interested in them; he ridicules\nthem as fools for being taken in by the impostor; for Peregrinus, he\ntells us, duped them with the greatest success.  He became a prophet\namong them, a thiasarch, a ruler of the synagogue, everything in fact;\nhe interpreted their books for them, and indeed wrote them a lot more;\nand they counted him a god and a lawgiver.  \"You know,\" Lucian\nexplains, \"they still worship that great man of theirs, who was put on\na gibbet in Palestine, because he added this new mystery (_teleten_) to\nhuman life.\"  In his mocking way he gives some interesting evidence on\nthe attention and care bestowed by Christians on those of their members\nwho were thrown into prison.  He details what was done by the foolish\ncommunity for \"their new Socrates\" when Peregrinus was a prisoner.\nWhen he was released, Peregrinus started wandering again, living on\nChristian charity, till \"he got into trouble with them, too,--he was\ncaught eating forbidden meats.\"[42]\n\nLucian differs from Voltaire in having less purpose and no definite\nprinciples.  He had no design to overthrow religion in favour of\nsomething else; it is merely that the absurdity of it provoked him, and\nhe enjoyed saying aloud, and with all the vigour of reckless wit, that\nreligious belief was silly.  If the effect was scepticism, it was a\nscepticism founded, not on {213} philosophy, but on the off-hand\njudgment of what is called common-sense.  Hidden meanings and mysteries\nwere to him nonsense.  How little he was qualified to understand\nmysticism and religious enthusiasm, can be seen in his account of the\nself-immolation of Peregrinus on his pyre at the Olympian\ngames[43]--perhaps the most insufficient thing he ever wrote, full of\nvalue as it is.  Peregrinus was a wanderer among the religions of the\nage.  Gellius--who often heard him at Athens, calls him a man _gravis\natque constans_, and says he spoke much that was useful and honest.  He\nquotes in his way a paragraph of a discourse on sin, which does not\nlack moral elevation.[44] To Lucian the man was a quack, an advertiser,\na mountebank, who burnt himself to death merely to attract notice.\nLucian says he witnessed the affair, and tells gaily how, among other\njests, he imposed a pretty miracle of his own invention upon the\ncredulous.  He had taken no pains to understand the man--nor did he to\nunderstand either the religious temper in general, or the philosophic,\nor anything else.  His habit of handling things easily and lightly did\nnot help him to see what could not be taken in at a glance.\n\nWhat then does Lucian make of human life?  On this he says a great\ndeal.  His most characteristic invention perhaps is the visit that\nCharon pays to the upper world to see what it really is that the dead\nregret so much.  It is indeed, as M. Croiset points out, a fine stroke\nof irony to take the opinion of a minister of Death upon Life.  Charon\nhas left his ferry boat and comes up to light.  Hermes meets him and\nthey pile up some mountains--Pelion on Ossa, and Parnassus on top, from\nthe two summits of which they survey mankind--a charm from Homer\nremoving Charon's difficulty of vision.  He sees many famous people,\nsuch as Milo, Polycrates and Cyrus; and he overhears Croesus and Solon\ndiscussing happiness, while Hermes foretells their fates.  He sees a\nvaried scene, life full of confusion, cities like swarms of bees, where\neach has a sting and stings his neighbour, and some, like wasps, harass\nand plunder the rest; over them, like a cloud, hang hopes and fears\n{214} and follies, pleasures and passions and hatreds.  He sees the\nFates spinning slender threads, soon cut, from which men hang with\nnever a thought of how quickly death ends their dreams; and he compares\nthem to bubbles, big and little inevitably broken.  He would like to\nshout to them \"to live with Death ever before their eyes\"--why be so\nearnest about what they can never take away?--but Hermes tells him it\nwould be useless.  He is amazed at the absurdity of their burial rites,\nand he astonishes Hermes by quoting Homer on the subject.  Last of all\nhe witnesses a battle and cries out at the folly of it.  \"Such,\" he\nconcludes, \"is the life of miserable men--and not a word about\nCharon.\"[45]\n\nIn the same way and in the same spirit Menippus visits the Lower World,\nwhere he sees Minos judging the dead.  Minos too seems to have been\ninterested in literature, for he reduced the sentence upon Dionysius,\nthe tyrant of Syracuse, on the very proper ground of his generosity to\nauthors.  But the general picture has less humour.  \"We entered the\nAcherusian plain, and there we found the demi-gods, and the heroines,\nand the general throng of the dead in nations and tribes, some ancient\nand mouldering, 'strengthless heads' as Homer says, others fresh and\nholding together--Egyptians these in the main, so thoroughly good is\ntheir embalming.  But to know one from another was no easy task; all\nbecome so much alike when the bones are bared; yet with pains and long\nscrutiny we began to recognize them.  They lay pell-mell in\nundistinguishable heaps, with none of their earthly beauties left.\nWith so many skeletons piled together, all as like as could be, eyes\nglaring ghastly and vacant, teeth gleaming bare, I knew not to tell\nThersites from Nireus the fair....  For none of their ancient marks\nremained, and their bones were alike, uncertain, unlabelled,\nundistinguishable.  When I saw all this, the life of man came before me\nunder the likeness of a great pageant, arranged and marshalled by\nChance,\" who assigns the parts and reassigns them as she pleases; and\nthen the pageant ends, every one disrobes and all are alike.  \"Such is\nhuman life, as it seemed to me while I gazed.\"[46]  Over and over again\nwith every accent of irony the one moral is enforced--sometimes with\nsheer brutality as in the tract on _Mourning_.\n\n{215}\n\nMenippus asked Teiresias in the shades what was the best life.  \"He was\na blind little old man, and pale, and had a weak voice.\"  He said: \"The\nlife of ordinary people is best, and, wiser; cease from the folly of\nmetaphysics, of inquiry into origins and purposes; spit upon those\nclever syllogisms and count all these things idle talk; and pursue one\nend alone, how you may well arrange the present and go on your way with\na laugh for most things and no enthusiasms.\"[47]  In fact, \"the\nunexamined life\" is the only one, as many a weary thinker has felt--if\nit were but possible.\n\n[Sidenote: Criticism of Lucian]\n\nGoethe's criticism on Heine may perhaps be applied to Lucian--\"We\ncannot deny that he has many brilliant qualities, but he is wanting in\nlove ... and thus he will never produce the effect which he ought.\"[48]\nVarious views have been held of Lucian's contribution to the religious\nmovement of the age; it has even been suggested that his Dialogues\nadvanced the cause of Christianity.  But when one reflects upon the\ntender hearts to be found in the literature of the century, it is\ndifficult to think that Lucian can have had any effect on the mass of\nserious people, unless to quicken in them by repulsion the desire for\nsomething less terrible than a godless world of mockery and death, and\nthe impulse to seek it in the ancestral faith of their fathers.  He did\nnot love men enough to understand their inmost mind.  The instincts\nthat drove men back upon the old religion were among the deepest in\nhuman nature, and of their strength Lucian had no idea.  His admirers\nto-day speak of him as one whose question was always \"Is it true?\"  We\nhave seen that it was a question lightly asked and quickly answered.\nIt is evident enough that his mockery of religion has some warrant in\nthe follies and superstitions of his day.  But such criticism as his,\nbased upon knowledge incomplete and sympathy imperfect, is of little\nvalue.  If a man's judgment upon religion is not to be external, he\nmust have felt the need of a religion,--he must have had at some time\nthe consciousness of imperative cravings and instincts which only a\nreligion can satisfy.  Such cravings are open to criticism, but men can\nneither be laughed out of them, nor indeed reasoned out of them; and\nhowever absurd a religion may seem, and however defective it may be, if\nit is {216} still the only available satisfaction of the deepest needs\nof which men are conscious, it will hold its own, despite mockery and\ndespite philosophy--as we shall see in the course of the chapter,\nthough two more critics of religion remain to be noticed.\n\n[Sidenote: Sextus Empiricus]\n\nLucian was not the only man who sought to bring the age back to sound\nand untroubled thinking.  There was a physician, Sextus--known from the\nschool of medicine to which he belonged as Sextus Empiricus--who wrote\na number of books about the end of the second century or the beginning\nof the third in defence of Scepticism.  A medical work of his, and a\ntreatise on the Soul are lost, but his _Pyrrhonean Sketches_ and his\nbooks _Against the Dogmatists_ remain--written in a Greek which\nsuggests that he was himself a Greek and not a foreigner using the\nlanguage.  Physicists, mathematicians, grammarians, moralists,\nastrologers, come under his survey, and the particular attention which\nhe gives to the Stoics is a material fact in fixing his date, for after\nabout 200 A.D. they cease to be of importance.  His own point of view a\nshort extract from his sketches will exhibit fully enough for our\npresent purpose.\n\n\"The aim of the Sceptic is ataraxia [freedom from mental perturbation\nor excitement] in matters which depend on opinion, and in things which\nare inevitable restraint of the feelings (_metriopatheian_).  For he\nbegan to philosophise in order to judge his impressions (_phantasias_)\nand to discover which of them are true and which false, so as to be\nfree from perturbation.  But he came to a point where the arguments\nwere at once diametrically opposite and of equal weight; and then, as\nhe could not decide, he suspended judgment (_epeschen_), and as soon as\nhe had done so, there followed as if by accident this very freedom from\nperturbation in the region of opinion.  For if a man opines anything to\nbe good or bad in its essential nature, he is always in perturbation.\nWhen he has not the things that appear to him to be good, he considers\nhimself tortured by the things evil by nature, and he pursues the good\n(as he supposes them to be); but, as soon as he has them, he falls into\neven more perturbations, through being uplifted out of all reason and\nmeasure, and from fear of change he does everything not to lose the\nthings that seem to him to be good.  But the man, who makes no\ndefinitions as to what is good or bad by {217} nature, neither avoids\nnor pursues anything with eagerness, and is therefore unperturbed.\nWhat is related of Apelles the painter has in fact befallen the\nSceptic.  The story goes that he was painting a horse and wished to\nrepresent the foam of its mouth in his picture; but he was so\nunsuccessful that he gave it up, and took the sponge, on which he used\nto wipe the colours from his brush, and threw it at the picture.  The\nsponge hit the picture and produced a likeness of the horse's foam.\nThe Sceptics then hoped to gain ataraxia by forming some decision on\nthe lack of correspondence between things as they appear to the eye and\nto the mind; they were unable to do it, and so suspended judgment\n(_epeschen_); and then as if by accident the ataraxia followed---just\nas a shadow follows a body.  We do not say that the Sceptic is\nuntroubled in every way, but we own he is troubled by things that are\nquite inevitable.  For we admit that the Sceptic is cold sometimes, and\nthirsty, and so forth.  But even in these matters the uneducated are\ncaught in two ways at once, viz.: by the actual feelings and (not less)\nby supposing these conditions to be bad by nature.  The Sceptic does\naway with the opinion that any one of these things is evil in its\nnature, and so he gets off more lightly even in these\ncircumstances.\"[49]\n\nA view of this kind was hardly likely to appeal to the temper of the\nage, and the influence of Scepticism was practically none.  Still it is\ninteresting to find so vigorous and clear an exponent of the system\nflourishing in a period given over to the beliefs that Lucian parodied\nand Apuleius accepted.  Sextus, it may be added, is the sole\nrepresentative of ancient Scepticism whose works have come down to us\nin any complete form.\n\nOne very obscure person of this period remains to be noticed, who in\nhis small sphere gave his views to mankind in a way of his own.\n\nIn 1884 two French scholars, MM. Holleaux and Paris were exploring the\nruins of Oinoanda, a Greek city in Lycia, and they came upon a number\nof inscribed stones, most of them built in a wall.  What was unusual\nwas that these were neither fragments of municipal decrees nor of\nprivate monuments, but all formed part of one great inscription which\ndealt apparently with some philosophic subject.  In June 1895 two\nAustrian {218} scholars, MM. Heberdey and Kalinka, re-collated the\ninscription and found some further fragments, and now the story is\ntolerably clear, and a curious one it is.[50]\n\nIt appears that the fragments originally belonged to an inscription\ncarved on the side of a colonnade, and they fall into three series\naccording to their place on the wall--one above another.  The middle\nseries consists of columns of fourteen lines, the letters 1-1/2 to 2\ncentimetres high, fifteen or sixteen in a line,--each column forming a\npage, as it were; and it extends over some twenty-one or two yards.\nThe lowest series is in the same style.  On top is a series of columns\nadded later (as the inscription shows) and cut in letters of 2-1/2-3\ncentimetres, generally ten lines to the column--the larger size to\ncompensate for the greater height above the ground, for it was all\nmeant to be read.  The inscription begins:--\n\n\"Diogenes to kinsmen, household and friends, this is my charge.  Being\nso ill that it is critical whether I yet live or live no longer--for an\naffection of the heart is carrying me off--if I survive, I will gladly\naccept the life yet given to me; if I do not survive, _DO_...\"\n\n[Sidenote: Diogenes of Oinoanda]\n\nThere ends a column, and a line or two has been lost at the top of what\nseems to be the next, after which come the words \"a kindly feeling for\nstrangers also who may be staying here,\" and the incomplete statement\nwhich begins \"knowing assuredly, that by knowledge of the matters\nrelating to Nature and feelings, which I have set forth in the spaces\nbelow....\"  It is evident that Diogenes had something to say which he\nconsidered it a duty to make known.  This proves to have been the\nEpicurean theory of life; and here he had carved up for all to read a\nsimple exposition of the philosophy of his choice.\n\nThe uppermost row contains his account of his purpose and something\nupon old age--very fragmentary.  There follow a letter of Epicurus to\nhis mother, and another letter from some one unidentified to one\nMenneas, and then a series of apophthegms and sentences.  Thus fragment\n27 is a column of ten lines to this effect: \"Nothing is so contributive\nto good spirits, as not to do many things, nor take in hand tiresome\nmatters, nor force oneself in any way beyond one's own strength, for\nall these things perturb nature.\"  Another column proclaims: \"Acute\n{219} pains cannot be long; for either they quickly destroy life and\nare themselves destroyed with it, or they receive some abatement of\ntheir acuteness.\"  These platitudes are, as we may guess, an\nafterthought.\n\nThe middle row, the first to be inscribed, deals with the Epicurean\ntheory of atoms--not by apophthegm or aphorism, but with something of\nthe fulness and technicality of a treatise.  \"Herakleitos of Ephesus,\nthen, said fire was the element; Thales of Miletus water; Diogenes of\nApollonia and Anaximenes air; Empedocles of Agrigentum both fire and\nair and water and earth; Anaxagoras of Clazomenae the homoeomeries of\neach thing in particular; those of the Stoa matter and God.  But\nDemocritus of Abdera said atomic natures--and he did well; but since he\nmade some mistakes about them, these will be set right in our opinions.\nSo now we will accuse the persons mentioned, not from any feeling of\nillwill against them, but wishing the truth to be saved (_sothenai_).\"\nSo he takes them in turn and argues at leisure.  The large fragment 45\ndiscusses astronomy in its four columns--in particular, the sun and its\napparent distance and its nature.  Fr. 48 (four columns) goes on to\ntreat of civilization,--of the development of dress from leaves to\nskins and woven garments, without the intervention \"of any other god or\nof Athena either.\"  Need and time did all.  Hermes did not invent\nlanguage.  In fr. 50, we read that Protagoras \"said he did not know if\nthere are gods.  That is the same thing as saying he knew there are\nnot.\"  Fr. 51 deals with death--\"thou hast even persuaded me to laugh\nat it.  For I am not a whit afraid because of the Tityos-es and\nTantalus-es, whom some people paint in Hades, nor do I dread decay,\nreflecting that the [something] of the body ... [three broken lines]\n... nor anything else.\"  At the end of the row another letter begins\n(fr. 56) \"[Diogen]es to Anti[pater] greeting.\"  He writes from Rhodes,\nhe says, just before winter begins, to friends in Athens and elsewhere,\nwhom he would like to see.  Though away from his country, he knows he\ncan do more for it in this way than by taking part in political life.\nHe wishes to show that \"that which is convenient to Nature, viz.\nAtaraxia is the same for all.\"  He is now \"at the sunset of life,\" and\nall but departing; so, since most men, as in a pestilence, are diseased\nwith false opinion, which is very infectious, he wishes {220} \"to help\nthose that shall be after us; for they too are ours, even if they are\nnot yet born\"; and strangers too.  \"I wished to make use of this\ncolonnade and to set forth in public the medicine of salvation\" (_ta\ntes soterias protheinai pharmaka_, fr. 58).  The idle fears that\noppressed him, he has shaken off; as to pains--empty ones he has\nabolished utterly, and the rest are reduced to the smallest compass.\nHe bewails the life of men, wasted as it is, and weeps for it; and he\nhas \"counted it a good man's part\" to help men as far as he can.  That\nis why he has thought of this inscription which may enable men to\nobtain \"joy with good spirits\" (_te_[_s met' euthu_]_mias chara_[_s_]),\nrather than of a theatre or a bath or anything else of the kind, such\nas rich men would often build for their fellow-citizens (fr. 59).\n\nThe discussion which follows in the third series of columns need not\nhere detain us.  Diogenes appeals for its consideration--that it may\nnot merely be glanced at in passing (fr. 61, col. 3); but it will\nsuffice us at present to note his statement that his object is \"that\nlife may become pleasant to us\" (fr. 63, col. 1), and his protest--\"I\nwill swear, both now and always, crying aloud to all, Greeks and\nbarbarians, that pleasure is the objective of the best mode of life,\nwhile the virtues, which these people now unseasonably meddle with (for\nthey shift them from the region of the contributive to that of the\nobjective) are by no means an objective, but contributive to the\nobjective\" (fr. 67, col. 2, 3).  Lastly we may notice his reference to\nthe improvement made in the theory of Democritus by the discovery of\nEpicurus of the swerve inherent in the atoms (fr. 81).\n\nAltogether the inscription is as singular a monument of antiquity as we\nare likely to find.  What the fellow-citizens of Diogenes thought of\nit, we do not know.  Perhaps they might have preferred the bath or\nother commonplace gift of the ordinary rich man.  It is a pity that\nLucian did not see the colonnade.\n\nSide by side with Lucian, Sextus and Diogenes it is interesting to\nconsider their contemporaries who were not of their opinion.\n\nPerhaps, while the stone-masons were day by day carving up the long\ninscription at Oinoanda, others of their trade were {221} busy across\nthe AEgaean with one of another character.  At any rate, the inscription\nwhich M. Julius Apellas set up in the temple of Asklepios in Epidauros,\nbelongs to this period.  Like Diogenes, he is not afraid of detail.\n\n[Sidenote: Marcus Julius Apellas]\n\n\"In the priesthood of Poplius AElius Antiochus.\n\n\"I, Marcus Julius Apellas of Idrias and Mylasa, was sent for by the\nGod, for I was a chronic invalid and suffered from dyspepsia.  In the\ncourse of my journey the God told me in AEgina not to be so irritable.\nWhen I reached the Temple, he directed me to keep my head covered for\ntwo days; and for these two days it rained.  I was to eat bread and\ncheese, parsley with lettuce, to wash myself without help, to practise\nrunning, to drink citron-lemonade, to rub my body on the sides of the\nbath in the bath-room, to take walks in the upper portico, to use the\ntrapeze, to rub myself over with sand, to go with bare feet in the\nbath-room, to pour wine into the hot water before I got in, to wash\nmyself without help, and to give an Attic drachma to the\nbath-attendant, to offer in public sacrifices to Asklepios, Epione and\nthe Eleusinian goddesses, and to take milk with honey.  When for one\nday I had drunk milk alone, the god said to put honey in the milk to\nmake it digestible.\n\n\"When I called upon the god to cure me more quickly, I thought it was\nas if I had anointed my whole body with mustard and salt, and had come\nout of the sacred hall and gone in the direction of the bath-house,\nwhile a small child was going before holding a smoking censer.  The\npriest said to me: 'Now you are cured, but you must pay up the fees for\nyour treatment.'  I acted according to the vision, and when I rubbed\nmyself with salt and moistened mustard, I felt the pain still, but when\nI had bathed, I suffered no longer.  These events took place in the\nfirst nine days after I had come to the Temple.  The god also touched\nmy right hand and my breast.\n\n\"The following day as I was offering sacrifice, a flame leapt up and\ncaught my hand, so as to cause blisters.  Yet after a little my hand\nwas healed.\n\n\"As I prolonged my stay in the Temple, the god told me to use dill\nalong with olive-oil for my head-aches.  Formerly I had not suffered\nfrom head-aches, but my studies had brought {222} on congestion.  After\nI used the olive-oil, I was cured of head-aches.  For swollen glands\nthe god told me to use a cold gargle, when I consulted him about it,\nand he ordered the same treatment for inflamed tonsils.\n\n\"He bade me inscribe this treatment, and I left the Temple in good\nhealth and full of gratitude to the god.\"[51]\n\n[Sidenote: Pausanias]\n\nPausanias speaks of \"the buildings erected in our time by Antoninus a\nman of the Conscript Senate\"--a Roman Senator in fact,[52]--in honour\nof Asklepios at Epidauros, a bath, three temples, a colonnade, and \"a\nhouse where a man may die, and a woman lie in, without sin,\" for these\nactions were not \"holy\" within the sanctuary precincts, and had had to\nbe done in the open air hitherto.\n\nA more conspicuous patient of Asklepios is AElius Aristides, the\nrhetorician.  This brilliant and hypochondriacal person spent years in\nwatching his symptoms and consulting the god about them.  Early in his\nillness the god instructed him to record its details, and he obeyed\nwith zest, though in after years he was not always able to record the\nminuter points with complete clearness.  He was bidden to make\nspeeches, to rub himself over with mud, to plunge into icy water, to\nride, and, once, to be bled to the amount of 120 litres.  As the human\nbody does not contain anything like that amount of blood, and as the\ntemple servants knew of no one ever having been \"cut\" to that\nextent--\"at least except Ischyron, and his was one of the most\nremarkable cases,\" the god was not taken literally.[53]  The regular\nplan was to sleep in the Temple, as already mentioned, and the god\ncame.  \"The impression was that one could touch him, and perceive that\nhe came in person; as if one were between asleep and awake, and wished\nto look out and were in an agony lest he should depart too soon,--as if\none held one's ear and listened--sometimes as in a dream, and then as\nin a waking vision--one's hair was on end, and tears of joy were shed,\nand one felt light-hearted.  And who among {223} men could set this\nforth in words?  Yet if there is one of the initiated, he knows and\nrecognises [what I say].\"[54]\n\nNone of the cases yet quoted can compare with the miracles of ancient\ndays to be read in the inscriptions about the place--stories of women\nwith child for three and five years, of the extraordinary surgery of\nthe god, cutting off the head of a dropsical patient, holding him\nupside down to let the water run out and putting the head on again,--a\nmass of absurdities hardly to be matched outside _The Glories of Mary_.\nThey make Lucian's _Philopseudes_ seem tame.\n\nThere were other gods, beside Asklepios, who gave oracles in shrine and\ndream.  Pausanias the traveller has left a book on Greece and its\nantiquities, temples, gods and legends of extraordinary value.  \"A man\nmade of common stuff and cast in a common mould,\" as Dr Frazer\ncharacterizes him,--and therefore the more representative--he went\nthrough Greece with curious eyes and he saw much that no one else has\nrecorded.  At Sparta stood the only temple he knew of which had an\nupper story.  In this upper story was an image of Aphrodite Morpho\nfettered[55]--a silly thing he thought it to fetter a cedar-wood doll.\nHe particularly visited Phigalea, because of the \"Black Demeter\"--a\ncurious enough image she had been, though by then destroyed.[56]  He\nwas initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries.[57]  He tells us that the\nstony remnants of the lump of clay from which Prometheus fashioned the\nfirst man were still preserved,[58] and that the sceptre which\nHephaistos made for Agamemnon received a daily sacrifice in Chaeronea,\nPlutarch's city--\"a table is set beside it covered with all sorts of\nflesh and cakes.\"[59]  He has many such stories.  He tells us too about\na great many oracles of his day, of which that of Amphilochus at Mallus\nin Cilicia\" is the most infallible\"[60]--a curiously \"suggestive\nsuperlative (_apseudestation_).  He is greatly {224} interested in\nAsklepios, but for our present purpose a few sentences from his\nelaborate account of the ceremony with which Trophonius is consulted at\nLebadea must suffice.\n\nAfter due rites the inquirer comes to the oracle, in a linen tunic with\nribbons, and boots of the country.  Inside bronze railings is a pit of\nmasonry, some four ells across and eight deep, and he goes down into it\nby means of a light ladder brought for the occasion.  At the bottom he\nfinds a hole, a very narrow one.  \"So he lays himself on his back on\nthe ground, and holding in his hand barley cakes kneaded with honey, he\nthrusts his feet first into the hole, and follows himself endeavouring\nto get his knees through the hole.  When they are through, the rest of\nhis body is immediately dragged after them and shoots in, just as a man\nmight be caught and dragged down by the swirl of a mighty and rapid\nriver.  Once they are inside the shrine the future is not revealed to\nall in one and the same way, but to one it is given to see and to\nanother to hear.  They return through the same aperture feet\nforemost....  When a man has come up from Trophonius, the priests take\nhim in hand again, and set him on what is called the chair of Memory,\nwhich stands not far from the shrine; and, being seated there, he is\nquestioned by them as to all he saw and heard.  On being informed, they\nhand him over to his friends who carry him, still overpowered with\nfear, and quite unconscious of himself and his surroundings, to the\nbuilding where he lodged before, the house of Good Fortune and the Good\nDaemon.  Afterwards, however, he will have all his wits as before, and\nthe power of laughter will come back to him.  I write not from mere\nhearsay: I have myself consulted Trophonius and have seen others who\nhave done so.  All who have gone down to Trophonius are obliged to set\nup a tablet containing a record of all they heard and saw.\"[61]\n\nA man who has been through such an experience may be excused for\nbelieving much.  While Pausanias kept his Greek habit of criticism and\nemploys it on occasional myths and traditions, and particularly on\nstories of hell--though the fact of punishment after death he seems to\naccept--yet his travels and his inquiries made an impression on him.\n\"When I began this work, I used to look on these Greek stories as\nlittle better {225} than foolishness; but now that I have got as far as\nArcadia, my opinion about them is this: I believe that the Greeks who\nwere accounted wise spoke of old in riddles, and not straight out; and,\naccordingly, I conjecture that this story about Cronos [swallowing a\nfoal instead of his child] is a bit of Greek philosophy.  In matters of\nreligion I will follow tradition.\"[62]\n\n[Sidenote: Artemidorus of Daldia]\n\nPausanias mentions several oracles and temples of Apollo in Greece and\nAsia Minor--one obscure local manifestation of the god he naturally\nenough omitted, but a fellow-citizen of the god preserves it.  \"It was\nin obedience to him, the god of my land, that I undertook this\ntreatise.  He often urged me to it, and in particular appeared visibly\nto me (_enargos epiotanti_),[63] since I knew thee, and all but ordered\nme to write all this.  No wonder that the Daldian Apollo, whom we call\nby the ancestral name of Mystes, urged me to this, in care for thy\nworth and wisdom, for there is an old friendship between Lydians and\nPhoenicians, as they tell us who set forth the legends of the\nland.\"[64]  So writes Artemidorus to his friend Cassius Maximus of his\ntreatise on the scientific interpretation of dreams--a work of which he\nis very proud.  \"Wonder not,\" he says, \"at the title, that the name\nstands Artemidorus Daldianus, and not 'of Ephesus,' as on many of the\nbooks I have already written on other subjects.  For Ephesus, it\nhappens, is famous on her own account, and she has many men of note to\nproclaim her.  But Daldia is a town of Lydia of no great renown, and,\nas she has had no such men, she has remained unknown till my day.  So I\ndedicate this to her, my native-place on the mother's side, as a\nparent's due _threpteria_.\"[65]\n\nMarcus Aurelius records his gratitude \"that remedies have been shown to\nme by dreams, both others, and against blood-spitting and\ngiddiness.\"[66]  Plutarch, Pausanias, Aristides--dreams {226} come into\nthe scheme of things divine with all the devout of our period.\nArtemidorus is their humble brother--not the first to give a whole book\nto dreams, but proud to be a pioneer in the really scientific treatment\nof them--\"the accuracy of the judgments, that is the thing for which,\neven by itself, I think highly of myself.\"[67]  The critic may take it\n\"that I too am quite capable of neologisms and persuasive rhetoric\n(_ehuresilogein kai pithaneuthai_), but I have not undertaken all this\nfor theatrical effect or to please the speech-mongers; I appeal\nthroughout to experience, as canon and witness of my words,\" and he\nbegs his readers neither to add to his books nor take anything\naway.[68]  His writing is, as he says, quite free from \"the stage and\ntragedy style.\"\n\nArtemidorus takes himself very seriously.  \"For one thing, there is no\nbook on the interpretation of dreams that I have not acquired, for I\nhad great enthusiasm for this; and, in the next place, though the\nprophets (_manteon_) in the market-place are much slandered, and called\nbeggars and quacks and humbugs by the gentlemen of solemn countenance\nand lifted eye-brows, I despised the slander and for many years I have\nassociated with them--both in Greece, in cities and at festivals, and\nin Asia, and in Italy, and in the largest and most populous of the\nislands, consenting to hear ancient dreams and their results.\"[69]\nThis patient research has resulted in principles of classification.[70]\nThere are dreams that merely repeat what a man is doing (_enuphnia_);\nand others (_oneipoi_) which are prophetic.  These last fall into two\nclasses--theorematic dreams, as when a man dreams of a voyage, and\nwakes to go upon a voyage, and allegoric dreams.  The latter adjective\nhas a great history in regions more august, but the allegoric method is\nthe same everywhere, as an illustration will show.  A man dreamed he\nsaw Charon playing at counters with another man, whom he called away on\nbusiness; Charon grew angry and chased him, till he ran for refuge into\nan inn called {227} \"The Camel,\" and bolted the door, whereupon \"the\ndaemon\" went away, but one of the man's thighs sprouted with grass.\nShortly after this dream he had his thigh broken--the one and sole\nevent foretold.  For Charon and the counters meant death, but Charon\ndid not catch him, so it was shown that he would not die; but his foot\nwas threatened, since he was pursued.  The name of the inn hinted at\nthe thigh, because of the anatomy of a camel's thigh; and the grass\nmeant disuse of the limb, for grass only grows where the earth is left\nat rest.[71]  The passage is worth remembering whenever we meet the\nword allegory and its derivatives in contemporary literature.\nArtemidorus has five books of this stuff--the last two dedicated to his\nson, and containing instances \"that will make you a better interpreter\nof dreams than all, or at least inferior to none; but, if published,\nthey will show you know no more than the rest.\"[72]  The sentence\nsuggests science declining into profession.\n\n[Sidenote: Apuleius]\n\nFar more brilliant, more amusing and more attractive than any of these\nmen, whom we have considered since we left Lucian, is Apuleius of\nMadaura.  Rhetorician, philosopher and man of science, a story-teller\nwavering between Boccaccio and Hans Andersen, he is above all a\nstylist, a pietist and a humorist.  For his history we depend upon\nhimself, and this involves us in difficulties; for, while autobiography\nruns through two of his works, one of these is an elaboration of a\ndefence he made on a charge of magic and the other is a novel of no\ndiscoverable class but its own, and through both runs a vein of\nnonsense, which makes one chary of being too literal.\n\nThe novel is the _Golden Ass_--that at least is what St Augustine tells\nus the author called it.[73]  Passages from this have been seriously\nused as sources of information as to the author.  But there is another\n_Ass_, long attributed to Lucian though probably not Lucian's, and in\neach case the hero tells the tale in the first person, and the\nco-incidences between the Greek and the Latin make it obvious that\nthere is some {228} literary connexion between them, whatever it is.\nThe scene is Greece and Thessaly, but not the Greece and Thessaly of\ngeography, any more than the maritime Bohemia of Shakespeare.  Yet in\nthe last book Apuleius seems to have forgotten \"Lucius of Patrae\" and to\nbe giving us experiences of his own which have nothing to do with the\nhero of the _Ass_, Greek or Latin.\n\n[Sidenote: The _Apology_ of Apuleius]\n\nIn the _Apology_ he comes closer to his own career and he tells us\nabout himself.  Here he does not venture on the delightful assertion\nthat he is the descendant of the great Plutarch, as the hero of the\n_Ass_ does, but avows that, as his native place is on the frontiers of\nNumidia and Gaetulia, he calls himself \"half Numidian and half\nGaetulian\"--just as Cyrus the Greater was \"half Mede and half Persian.\"\nHis city is \"a most splendid colony,\" and his father held in turn all\nits magistracies, and he hopes not to be unworthy of him.[74] He and\nhis brother inherited two million sesterces, though he has lessened his\nshare \"by distant travel and long studies and constant\nliberalities.\"[75]  Elsewhere he tells us definitely that he was\neducated at Athens.[76]  Everybody goes to the _litterator_ for his\nrudiments, to the grammarian next and then to the rhetorician--\"but I\ndrank from other vessels at Athens,\" so \"Empedocles frames songs, Plato\ndialogues, Socrates hymns, Epicharmus measures, Xenophon histories,\nXenocrates satires; your Apuleius does all these and cultivates the\nnine Muses with equal zeal--with more will, that is, than skill.\"[77]\n\nLike many brilliant men of his day he took to the strolling life of the\nrhetorician, going from city to city and giving displays of his powers\nof language, extemporizing wonderful combinations of words.  Either he\nhimself or some other admirer made a collection of elegant extracts\nfrom these exhibition-speeches, still extant under the title of\n_Florida_.  His fame to-day rests on other works.  In the course of his\ntravels he came to Oea in his native-land, and there married the\nwidowed mother of a fellow-student of his Athenian days.  Her late\nhusband's family resented the marriage; and affecting to believe that\nher affections had been gained by {229} some sort of witchcraft, they\nprosecuted Apuleius on a charge of magic.  The charge was in itself\nrather a serious one, though Apuleius made light of it.  His defence is\nan interesting document for the glimpses it gives into North African\nsociety, with its Greek, Latin, and Punic elements.  The younger\nstepson has fallen into bad hands; \"he never speaks except in Punic,--a\nlittle Greek, perhaps, surviving from what he learnt of his mother;\nLatin he neither will nor can speak.\"[78] On family life, on marriage\ncustoms, on the registration of births (c. 89);--on the personal habits\nof the defendant, his toothpowder (and a verse he made in its praise)\nand his looking-glass, we gain curious information.  Above all the\nspeech sheds great light on the inter-relations of magic and religion\nin contemporary thought.  A few points may be noticed.\n\nWhat, asks the prosecution, is the meaning of this curious interest\nApuleius has in fish?  It is zoological, says Apuleius; I have written\nbooks on fish, both in Greek and Latin,--and dissected them.  That\ncurious story, too, of the boy falling down in his presence?  As to\nthat, Apuleius knows all about divination by means of boys put under\nmagical influence; he has read of it, of course, but he does not know\nwhether to believe or not; \"I do think with Plato,\" he owns to the\ncourt (or to his readers), \"that between gods and men, in nature and in\nplace intermediary, there are certain divine powers, and these preside\nover all divinations and the miracles of magicians.  Nay, more, I have\nthe fancy that the human soul, particularly the simple soul of a boy,\nmight, whether by evocation of charm or by mollification of odour, be\nlaid to sleep, and so brought out of itself into oblivion of things\npresent, and for a brief space, all memory of the body put away, it\nmight be restored and returned to its own nature, which is indeed\nimmortal and divine, and thus, in a certain type of slumber, foretell\nthe future.\"[79]  As for the boy in question, however, he is so\nricketty that it would take a magician to keep him standing.\n\nThen those mysterious \"somethings\" which Apuleius keeps {230} wrapped\nup in a napkin?  \"I have been initiated in many of the mysteries of\nGreece.  Certain symbols and memorials of these, given to me by the\npriests, I sedulously preserve.  I say nothing unusual, nothing\nunknown.  To take one instance, those among you who are _mystae_ of\nFather Liber [Bacchus] know what it is you keep laid away at home, and\nworship in secret, far from all profane eyes.  Now, I, as I said, from\nenthusiasm for truth and duty toward the gods, I have learnt many\nsacred mysteries, very many holy rites, and divers ceremonies\"--the\naudience will remember he said as much three years ago in his now very\nfamous speech about AEsculapius--\"then could it seem strange to anyone,\nwho has any thought of religion, that a man, admitted to so many divine\nmysteries, should keep certain emblems of those holy things at home,\nand wrap them in linen, the purest covering for things divine?\"  Some\nmen--the prosecutor among them--count it mirth to mock things divine;\nno, he goes to no temple, has never prayed, will not even put his hand\nto his lips when he passes a shrine,--why! he has not so much as an\nanointed stone or a garlanded bough on his farm.[80]\n\nOne last flourish may deserve quotation.  If you can prove, says\nApuleius, any material advantage accruing to me from my marriage, \"then\nwrite me down the great Carmendas or Damigeron or _his_ ... Moses or\nJannes or Apollobeches or Dardanus himself, or anyone else from\nZoroaster and Ostanes downwards who has been famous among\nmagicians.\"[81]  Several of these names occur in other authors,[82] but\nthe corruption is more interesting.  Has some comparative fallen out,\nor does _his_ conceal another name?  Is it _ihs_, in fact,--a reference\nto Jesus analogous to the suggestion of Celsus that he too was a\nmagician?\n\nThe philosophical works of Apuleius need not detain us, but a little\nspace may be spared to his book _On the God of Socrates_, where he sets\nforth in a clear and vivid way that doctrine of daemonic beings, which\nlies at the heart of ancient {231} religion, pre-eminently in this\nperiod, from Plutarch onwards.  His presentment is substantially the\nsame as Plutarch's, but crisper altogether, and set forth in the\nbrilliant rhetoric, to which the Greek did not aspire, and from which\nthe African could not escape, nor indeed wished to escape.\n\nPlato, he says, classifies the gods in three groups, distinguished by\ntheir place in the universe.[83]  Of the celestial gods some we can\nsee--sun, moon and stars[84] (on which, like a true rhetorician, he\ndigresses into some fine language, which can be omitted).  Others the\nmind alone can grasp (_intellectu eos rimabundi\ncontemplamur_)--incorporeal natures, animate, with neither beginning\nnor end, eternal before and after, exempt from contagion of body; in\nperfect intellect possessing supreme beatitude; good, but not by\nparticipation of any extraneous good, but from themselves.  Their\nfather, lord and author of all things, free from every nexus of\nsuffering or doing--him Plato, with celestial eloquence and language\ncommensurate with the immortal gods, has declared to be, in virtue of\nthe ineffable immensity of his incredible majesty, beyond the poverty\nof human speech or definition--while even to the sages themselves, when\nby force of soul they have removed themselves from the body, the\nconception of God comes, like a flash of light in thick darkness--a\nflash only, and it is gone.[85]\n\nAt the other extremity of creation are men--\"proud in reason, loud in\nspeech, immortal of soul, mortal of member, in mind light and anxious,\nin body brute and feeble, divers in character, in error the same, in\ndaring pervicacious, in hope, pertinacious, of vain toil, of frail\nfortune, severally mortal, generally continuous, mutable in the\nsuccession of offspring, time fleeting, wisdom lingering, death swift\nand life querulous, so they live.\"[86]  Between such beings and the\ngods, contact cannot be.  \"To whom then shall I recite prayers? to whom\ntender vows? to whom slay victim? on whom shall I call, to {232} help\nthe wretched, to favour the good, to counter the evil?  .... What\nthinkest thou?  Shall I swear 'by Jove the stone' (_per Iovem lapidem_)\nafter the most ancient manner of Rome?  Yet if Plato's thought be true,\nthat never god and man can meet, the stone will hear me more easily\nthan Jupiter.\"[87]\n\n\"Nay, not so far--(for Plato shall answer, the thought is his, if mine\nthe voice) not so far, he saith, do I pronounce the gods to be sejunct\nand alienate from us, as to think that not even our prayers can reach\nthem.  Not from the care of human affairs, but from contact, have I\nremoved them.  But there are certain mediary divine powers, between\naether above and earth beneath, situate in that mid space of air, by\nwhom our desires and our deserts reach the gods.  These the Greeks call\ndaemons, carriers between human and heavenly, hence of prayers, thence\nof gifts; back and forth they fare, hence with petition, thence with\nsufficiency, interpreters and bringers of salvation.\"[88]  To cut short\nthis flow of words, the daemons are, as is familiar to us by now,\nauthors of divination of all kinds, each in its province.  It would ill\nfit the majesty of the gods to send a dream to Hannibal or to soften\nthe whetstone for Attius Navius--these are the functions of the\nintermediate spirits.[89]  Justin's explanation of the theophanies of\nthe Old Testament may recur to the reader's mind, and not unjustly.[90]\n\nThe daemons are framed of a purer and rarer matter than we, \"of that\npurest liquid of air, of that serene element,\" invisible therefore to\nus unless of their divine will they choose to be seen.[91]  From their\nranks come those \"haters and lovers\" of men, whom the poets describe as\ngods--they feel pity and indignation, pain and joy and \"every feature\nof the human mind\"; while the gods above \"are lords ever of one state\nin eternal equability,\" and know no passions of any kind.  The daemons\nshare _their_ immortality and _our_ passion.  Hence we may accept the\nlocal diversities of religious cult, rites nocturnal or diurnal,\nvictims, ceremonies and ritual sad or gay, Egyptian {233} or\nGreek,--neglect of these things the daemons resent, as we learn in dream\nand oracle.\n\nThe human soul, too, is \"a daemon in a body\"--the _Genius_ of the\nLatins.  From this we may believe that after death souls good and bad\nbecome good and bad ghosts--_Lares_ and _Lemures_--and even gods, such\nas \"Osiris in Egypt and AEsculapius everywhere.\"[92]  Higher still are\nsuch daemons as Sleep and Love, and of this higher kind Plato supposes\nour guardian spirits to be--\"spectators and guardians of individual\nmen, never seen, ever present, arbiters not merely of all acts, but of\nall thoughts,\" and after death witnesses for or against us.  Of such\nwas Socrates' familiar daemon.  Why should not we too live after the\nmodel of Socrates, studying philosophy and obeying our daemon?\n\n[Sidenote: _The Golden Ass_]\n\nThe _Golden Ass_ is the chief work of Apuleius.  _Lector intende;\nlaetaberis_, he says in ending his short preface, and he judged his work\naright.  The hero, Lucius, is a man with an extravagant interest in\nmagic, and he puts himself in the way of hearing the most wonderful\nstories of witchcraft and enchantment.  Apuleius tells them with the\nutmost liveliness and humour.  Magical transformations, the vengeance\nof witches, the vivification of waterskins--one tale comes crowding\nafter another, real and vivid, with the most alarming and the most\namusing details.  For example, we are told by an eye-witness (like\neverybody else in the book he is a master-hand at story-telling) how he\nsaw witches by night cut the throat of his friend, draw out the heart\nand plug the hole with a sponge; how terrified he was of the hags to\nbegin with, and then lest he should himself be accused of the murder;\nhow the man rose and went on his journey--somewhat wearily, it is true;\nand how, as they rested, he stooped to drink, the sponge fell out and\nhe was dead.\n\nLucius meddles with the drugs of a witch, and, wishing to transform\nhimself to a bird, by the ill-luck of using the wrong box he becomes an\nass.  He is carried off by robbers, and, while he has the most varied\nadventures of his own, he is enabled to record some of the most\ngorgeous exploits that {234} brigands ever told one another in an ass's\nhearing.[93]  What is more, a young girl is captured and held to\nransom, and to comfort her for a little, the old woman who cooks the\nrobbers' food--\"a witless and bibulous old hag\"--tells her a\nstory--\"such a pretty little tale,\" that the ass, who is listening,\nwishes he had pen and paper to take it down.  For, while in aspect\nLucius is an ass, his mind remains human--human enough to reflect\nsometimes what \"a genuine ass\" he is--and his skin has not, he regrets,\nthe proper thickness of true ass-hide.  The tale which he would like to\nwrite down is _Cupid and Psyche_.  \"_Erant in quadam civitate_,\" begins\nthe old woman--\"There were in a certain city a king and a queen.\"\n\nThe old and universal fairy-tales of the invisible husband, the cruel\nsisters, and the impossible quests are here woven together and brought\ninto connexion with the Olympic pantheon, and through all runs a slight\nthread, only here and there visible, of allegory.  But if Psyche is at\ntimes the soul, and if the daughter she bears to Cupid is Pleasure, the\nfairy-tale triumphs gloriously over the allegory, and remains the most\nwonderful thing of the kind in Latin.  Here, and in the _Golden Ass_ in\ngeneral, the extraordinarily embroidered language of Apuleius is far\nmore in keeping than in his philosophic writings.  His hundreds of\ndiminutives and neologisms, his antitheses, alliterations, assonances,\nfigures and tropes, his brilliant invention, his fun and humour, here\nhave full scope and add pleasure to every fresh episode of the\nfairy-tale and of the larger and more miscellaneous tale of adventure\nin which it is set--in the strangest setting conceivable.  Cupid and\nPsyche is his own addition to the story of the Ass--quite irrelevant,\nand like many other irrelevant things in books an immense enrichment.\n\nAnother development of the original story which is similarly due to\nApuleius alone is the climax in the last book.  The ass, in the Greek\nstory, becomes a man by eating roses.  In the Latin, Lucius, weary of\nthe life of an ass, finds himself by moonlight on the seashore near\nCorinth, and amid \"the silent {235} secrets of opaque night,\" he\nreflects that \"the supreme goddess rules in transcendent majesty and\ngoverns human affairs by her providence.\"  So he addresses a rather too\neloquent prayer to the Queen of Heaven under her various possible\nnames, Ceres, Venus, Diana and Proserpine.  He then falls asleep, and\nat once \"lo! from mid sea, uplifting a countenance venerable even to\ngods, emerges a divine form.  Gradually the vision, gleaming all over,\nand shaking off the sea, seemed to stand before me.\"  A crown of\nflowers rests on her flowing hair.  Glittering stars, the moon, flowers\nand fruits, are wrought into her raiment, which shimmers white and\nyellow and red as the light falls upon it.  In one hand is a sistrum,\nin the other a golden vessel shaped like a boat, with an asp for its\nhandle.[94] She speaks.\n\n[Sidenote: Isis]\n\n\"Lo!  I come in answer, Lucius, to thy prayers, I mother of Nature,\nmistress of all the elements, initial offspring of ages, chief of\ndivinities, queen of the dead, first of the heavenly ones, in one form\nexpressing all gods and goddesses.  I rule with my rod the bright\npinnacles of heaven, the healthful breezes of the sea, the weeping\nsilence of the world below.  My sole godhead, in many an aspect, with\nmany a various rite, and many a name, all the world worships.\"  Some of\nthese names she recites, and then declares her \"true name, Queen\nIsis.\"[95] The next day is her festival, she says, and her priest,\ntaught by her in a dream, will tender Lucius the needful roses; he will\neat and be a man again.  But hereafter all his life must be devoted to\nthe goddess, and then in the Elysian fields he shall see her again,\nshining amid the darkness of Acheron, propitious to him.\n\nThe next day all falls as predicted.  The procession of Isis is\nelaborately described.[96]  The prelude of the pomp is a series of men\ndressed in various characters,--one like a soldier, another like a\nwoman, others like a gladiator, a philospher and so forth.  There is a\ntame bear dressed like a woman, and a monkey \"in a Phrygian garment of\nsaffron.\"  Then come women in white, crowned with flowers, some with\nmirrors hanging on their backs, some carrying ivory combs.  Men and\nwomen follow with torches and lamps; then a choir of {236} youths in\nwhite, singing a hymn, and fluteplayers dedicated to Serapis.  After\nthis a crowd of initiates of both sexes, of every age and degree,\ndressed in white linen and carrying sistra,--the men with shaven heads.\nThen came five chief priests with emblems, and after them the images of\nthe gods borne by other priests--Anubis with his dog's head, black and\ngold--after him the figure of a cow \"the prolific image of the\nall-mother goddess\" (\"which one of this blessed ministry bore on his\nshoulder, with mimicking gait\")--then an image of divinity, like\nnothing mortal, an ineffable symbol, worthy of all veneration for its\nexquisite art.  At this point came the priest with the promised\nroses--\"my salvation\"--and Lucius ate and was a man again.  The priest,\nin a short homily, tells him he has now reached the haven of quiet;\nFortune's blindness has no more power over him; he is taken to the\nbosom of a Fortune who can see, who can illuminate even the other gods.\nLet him rejoice and consecrate his life to the goddess, undertake her\nwarfare and become her soldier.[97]\n\nThe pomp moves onward till they reach the shore, and there a sacred\nship is launched--inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics, purified with\na burning torch, an egg, and sulphur, on her sail a vow written in\nlarge letters.  She is loaded with aromatics; and \"filled with copious\ngifts and auspicious prayers\" she sails away before a gentle breeze and\nis lost to sight.  The celebrants then return to the temple, but we\nhave perhaps followed them far enough.\n\nFrom now on to the end of the book the reformed Lucius lives in the\nodour of sanctity.  He never sleeps without a vision of the goddess.\nHe passes on from initiation to initiation, though the service of\nreligion is difficult, chastity arduous, and life now a matter of\ncircumspection--it had not been before.  The initiations are, he owns,\nrather expensive.[98] \"Perhaps, my enthusiastic reader, thou wilt\nask--anxiously enough--what was said, what done.  I would speak if it\nwere {237} lawful to speak, thou shouldst know if it were lawful to\nhear....  Hear then, and believe, for it is true.  I drew near to the\nconfines of death; I trod the threshold of Proserpine; I was borne\nthrough all the elements and returned.  At midnight I saw the sun\nflashing with bright light.  Gods of the world below, gods of the world\nabove, into their presence I came, I worshipped there in their sight.\"\nGarments, emblems, rites, purifications are the elements of his life\nnow.  Nor does he grudge the trouble and expense, for the gods are\nblessing him with forensic success.  In a dream, Osiris himself \"chief\namong the great gods, of the greater highest, greatest of the highest,\nruler of the greatest,\" appears in person, and promises him--speaking\nwith his own awful voice--triumphs at the bar, with no need to fear the\nenvy his learning might rouse.  He should be one of the god's own\nPastophori, one of \"his quinquennial decurions.\"  So \"with my hair\nperfectly shaved, I performed in gladness the duties of that most\nancient college, established in Sulla's times, not shading nor covering\nmy baldness, but letting it be universally conspicuous.\"  And there\nends the _Golden Ass_.\n\nWas it true--this story of the ass?  Augustine says that Apuleius\n\"either disclosed or made up\" these adventures.  Both he and Lactantius\nhad to show their contemporaries that there was a difference between\nthe miracles of Apuleius and those of Christ.[99]  The Emperor\nSeptimius Severus, on the other hand, sneered at his rival Albinus for\nreading \"the Punic Milesian-tales of his fellow-countryman Apuleius and\nsuch literary trifles.\"[100]\n\n[Sidenote: Apuleius and his initiation]\n\nBetween these two judgments we may find Apuleius.  He is a man of\nletters, but he has a taste for religion.  Ceremony, mystery, ritual,\nsacraments, appeal to him, and there he stands with his contemporaries.\nBut a man, in whose pages bandit and old woman, ass and Isis, all talk\nin one Euphuistic strain, was possibly not so pious as men of simpler\nspeech.  Yet his giving such a conclusion to such a tale is\nsignificant, and there is not an absurdity among all the many, in which\nhe so gaily revels, but corresponded with something that men believed.\n\n{238}\n\nIn conclusion, we may ask what Lucian of Samosata and Diogenes of\nOinoanda had to offer to Aristides and Pausanias and Apuleius; and what\nthey in turn could suggest to men whose concern in religion goes deeper\nthan the cure of physical disease, trance and self-conscious revelling\nin ceremony.  Some spiritual value still clung about the old religion,\nor it could not have found supporters in a Plotinus and a Porphyry, but\n(to quote again a most helpful question) \"how much else?\"\n\n\nChapter VII Footnotes:\n\n[1] On the other hand see a very interesting passage in Tertullian, _de\nAnima_, 30, on the progress of the world in civilization, and\npopulation outstripping Nature, while plague, famine, war, etc., are\nlooked on as _tonsura insolescentis generis humani_.\n\n[2] Marcus Aurelius was born about 121 A.D. and died in 180.  The other\ntwo were born in or about 125.\n\n[3] e.g. viii, 17.\n\n[4] The one passage is in xi, 3.\n\n[5] Or, the English equivalent, Utopia.\n\n[6] Marcus Aurelius, ix, 28-40, with omissions.  Phrases have been\nborrowed from the translations of Mr Long and Dr Rendall.\n\n[7] This sheds some light on his comparison of the Christians to\nactors, xi, 3.\n\n[8] Cf. Tertullian, _Apol._ 5, _Hadrianus omnium curiositatum\nexplorator_.\n\n[9] _Piscator_, 19.\n\n[10] _Quomodo historia_, 24.\n\n[11] _Bis accusatus_, 27.\n\n[12] _Somnium_, 18.\n\n[13] _Bis Accusatus_, 30, 27.\n\n[14] _Apology_, 15.\n\n[15] _Bis Acc._ 32.  Cf. Juvenal, 7, 151, _perimit saevos classis\nnumerosa tyrannos_.\n\n[16] _Bis Acc._ 33, 34.\n\n[17] _Zeus Tragadus_, 15.\n\n[18] _Piscator_, 19, 20.\n\n[19] _Vit. auctio_, 27.\n\n[20] _Hermot._ 74.\n\n[21] _Ibid._ 85.\n\n[22] _Hermot._ 22-28.\n\n[23] _Ibid._ 84.\n\n[24] _V.H._, ii, 18.\n\n[25] _Piscator_, 16.\n\n[26] _Philopseudes_, 7.\n\n[27] _Ibid._ 16.\n\n[28] This ghost appears rather earlier in a letter of Pliny's, vii, 27,\nwho says he believes the story and adds another of his own.\n\n[29] _Philopseudes_, 34.\n\n[30] _Ibid._ 17.\n\n[31] Pausanias, viii, 29, 3.  Cf. Milton's _Ode on Nativity_, 25,\n\"Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine.\"  References to remains of giants,\nin Tertullian, _de resurr. carnis_, 42; Pliny, _N.H._ vii, 16, 73.\n\n[32] _Philopseudes_, 22-24.\n\n[33] _Philopseudes_, 25, 26.\n\n[34] _Icaromenippus_, 24-26.\n\n[35] _Icaromen._ 24.\n\n[36] _Zeus Tragadus_.\n\n[37] _Zeus Elenchomenos_.\n\n[38] _Deor. Eccles._ 14-18.\n\n[39] _Alexander_, 48.  The reader of Marcus will remember that his\nfirst book is dated \"Among the Quadi.\"\n\n[40] _Alexander_, 53-56.\n\n[41] Keim, _Celsus' Wahres Wort_, p. 233, suggests that Lucian was not\nquite clear as to the differences between Judaism and Christianity.\nThe reference to forbidden meat lends colour to this.\n\n[42] _De morte Peregrini_, 11, 16; cf. the _Passio Perpetuae_, 3 and 16,\non attention to Christians in prison.  Tertullian, _de Jejunio_, 12,\ngives an extraordinary account of what might be done for a Christian in\nprison, though the case of Pristinus, which he quotes, must have been\nunusual, if we are to take all he says as literally true.\n\n[43] Cf. Tertullian, _ad Martyras_, 4, _Peregrinus qui non olim se rogo\nimmisit_.  Athenagoras, _Presb._ 26, _Proteos, touton d' ouk agnoeite\nrhipsanta heauton eis to pur peri ten Olympian_.\n\n[44] Gellius, _N.A._ xii, 11; and summary of viii, 3.\n\n[45] _Charon_ is the title of the dialogue.\n\n[46] _Menippus_, 15, 16.\n\n[47] _Menippus_, 21.\n\n[48] Eckermann, 25th Dec. 1825.\n\n[49] Sextus Empiricus, _Hypotyposes_, i, 25-30.\n\n[50] See _Rheinisches Museum_, 1892, and _Bulletin de Correspondance\nHellenique_, 1897.\n\n[51] C.I.G. iv, 955.  Translation of Mary Hamilton, in her\n_Incubation_, p. 41 (1906).\n\n[52] I agree with the view of Schubart quoted by J. G. Frazer on the\npassage (Pausan. ii, 27, 6) that this man was neither the Emperor\nAntoninus Pius nor Marcus.  It is perhaps superfluous to call attention\nto the value of Dr Frazer's commentary, here and elsewhere.\n\n[53] _Sacred Speech_, ii, Sec. 47, p 301, _litras eikosi kai ekaton_.\n\n[54] _Sacred Speech_, ii, Sec. 33, p. 298.  For Aristides see Hamilton,\n_Incubation_, pt. i. ch. 3, and Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to\nMarcus Aurelius_, bk. iv. ch. 1.  See also Richard Caton, M.D., _The\nTemples and Ritual of Asklepios_ (1900).\n\n[55] Paus. iii, 15, 11\n\n[56] Paus. viii, 42, 11.\n\n[57] Paus. i, 37, 4; 38, 7.\n\n[58] Paus. x, 4, 4; they smell very like human flesh.\n\n[59] Paus. ix, 40, 11.\n\n[60] Paus. i, 34, 3.  Cf. Tertullian, _de Anima_, 46, a list of\ndream-oracles.  Strabo, c. 761-2, represents the practice as an\nessential feature of Judaism, _egkoimasthai de kai autous hyper heauton\nkai humer ton allon allous tous euoneipous_; he compares Moses to\nAmphiaraus, Trophonius, Orpheus, etc.\n\n[61] Paus. ix, 39, 5-14, Frazer's translation.\n\n[62] Paus. viii, 8, 3 (Frazer).  _ton men de es to theion hekonton tois\neireuenois chresometha_.\n\n[63] The word of Luke 2, 9.\n\n[64] Artemidorus Dald. ii, 70.\n\n[65] Artem. Dald. iii, 66.\n\n[66] Marcus, i, 17; George Long's rendering, here as elsewhere somewhat\nliteral, but valuable as leaving the sharp edges on the thought of the\nGreek, which get rubbed off in some translations.  See Tertullian, _de\nAnima_, cc. 44 and following, for a discussion of dreams, referring to\nthe five volumes of Hermippus of Berytus for the whole story of them.\n\n[67] Artem. Dald. ii, pref., _mega phrono_.\n\n[68] Artem. Dald. ii, 70.  Cf. v. pref., _aneu skenes kai tragosias_.\n\n[69] Artem. Dald. i, pref.\n\n[70] A very different classification in Tertullian, _de Anima_, 47, 48.\nDreams may be due to demons, to God, the nature of the soul or ecstasy.\n\n[71] Artem. Dald. i, 4.\n\n[72] Artem. Dald. iv, pref.\n\n[73] See Augustine, _C.D._ xviii, 18, _Apuleius in libris quos Asini\naurei titulo inscripsit_.  In the printed texts, it is generally called\nthe _Metamorphoses_.\n\n[74] _Apol._ 24.\n\n[75] _Apol._ 23.\n\n[76] _Apol._ 72; _Flor._ 18.\n\n[77] _Flor._ 20.\n\n[78] _Apol._ 98.  Cf. _Passio Perpetuae_, c. 13, _et caepit Pirpetua\nGraece cum eis loqui_, says Saturus; Perpetua uses occasional Greek\nwords herself in recording her visions.\n\n[79] _Apol._ 43.  Cf. Plutarch cited on p. 101.\n\n[80] _Apol._ 55, 56.  Cf. _Florida_, 1, an ornamental passage on pious\nusage.\n\n[81] _Apol._ 90.  Many restorations have been attempted.\n\n[82] e.g. Tertullian, _de Anima_, 57, _Ostanes et Typhon et Dardanus et\nDamigeron et Nectabis et Berenice_.\n\n[83] Much of this material Apuleius has taken from the _Timaeus_, 40 D\nto 43 A.\n\n[84] Cf. Lactantius, _Instit._ ii, _de origine erroris_, c. 5.\nTertullian, _ad Natt._ ii, 2.  Cicero, _N.D._ ii, 15, 39-44.\n\n[85] _de deo Socr._ 3, 124.  Cf. the account (quoted below) of what was\nexperienced in initiation, which suggests some acquaintance with\nmystical trance--the confines of death and the sudden bright light look\nvery like it.\n\n[86] _de deo Socr._ 4, 126.\n\n[87] _de deo Socr._ 5, 130-132.\n\n[88] _de deo Socr._ 6, 132.  Cf. Tert. _Apol._ 22, 23, 24, on nature\nand works of demons, on lines closely similar.\n\n[89] _de deo Socr._ 7, 136.\n\n[90] See chapter vi. p. 188.\n\n[91] _de deo Socr._ 11, 144.\n\n[92] _de deo Socr._ 15.\n\n[93] The story of Lamachus \"our high-souled leader,\" now \"buried in the\nentire element,\" would make anyone wish to become a brigand,\nSainte-Beuve said.  Here one must regretfully omit the robbers' cave\naltogether.\n\n[94] _Metam._ xi, 3, 4.  Apuleius had a fancy for flowing hair.\n\n[95] _Metam._ xi, 5.\n\n[96] _Metam._ xi. 8 ff.\n\n[97] _Metam._ xi, 15, _da nomen santae huic militiae cuius ...\nsacramento_, etc.\n\n[98] Tertullian remarks that pagan rituals, unlike Christian baptism,\nowe much to pomp and expense; _de Bapt._ 2.  _Mentior si non e\ncontrario idolorum sollemnia vel arcana de suggestu et apparatu deque\nsumptu fidem et auctoritatem sibi extruunt_.\n\n[99] Augustine, _C.D._ xviii, 18; and cf. _ib._ viii, (on the _de deo\nSocr._); and Lactantius, v. 3.\n\n[100] Capitolinus _v. Albini_, 12.\n\n\n\n\n{239}\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCELSUS\n\n_Deliquit, opinor, divina doctrina ex Judaea potius quam ex Graecia\noriens.  Erravit et Christus piscatores citius quam sophistam ad\npraeconium emittens,_--TERTULLIAN, _de Anima_, 3.\n\n\nAt the beginning of the last chapter reference was made to the spread\nof Christianity in the second century, and then a brief survey was\ngiven of the position of the old religion without reference to the new.\nWhen one realizes the different habits of mind represented by the men\nthere considered, the difficulties with which Christianity had to\ncontend become more evident and more intelligible.  Lucian generally\nignored it, only noticing it to laugh at its folly and to pass on--it\nwas too inconspicuous to be worth attack.  To the others--the devout of\nthe old religion, whose fondest thoughts were for the past, and for\nwhom religion was largely a ritual, sanctified by tradition and by\nfancy,--the Christian faith offered little beyond the negation of all\nthey counted dear.  We are happily in possession of fragments of an\nanti-Christian work of the day, written by a man philosophic and\nacademic in temperament, but sympathetic with the followers of the\nreligion of his fathers--fragments only, but enough to show how\nChristianity at once provoked the laughter, incensed the patriotism,\nand offended the religious tastes of educated people.\n\nIt was for a man called Celsus that Lucian wrote his book upon the\nprophet Alexander and his shrine at Abonoteichos, and it has been\nsuggested that Lucian's friend and the Celsus, who wrote the famous\n_True Word_, may have been one and the same.  The evidence is carefully\nworked out by Keim,[1] but it is not very strong, especially as some\ntwo dozen men of the name are known to the historians of the first\nthree centuries of our era.  Origen himself knew little of\nCelsus--hardly more than we can gather from the quotations he made from\nthe book {240} in refuting it.  From a close study of his occasional\nhints at contemporary history, Keim puts Celsus' book down to the\nlatter part of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, or, more closely, to the\nyear 178 A.D.[2]  Celsus' general references to Christianity and to\npaganism imply that period.  He writes under the pressure of the\nbarbarian inroads on the Northern frontier, of the Parthians in the\nEast and of the great plague.  His main concern is the Roman State,\nshaken by all these misfortunes, and doubly threatened by the passive\ndisaffection of Christians within its borders.[3]  From what Turk and\nMongol meant to Europe in the Middle Ages and may yet mean to us, we\nmay divine how men of culture and patriotism felt about the white\nsavages coming down upon them from the North.\n\nOf the personal history of Celsus nothing can be said, but the features\nof his mind are well-marked.  He was above all a man of\nculture,--candid, scholarly and cool.  He knew and admired the\nphilosophical writings of ancient Greece, he had some knowledge of\nEgypt, and he also took the pains to read the books of the Jews and the\nChristians.  On the whole he leant to Plato, but, like many philosophic\nspirits, he found destructive criticism more easy than the elaboration\nof a system of his own.  Yet here we must use caution, for the object\nhe had set before him was not to be served by individual speculation.\nIt was immaterial what private opinions he might hold, for his great\npurpose was the abandonment of particularism and the fusion of all\nparties for the general good.  Private judgment run mad was the mark of\nall Christians, orthodox and heretical,--\"men walling themselves off\nand isolating themselves from mankind\"[4]--and his thesis was that the\nwhole spirit of the movement was wrong.  A good citizen's part was\nloyal acceptance of the common belief, deviation from which was now\nshown to impair the solidarity of the civilized world.  Of course such\na position is never taken by really independent thinkers; but it is the\nnormal standpoint of men to whom practical {241} affairs are of more\nmoment than speculative precision--men, who are at bottom sceptical,\nand have little interest in problems which they have given up as\ninsoluble.  Celsus was satisfied with the established order, alike in\nthe regions of thought and of government.  He mistrusted new\nmovements--not least when they were so conspicuously alien to the Greek\nmind as the new superstition that came from Palestine.  He has all the\nancient contempt of the Greek for the barbarian, and, while he is\ninfluenced by the high motive of care for the State, there are traces\nof irritation in his tone which speak of personal feeling.  The folly\nof the movement provoked him.\n\n[Sidenote: The Christian propaganda]\n\nThis, he says, is the language of the Christians: \"'Let no cultured\nperson draw near, none wise, none sensible; for all that kind of thing\nwe count evil; but if any man is ignorant, if any is wanting in sense\nand culture, if any is a fool, let him come boldly.'  Such people they\nspontaneously avow to be worthy of their God; and, so doing, they show\nthat it is only the simpletons, the ignoble, the senseless, slaves and\nwomen-folk and children, whom they wish to persuade, or can\npersuade.\"[5]  Those who summon men to the other initiations\n(_teletas_), and offer purification from sins, proclaim: \"Whosoever has\nclean hands and is wise of speech,\" or \"Whosoever is pure from\ndefilement, whose soul is conscious of no guilt, who has lived well and\nrighteously.\"  \"But let us hear what sort these people invite;\n'Whosoever is a sinner, or unintelligent, or a fool, in a word,\nwhosoever is god-forsaken (_kakodaimon_), him the kingdom of God will\nreceive.'  Now whom do you mean by the sinner but the wicked, thief,\nhouse-breaker, poisoner, temple-robber, grave-robber?  Whom else would\na brigand invite to join him?\"[6]  But the Christian propaganda is\nstill more odious.  \"We see them in our own houses, wool dressers,\ncobblers, and fullers, the most uneducated and vulgar persons, not\ndaring to say a word in the presence of their masters who are older and\nwiser; but when they get hold of the children in private, and silly\nwomen with them, they are wonderfully eloquent,--to the effect that the\nchildren must not listen to their father, but believe _them_ and be\ntaught by _them_; ... that they alone know how to live, and if the\nchildren will listen to them, they will be happy themselves, and will\nmake {242} their home blessed.  But if, while they are speaking, they\nsee some of the children's teachers, some wiser person or their Father\ncoming, the more cautious of them will be gone in a moment, and the\nmore impudent will egg on the children to throw off the\nreins--whispering to them that, while their father or their teachers\nare about, they will not and cannot teach them anything good ... they\nmust come with the women, and the little children that play with them,\nto the women's quarters, or the cobbler's shop, or the fuller's, to\nreceive perfect knowledge.  And that is how they persuade them.\"[7]\nThey are like quacks who warn men against the doctor--\"take care that\nnone of you touches Science (_episteue_); Science is a bad thing;\nknowledge (_gnosis_) makes men fall from health of soul.\"[8]  They will\nnot argue about what they believe--\"they always bring in their 'Do not\nexamine, but believe,' and 'Thy faith shall save thee'\"[9]--\"believe\nthat he, whom I set forth to you, is the son of God, even though he was\nbound in the most dishonourable way, and punished in the most shameful,\nthough yesterday or the day before he weltered in the most disgraceful\nfashion before the eyes of all men--so much the more believe!\"[10] So\nfar all the Christian sects are at one.\n\nAnd the absurdity of it!  \"Why was he not sent to the sinless as well\nas to sinners?  What harm is there in not having sinned?\"[11]  Listen\nto them!  \"The unjust, if he humble himself from his iniquity, God will\nreceive; but the just, if he look up to Him with virtue from beginning\nto end, him He will not receive.\"[12]  Celsus' own view is very\ndifferent--\"It must be clear to everybody, I should think, that those,\nwho are sinners by nature and training, none could change, {243} not\neven by punishment--to say nothing of doing it by pity!  For to change\nnature completely is very difficult; and those who have not sinned are\nbetter partners in life.\"[13]  Christians in fact make God into a\nsentimentalist--\"the slave of pity for those who mourn\"[14] to the\npoint of injustice.\n\n[Sidenote: The ecclesia of worms]\n\nJews and Christians seem to Celsus \"like a swarm of bats--or ants\ncreeping out of their nest--or frogs holding a symposium round a\nswamp--or worms in conventicle (_ekklesiaxiousi_) in a corner of the\nmud[15]--debating which of them are the more sinful, and saying 'God\nreveals all things to us beforehand and gives us warning; he forsakes\nthe whole universe and the course of the heavenly spheres, and all this\ngreat earth he neglects, to dwell with us alone; to us alone he\ndespatches heralds, and never ceases to send and to seek how we may\ndwell with him for ever.'\"  \"God is,\" say the worms, \"and after him\ncome we, brought into being by him (_hup' autou gegonotes_), in all\nthings like unto God; and to us all things are subjected, earth and\nwater and air and stars; for our sake all things are, and to serve us\nthey are appointed.\"  \"Some of us,\" continue the worms (\"he means us,\"\nsays Origen)--\"some of us sin, so God will come, or else he will send\nhis son, that he may burn up the unrighteous, and that the rest of us\nmay have eternal life with him.\"[16]\n\nThe radical error in Jewish, and Christian thinking is that it is\nanthropocentric.  They say that God made all things for man,[17] but\nthis is not at all evident.  What we know of the world suggests that it\nis not more for the sake of man than of the irrational animals that all\nthings were made.  Plants and trees and grass and thorns--do they grow\nfor man a whit more than for the wildest animals?  \"'Sun and night\nserve mortals,' says Euripides--but why us more than the ants or the\nflies?  For them, too, night comes for rest, and day for sight and\nwork.\"  If men hunt and eat animals, they in their turn hunt and eat\nmen; and before towns and communities were formed, and tools and\nweapons made, man's supremacy was even more questionable.  \"In no way\nis man better in God's {244} sight than ants and bees\" (iv. 81).  The\npolitical instinct of man is shared by both these creatures--they have\nconstitutions, cities, wars and victories, and trials at law--as the\ndrones know.  Ants have sense enough to secure their corn stores from\nsprouting: they have graveyards; they can tell one another which way to\ngo--thus they have _logos_ and _ennoiai_ like men.  If one looked from\nheaven, would there be any marked difference between the procedures of\nmen and of ants?[18]  But man has an intellectual affinity with God;\nthe human mind conceives thoughts that are essentially divine (_theias\nennoias_).[19] Many animals can make the same claim--\"what could one\ncall more divine than to foreknow and foretell the future?  And this\nmen learn from the other animals and most of all from birds;\" and if\nthis comes from God, \"so much nearer divine intercourse do they seem by\nnature than we, wiser and more dear to God.\"  Thus \"all things were not\nmade for man, just as they were not made for the lion, nor the eagle,\nnor the dolphin, but that the universe as a work of God might be\ncomplete and perfect in every part.  It is for this cause that the\nproportions of all things are designed, not for one another (except\nincidentally) but for the whole.  God's care is for the whole, and this\nProvidence never neglects.  The whole does not grow worse, nor does God\nperiodically turn it to himself.  He is not angry on account of men,\njust as he is not angry because of monkeys or flies; nor does he\nthreaten the things, each of which in measure has its portion of\nhimself.\"[20]\n\n[Sidenote: The God of the philosophers]\n\nCelsus held that Christians spoke of God in a way that was neither holy\nnor guiltless (_ouch hosios oud' euagos_, iv, 10); and he hinted that\nthey did it to astonish ignorant listeners.[21] For himself, he was\nimpressed with the thought, which Plato has in the _Timaeus_,--a\nsentence that sums up what many of the most serious and religious\nnatures have felt and will always feel to be profoundly true: \"The\nmaker and father of this {245} whole fabric it is hard to find, and,\nwhen one has found him, it is impossible to speak of him to all\nmen.\"[22]  Like the men of his day, a true and deep instinct led him to\npoint back to \"inspired poets, wise men and philosophers,\" and to Plato\n\"a more living (_energesteron_) teacher of theology\"[23]--\"though I\nshould be surprised if you are able to follow him, seeing that you are\nutterly bound up in the flesh and see nothing clearly.\"[24] What the\nsages tell him of God, he proceeds to set forth.\n\n\"Being and becoming, one is intelligible, the other visible, (_noeton,\nhoraton_).  Being is the sphere of truth; becoming, of error.  Truth is\nthe subject of knowledge; the other of opinion.  Thought deals with the\nintelligible; sight with the visible.  The mind recognizes the\nintelligible, the eye the visible.\n\n\"What then the Sun is among things visible,--neither eye, nor\nsight--yet to the eye the cause of its seeing, to sight the cause of\nits existing (_synistathai_) by his means, to things visible the cause\nof their being seen, to all things endowed with sensation the cause of\ntheir existence (_ginesthai_) and indeed the cause himself of himself\nbeing seen; this HE is among things intelligible (_noeta_), who is\nneither mind, nor thought, nor knowledge, but to the mind the cause of\nthinking, to thought of its being by his means, to knowledge of our\nknowing by his means, to all things intelligible, to truth itself, and\nto being itself, the cause that they are--out beyond all things\n(_panton epekeina on_), intelligible only by some unspeakable faculty.\n\n\"So have spoken men of mind; and if _you_ can understand anything of\nit, it is well for you.  If you suppose a spirit descends from God to\nproclaim divine matters, it would be the spirit that proclaims this,\nthat spirit with which men of old were filled and in consequence\nannounced much that was good.  But if you can take in nothing of it, be\nsilent and hide your own ignorance, and do not say that those who see\nare blind, and those who run are lame, especially when you yourselves\nare utterly crippled and mutilated in soul, and live in the body--that\nis to say, in the dead element.\"[25]\n\nOrigen says that Celsus is constantly guilty of tautology, and the\nreiteration of this charge of ignorance and want of {246} culture is at\nleast frequent enough.  Yet if the Christian movement had been confined\nto people as vulgar and illiterate as he suggests, he might not have\nthought it worth his while to attack the new religion.  His hint of the\npropagation of the Gospel by slaves in great houses, taken with the\nnames of men of learning and position, whom we know to have been\nconverted, shows the seriousness of the case.  But to avoid the further\ncharge which Origen brings against Celsus of \"mixing everything up,\" it\nwill be better to pursue Celsus' thoughts of God.\n\n\"I say nothing new, but what seemed true of old (_palai dedogmena_).\nGod is good, and beautiful, and happy, and is in that which is most\nbeautiful and best.  If then he 'descends to men,' it involves change\nfor him, and change from good to bad, from beautiful to ugly, from\nhappiness to unhappiness, from what is best to what is worst.  Who\nwould choose such a change?  For mortality it is only nature to alter\nand be changed; but for the immortal to abide the same forever.  God\nwould not accept such a change.\"[26]  He presents a dilemma to the\nChristians; \"Either God really changes, as they say, to a mortal\nbody,--and it has been shown that this is impossible; or he himself\ndoes not change, but he makes those who see suppose so, and thus\ndeceives and cheats them.  Deceit and lying are evil, taken generally,\nthough in the single case of medicine one might use them in healing\nfriends who are sick or mad--or against enemies in trying to escape\ndanger.  But none who is sick or mad is a friend of God's; nor is God\nafraid of any one, so that he should use deceit to escape danger.\"[27]\nGod in fact \"made nothing mortal; but God's works are such things as\nare immortal, and _they_ have made the mortal.  The soul is God's work,\nbut the nature of the body is different, and in this respect there is\nno difference between the bodies of bat, worm, frog, and man.  The\nmatter is the same and the corruptible part is alike.\"[28]\n\n[Sidenote: God's anger]\n\nThe Christian conception of the \"descent of God\" is repulsive to\nCelsus, for it means contact with matter.  \"God's anger,\" too, is an\nimpious idea, for anger is a passion; and {247} Celsus makes havoc of\nthe Old Testament passages where God is spoken of as having human\npassions (_anthropopathes_), closing with an _argumentum ad\nhominem_--\"Is it not absurd that a man [Titus], angry with the Jews,\nslew all their youth and burnt their land, and so they came to nothing;\nbut God Almighty, as they say, angry and vexed and threatening, sends\nhis son and endures such things as they tell?\"[29]  Furthermore, the\nChristian account of God's anger at man's sin involves a presumption\nthat Christians really know what evil is.  \"Now the origin of evil is\nnot to be easily known by one who has no philosophy.  It is enough to\ntell the common people that evil is not from God, but is inherent in\nmatter, and is a fellow-citizen (_empoliteuetai_) of mortality.  The\ncircuit of mortal things is from beginning to end the same, and in the\nappointed circles the same must always of necessity have been and be\nand be again.\"[30]  \"Nor could the good or evil elements in mortal\nthings become either less or greater.  God does not need to restore all\nthings anew.  God is not like a man, that, because he has faultily\ncontrived or executed without skill, he should try to amend the\nworld.\"[31]  In short, \"even if a thing seems to you to be bad, it is\nnot yet clear that it is bad; for you do not know what is of advantage\nto yourself, or to another, or to the whole.\"[32]  Besides would God\nneed to descend in order to {248} learn what was going on among\nmen?[33]  Or was he dissatisfied with the attention he received, and\ndid he really come down to show off like a _nouveau riche_ (_oi\nneoploutoi_)?\"[34]  Then why not long before?[35]\n\nShould Christians ask him how God is to be seen, he has his answer: \"If\nyou will be blind to sense and see with the mind, if you will turn from\nthe flesh and waken the eyes of the soul, thus and thus only shall you\nsee God.\"[36]  In words that Origen approves, he says, \"from God we\nmust never and in no way depart, neither by day nor by night, in public\nor in private, in every word and work perpetually, but, with these and\nwithout, let the soul ever be strained towards God.\"[37]  \"If any man\nbid you, in the worship of God, either to do impiety, or to say\nanything base, you must never be persuaded by him.  Rather endure every\ntorture and submit to every death, than think anything unholy of God,\nlet alone say it.\"[38]\n\nThus the fundamental conceptions of the Christians are shown to be\nwrong, but more remains to be done.  Let us assume for purposes of\ndiscussion that there could be a \"descent of God\"--would it be what the\nChristians say it was?  \"God is great and hard to be seen,\" he makes\nthe Christian say, \"so he put his own spirit into a body like ours and\nsent it down here that we might hear and learn from it.\"[39] If that is\ntrue, he says, then God's son cannot be immortal, since the nature of a\nspirit is not such as to be permanent; nor could Jesus have risen again\nin the body, \"for God would not have received back the spirit which he\ngave when it was polluted with the nature of the body.\"[40]  \"If he had\nwished to send down a spirit from himself, why did he need to breathe\nit into the womb of a woman?  He knew already how to {249} make men,\nand he could have fashioned a body about this spirit too, and so\navoided putting his own spirit into such pollution.\"[41]  Again the\nbody, in which the spirit was sent, ought to have had stature or beauty\nor terror or persuasion, whereas they say it was little, ugly and\nignoble.[42]\n\nThen, finally, \"suppose that God, like Zeus in the Comedy, waking out\nof long sleep, determined to rescue mankind from evil, why on earth did\nhe send this spirit (as you call it) into one particular corner?  He\nought to have breathed through many bodies in the same way and sent\nthem all over the world.  The comic poet, to make merriment in the\ntheatre, describes how Zeus waked up and sent Hermes to the Athenians\nand Lacedaemonians; do you not think that your invention of God's son\nbeing sent to the Jews is more laughable still?\"[43]  The incarnation\nfurther carried with it stories of \"God eating\"--mutton, vinegar, gall.\nThis revolted Celsus, and he summed it all up in one horrible word.[44]\n\n[Sidenote: The ignominy of Jesus]\n\nThe ignominy of the life of Jesus was evidence to Celsus of the falsity\nof his claim to be God's son.  He bitterly taunts Christians with\nfollowing a child of shame--\"God's would not be a body like yours--nor\nbegotten as you were begotten, Jesus!\"[45]  He reviles Jesus for the\nPassion--\"unhelped by his Father and unable to help himself.\"[46]  He\ngoes to the Gospels (\"I know the whole story,\" he says[47]) and he\ncites incident after incident.  He reproaches Jesus with seeking to\nescape the cross,[48] he brings forward \"the men who mocked him and put\nthe purple robe on him, the crown of thorns, and; {250} the reed in his\nhand\";[49] he taunts him with being unable to endure his thirst upon\nthe cross--\"which many a common man will endure.\"[50]  As to the\nresurrection, \"if Jesus wished really to display his divine power, he\nought to have appeared to the actual men who reviled him, and to him\nwho condemned him and to all, for, of course, he was no longer afraid\nof any man, seeing he was dead, and, as you say, God, and was not\noriginally sent to elude observation.\"[51]  Or, better still, to show\nhis Godhead, he might have vanished from the gibbet.[52]\n\nWhat befel Jesus, befals his followers.  \"Don't you see, my dear sir?\"\nCelsus says, \"a man may stand and blaspheme your daemon; and not that\nonly, he may forbid him land and sea, and then lay hands on _you_, who\nare consecrated to him like a statue, bind you, march you off and\nimpale you; and the daemon, or, as you say, the son of God, does not\nhelp you.\"[53] \"You may stand and revile the statues of the gods and\nlaugh.  But if you tried it in the actual presence of Dionysus or\nHerakles, you might not get off so comfortably.  But your god in his\nown person they spread out and punished, and those who did it have\nsuffered nothing....  He too who sent his son (according to you) with\nsome message or other, looked on and saw him thus cruelly punished, so\nthat the message perished with him, and though all this time has passed\nhe has never heeded.  What father was ever so unnatural (_anosios_)?\nAh! but perhaps he wished it, you say, and that was why he endured the\ninsult.  And perhaps our gods _wish_ it too, when you blaspheme\nthem.\"[54]\n\nCelsus would seem to have heard Christian preaching, for beside\nderiding \"Only believe\" and \"Thy faith will save thee,\" he is offended\nby the language they use about the cross.  \"Wide as the sects stand\napart, and bitter as are their quarrels and mutual abuse, you will hear\nthem all say their 'To me the world is crucified and I to the\nworld.'\"[55]  In one great passage he mixes, as Origen says, the things\nhe has mis-heard, and quotes Christian utterances about \"a soul that\nlives, and a heaven that is slain that it may live, and earth slain\nwith the {251} sword, and ever so many people being slain to live; and\ndeath taking a rest in the world when the sin of the world dies; and\nthen a narrow way down, and gates that open of themselves.  And\neverywhere you have the tree of life and the resurrection of the flesh\nfrom the tree--I suppose, because their teacher was nailed to a cross\nand was a carpenter by trade.  Exactly as, if he had chanced to be\nthrown down a precipice, or pushed into a pit, or choked in a noose, or\nif he had been a cobbler, or a stone-mason, or a blacksmith, there\nwould have been above the heavens a precipice of life, or a pit of\nresurrection, or a rope of immortality, or a happy stone, or the iron\nof love, or the holy hide.\"[56]\n\n[Sidenote: The Cross and the miracles]\n\nThe miracles of Jesus Celsus easily explains.  \"Through poverty he went\nto Egypt and worked there as a hired labourer; and there he became\nacquainted with certain powers [or faculties], on which the Egyptians\npride themselves, and he came back holding his head high on account of\nthem, and because of them he announced that he was God.\"[57]  But,\ngranting the miracles of healing and of raising the dead and feeding\nthe multitudes, he maintains that ordinary quacks will do greater\nmiracles in the streets for an obol or two, \"driving devils out of\nmen,[58] and blowing away diseases and calling up the souls of heroes,\nand displaying sumptuous banquets and tables and sweetmeats and\ndainties that are not there;\"--\"must we count _them_ sons of God?\"[59]\nThere are plenty of prophets too, \"and it is quite an easy and ordinary\nthing for each of them to say 'I am God--or God's son--or a divine\nspirit.  And I am come; for already the world perisheth, and ye, oh\nmen, are lost for your sins.  But I am willing to {252} save you; and\nye shall see me hereafter coming with heavenly power.  Blessed is he\nthat has worshipped me now; but upon all the rest I will send eternal\nfire, and upon their cities and lands.  And men who do not recognize\ntheir own guilt shall repent in vain with groans; and them that have\nbelieved me, I will guard for ever.'\"[60]  Jesus was, he holds, an\nobvious quack and impostor.  In fact, there is little to choose between\nworshipping Jesus and Antinous, the favourite of Hadrian, who had\nactually been deified in Egypt.[61]\n\nThe teaching of Jesus, to which Christians pointed, was after all a\nmere medley of garbled quotations from Greek literature.  Thus when\nJesus said that it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye\nthan for a rich man to go into the kingdom of God, he was merely\nspoiling the Platonic saying that it is impossible for a man to be\nexceedingly good and exceedingly rich at the same time.[62]  The\nkingdom of heaven itself comes from the \"divinely spoken\" words of\nPlato; it is the \"supercelestial region\" of the _Phaedrus_.[63] Satan is\na parody of Heraclitus' conception of War.[64]  The Christian\nresurrection comes from metempsychosis.[65]  The idea that \"God will\ndescend, carrying fire (like a torturer in a law-court)\" comes from\nsome confused notion of the teaching of the Greeks upon cycles and\nperiods and the final conflagration.[66]  Plato has this advantage that\nhe never boasted and never said that God had \"a son who descended and\ntalked with me.\"[67]  The \"son of God\" itself was an expression\nborrowed in their clumsy way by the Christians from the ancients who\nconceived of the universe as God's offspring.[68]\n\n[Sidenote: Resurrection]\n\nChristians lay great stress on the immortality, \"but it is silly of\nthem to suppose that when God--like a cook--brings the fire, the rest\nof mankind will be roasted and they themselves will alone remain, not\nmerely the living, but even those who died long ago, rising from the\nearth with the identical flesh they had before.  Really it is the hope\nof worms!  For what soul of a man would any longer wish for a body that\n{253} had rotted?\"[69]  The loathsomeness of the idea, he says, cannot\nbe expressed, and besides it is impossible.  \"They have nothing to\nreply to this, so they fly to the absurdest refuge, and say that all is\npossible with God.  But God cannot do what is foul, and what is\ncontrary to nature he will not do.  Though you in your vulgarity may\nwish a loathsome thing, it does not follow that God can do it, nor that\nyou are right to believe at once that it will come to pass.  For it is\nnot of superfluous desire and wandering disorder, but of true and just\nnature that God is prince (_archegetes_).  He could grant immortal life\nof the soul; but 'corpses,' as Heraclitus says, 'are less useful than\ndung.'  The flesh is full of--what it is not beautiful even to\nmention--and to make it immortal contrary to all reason (_paralogos_),\nis what God neither will nor can do.  For he is the reason of all\nthings that are, so that he cannot do anything contrary to reason or\ncontrary to himself.\"[70]  And yet, says Celsus, \"you hope you will see\nGod with the eyes of your body, and hear his voice with your ears, and\ntouch him with the hands of sense.\"[71]  If they threaten the heathen\nwith eternal punishment, the exegetes, hierophants, and mystagogues of\nthe temples hurl back the same threat, and while words are equal, they\ncan show proofs in daemonic activities and oracles.[72] \"With those\nhowever who speak of the soul or the mind (whether they choose to call\nit spiritual, or a spirit intelligent, holy and happy, or a living\nsoul, or the supercelestial and incorruptible offspring of a divine and\nbodyless nature--or whatever they please)--with those who hope to have\nthis eternally with God, with such I will speak.  For they are right in\nholding that they who have lived well will be happy and the unjust will\nbe held in eternal woes.  From this opinion (_dogmatos_) let not them\nnor any one else depart.\"[73]\n\nIn this way Celsus surveys the main points of Christian history and\nteaching.  They have no real grounds beneath them.  The basis of the\nchurch is \"faction (_stasis_) and the profit it brings, and fear of\nthose without;--those are the things that establish the faith for\nthem.\"[74]  Faction is their keynote, taken from the Jews at first; and\nfaction splits them up into innumerable sects beside the \"great\nchurch,\"[75]--\"the {254} one thing they have in common, if indeed they\nstill have it, is the name; and this one thing they are ashamed to\nabandon.\"[76] When they all say \"'Believe, if you wish to be saved, or\nelse depart'; what are those to do who really wish to be saved?  Should\nthey throw the dice to find out to whom to turn?\"[77]  In short,\nfaction is their breath of life, and \"if all mankind were willing to be\nChristian, then they would not.\"[78]\n\n[Sidenote: Gods and daemons]\n\nBut Celsus is not content merely to refute; he will point out a more\nexcellent way.  \"Are not all things ruled according to the will of God?\nis not all Providence from him?  Whatever there is in the whole scheme\nof things, whether the work of God, or of angels, or other daemons, or\nheroes, all these have their law from the greatest God; and in power\nover each thing is set he that has been counted fit.\"[79]  \"Probably\nthe various sections are allotted to various rulers (_epoptais_) and\ndistributed in certain provinces, and so governed.  Thus among the\nvarious nations things would be done rightly if done as those rulers\nwould have them.  It is then not holy to break down what has been from\nthe beginning the tradition of one and another place.\"[80]  Again, the\nbody is the prison of the soul; should there not then be warders of\nit--daemons in fact?[81] Then \"will not a man, who worships God, be\njustified in serving him who has his power from God?\"[82]  To worship\nthem all cannot grieve him to whom they all belong.[83]  Over and over\nCelsus maintains the duty of \"living by the ancestral usages,\" \"each\npeople worshipping its own traditional deities.\"[84] To say with the\nChristians that there is one Lord, meaning God, is to break up the\nkingdom of God and make factions there (_stasiaxein_), as if there were\nchoices to be made, and one were a rival of another.[85]\n\nAmmon is no worse than the angels of the Jews; though here the Jews are\nso far right in that they hold by the ways of their ancestors--an\nadvantage which the Jewish proselytes have {255} forfeited.[86]  If the\nJews pride themselves on superior knowledge and so hold aloof from\nother men, Herodotus is evidence that their supposed peculiar dogma is\nshared by the Persians; and \"I think it makes no difference whether you\ncall Zeus the Most High, or Zeus, or Adonai, or Sabaoth, or Amun, like\nthe Egyptians, or Papaios like the Scythians.\"[87]\n\nThe evidence for the ancillary daemons and gods he finds in the familiar\nplaces.  \"Why need I tell at length how many things prophets and\nprophetesses at the oracles have foretold, and other men and women\npossessed by a voice of a god within them? the marvels heard from\nshrines? revelations from sacrifices and victims, and other miraculous\ntokens?  And some have been face to face with visible phantoms.  The\nwhole of life is full of these things.\"  Cities have escaped plague and\nfamine through warnings from oracles, and have suffered for neglecting\nthem.  The childless have gained children, and the crippled have been\nhealed, while those who have treated sacred things with contempt have\nbeen punished in suicide and incurable diseases.[88]  Let a man go to\nthe shrine of Trophonius or Amphiaraus or Mopsus, and there he may see\nthe gods in the likeness of men, no feigned forms (_pseudomenous_) but\nclear to see, \"not slipping by them once, like him who deceived these\npeople [the Christians], but ever associating with those who will.\"[89]\n\"A great multitude of men, Greeks and barbarians, testify that they\nhave often seen and still do see Asklepios, and not merely a phantom of\nhim, but they see himself healing men, and doing them good, and\nforetelling the future.\"[90]  Is it not likely that these \"satraps and\nministers of air and earth\" could do you harm, if you did them\ndespite?[91]  Earthly rulers too deserve worship, since they hold their\npositions not without daemonic influence.[92]  Why should not the\nChristians worship them, daemons and Emperors?  If they worshipped no\nother but one God, they might have some clear argument against other\nmen; but, as it is, they more than worship the person who lately\nappeared, and reckon that God is not wronged by the service done to his\nsubordinate,[93]--though in truth he is only a corpse.[94] In any case,\n\"if idols are nothing, what harm is there in taking part in the\nfestival? but if there are daemons, it is clear they too {256} are of\nGod, and in them we must trust, and speak them fair, according to the\nlaws, and pray that they may be propitious.\"[95]\n\nIt is characteristic of the candour of Celsus that he lets slip a\ncaution or two about the service of daemons.  Christians are as\ncredulous, he says in one place, as \"those who lightly (_alogos_)\nbelieve in the roaming priests of Cybele (_metragurtais_) and\nwonder-seers, Mithras and Sabadios and the like--phantoms of Hecate or\nsome other female daemon or daemons.\"[96]  Again, he has a word of\nwarning as to magic, and the danger and injury into which those fall\nwho busy themselves with it--\"One must be on one's guard, that one may\nnot, by being occupied with these matters, become entangled in the\nservice of them [literally; fused with them, _syntake_], and through\nlove of the body and by turning away from better things be overcome by\nforgetfulness.  For perhaps we should not disbelieve wise men, who say\n(as a matter of fact) that of the daemons who pervade the earth the\ngreater part are entangled in 'becoming' (_genesei syntetekos_)--fused\nand riveted to it--and being bound to blood and smoke and chantings and\nother such things can do no more than heal the body and foretell future\ndestiny to man and city; and the limits of their knowledge and power\nare those of human affairs.\"[97]\n\n[Sidenote: The rescue of the empire]\n\nAt the last comes his great plea.  Human authority is of divine\nordinance.  \"To the Emperor all on earth is given; and whatever you\nreceive in life is from him.\"[98]  \"We must not disbelieve one of old,\nwho long ago said--\n\n  Let one be king, to whom the son of wise Kronos has given it.\n\nIf you invalidate this thought (_dogma_), probably the Emperor will\npunish you.  For if all men were to do as you do, nothing will prevent\nthe Emperor being left alone and deserted,[99] and all things on earth\nfalling into the power of the {257} most lawless and barbarous savages,\nwith the result that neither of your religion nor of the true wisdom\nwould there be left among men so much as the name.[100]  You will\nhardly allege that if the Romans were persuaded by you and forsook all\ntheir usages as to gods and men, and called upon your 'Most High' or\nwhatever you like, he would descend and fight for them and they would\nneed no other help.  For before now that same God promised (as you say)\nthis and much more to those who served him, and you see all the good he\nhas done them and you.  As for them [the Jews], instead of being\nmasters of all the earth, they have not a clod nor a hearthstone left\nthem; while you--if there is any of you left in hiding, search is being\nmade for him to put him to death.\"[101] The Christian sentiment that it\nis desirable for all who inhabit the Empire, Greeks and barbarians,\nAsia, Europe and Libya, to agree to one law or custom, is foolish and\nimpracticable.[102] So Celsus calls on the Christians \"to come to the\nhelp of the Emperor with all their might and labour with him as right\nrequires, fight on his behalf, take the field with him, if he call on\nyou, and share the command of the legions with him[103]--yes, and be\nmagistrates, if need be, and to do this for the salvation of laws and\nreligion.\"[104]\n\nIt will be noted that, so far as our fragments serve us, Celsus\nconfines himself essentially to the charges of folly, perversity, and\nwant of national feeling.  An excessive opinion of the value of the\nhuman soul and an absurd fancy of God's interest in man are two of the\nchief faults he sees in Christianity.[105]  He sees well, for the love\nof God our Father and the infinite significance of the meanest and\ncommonest and most depraved of men were after all the cardinal\ndoctrines of the new faith.  There can be no compromise between the\nChristian conception of the Ecclesia of God and Celsus' contempt for an\n\"ecclesia of worms in a pool\"; nor between the \"Abba Father\" of Jesus\nand the aloof and philosophic God of Celsus \"away beyond everything.\"\nThese two {258} contrasts bring into clear relief the essentially new\nfeatures of Christianity, and from the standpoint of ancient philosophy\nthey were foolish and arbitrary fancies.  That standpoint was\nunquestioned by Celsus.\n\n[Sidenote: The failure of Celsus]\n\nConfident in the truth of his premisses and the conclusions that follow\nfrom them, Celsus charged the Christians with folly and dogmatism.  Yet\nit would be difficult to maintain that they were more dogmatic than\nhimself; they at least had ventured on the experiment of a new life,\nthat was to bring ancient Philosophy to a new test.  They were the\nresearchers in spiritual things, and he the traditionalist.  As to the\ncharge of folly, we may at once admit a comparatively lower standard of\neducation among the Christians; yet Lucian's book _Alexander_, with its\ncurious story of the false prophet who classed them with the Epicureans\nas his natural enemies, suggests that, with all their limitations, they\nhad an emancipation of mind not reached by all their contemporaries.\nIf they did not accept the conclusions of Greek thinkers as final, they\nwere still less prepared to accept sleight-of-hand and hysteria as the\nultimate authority in religious truth.[106]  Plutarch, we may remember,\nbased belief in immortality on the oracles of Apollo; and Celsus\nhimself appeals to the evidence of shrines and miracles.  If we say\nthat pagans and Christians alike believed in the occurrence of these\nmiracles and in daemonic agency as their cause, it remains that the\nChristians put something much nearer the modern value upon them, while\nCelsus, who denounced the Christians as fools, tendered this\ncontemptible evidence for the religion he advocated.\n\nHis Greek training was in some degree the cause of this.  The\nimmeasurable vanity of the Greeks did not escape the Romans.  A sense\nof indebtedness to the race that has given us Homer, Euripides and\nPlato leads us to treat all Greeks kindly--with more kindness than\nthose critics show them whose acquaintance with them has been less in\nliterature and more in life.  The great race still had gifts for\nmankind, but it was now mainly living upon its past.  In Plutarch the\npride of race is genial and pleasant; in Celsus it takes another\nform--that of contempt for the barbarian and the unlettered.  {259} The\ntruism may be forgiven that contempt is no pathway to understanding or\nto truth; and in this case contempt cut Celsus off from any real access\nto the mind of the people he attacked.  He read their books; he heard\nthem talk; but, for all his conscious desire to inform himself, he did\nnot penetrate into the heart of the movement--nor of the men.  He\nmissed the real motive force--the power of the life and personality of\nJesus, on which depended the two cardinal doctrines which he assailed.\n\nThe extraordinary blunders, to which the very surest critics in\nliterature are liable, may prepare us for anything.  But to those who\nhave some intimate realization of the mind of Jesus, the portrait which\nCelsus drew of him is an amazing caricature--the ignorant Jewish\nconjuror, who garbles Plato, and makes no impression on his friends, is\nhardly so much as a parody.  It meant that Celsus did not understand\nthe central thing in the new faith.  The \"godhead\" of Jesus was as\nabsurd as he said, if it was predicated of the Jesus whom he drew; and\nthere he let it rest.  How such a dogma could have grown in such a case\nhe did not inquire; nor, finding it grown, did he correct his theory by\nthe fact.  Thus upon the real strength of Christianity he had nothing\nto say.  This was not the way to convince opponents, and here the\naction of the Christians was sounder and braver.  For they accepted the\ninspiration of the great men of Greece, entered into their spirit (as\nfar as in that day it was possible), and fairly did their best to put\nthemselves at a universal point of view.[107] They had the larger\nsympathies.\n\nYet for Celsus it may be pleaded that his object was perhaps less the\nreconversion of Christians to the old faith than to prevent the\nperversion of pagans to the new.  But here too he failed, for he did\nnot understand even the midway people with whom he was dealing.  They\nwere a large class--men and women open to religious ideas from whatever\nsource they might come--Egypt, Judaea, or Persia, desirous of the\nknowledge of {260} God and of communion with God, and in many cases\nconscious of sin.  In none of these feelings did Celsus share--his\ninterests are all intellectual and practical.  Plutarch before him, and\nthe Neo-Platonists after him, understood the religious instincts which\nthey endeavoured to satisfy, and for the cold, hard outlines of Celsus'\nhierarchy of heavenly and daemonic beings they substituted\npersonalities, approachable, warm and friendly (_ho philos Apollon_).\nMen felt the need of gods who were Saviours,--of gods with whom they\nmight commune in sacraments--as the rise of Mithra-worship shows.  They\nsought for salvation from sin, for holiness--the word was much on their\nlips--and for peace with God.  To Celsus these seem hardly to have been\nnecessities; and whether we say that he made no effort to show that\nthey were provided for in the old religion, or that he suggested,\ntacitly or explicitly, that the scheme he set forth had such a\nprovision, the effect is the same.  He really had nothing to offer.\n\n[Sidenote: The victory of the Christians]\n\nCelsus did not bring against the Christians the charges of \"OEdipodean\nunions and Thyestean banquets\" familiar to the reader of the\nApologists[108]--and to the student of the events that preceded the\nBoxer movement in China.  While he taunted Jesus with being a bastard\nand a deceiver, and roundly denounced Christians generally for imposing\nupon the ignorance of men with false religion and false history, he did\nnot say anything of note against ordinary Christian conduct.  At least\nthe fragments do not show anything of the kind.  Later on the defenders\nand apologists of paganism had to own with annoyance that Christians\nset their fellow-citizens an example; Maximin Daza and Julian tried\nvigorously to raise the tone of pagan society.  Here lies an argument\nwith which Celsus could not deal.  The Fatherhood of God (in the sense\nwhich Jesus gave to the words) and the value of the individual soul,\neven the depraved and broken soul, are matters of argument, and on\npaper they may be very questionable; but when the people, who held or\n(more truly) were held by these beliefs, managed somehow or other to\nshow to the world lives transformed and endowed with the power of\ntransforming others, the plain fact outweighed any number of _True\nWords_.  Whatever {261} the explanation, the thing was there.\nChristians in the second century laid great stress on the value of\npaper and argument, and to-day we feel with Celsus that among them,\northodox and heretical, they talked and wrote a great deal that was\nfoolish--\"their allegories were worse than their myths\"--but the sheer\nweight of Christian character carried off allegories and myths, bore\ndown the school of Celsus and the more powerful school of Plutarch,\nPorphyry and Plotinus and abolished the ancient world, and then\ncaptured and transformed the Northern nations.\n\nCelsus could not foresee all that we look back upon.  But it stands to\nhis credit that he recognised the dangers which threatened the ancient\ncivilization, dangers from German without and Christian within.  He had\nnot the religious temperament; he was more the statesman in his habit\nof mind, and he clearly loved his country.  The appeal with which he\ncloses is a proposal of peace--toleration, if the Christians will save\nthe civilized world.  It was not destined that his hopes should be\nfulfilled in the form he gave them, for it was the Christian Church\nthat subdued the Germans and that carried over into a larger and more\nhuman civilization all that was of value in that inheritance of the\npast for which he pleaded.  So far as his gifts carried him, he was\ncandid; and if sharp of tongue and a little irritable of temper, he was\nstill an honourable adversary.  He was serious, and, if he did not\nunderstand religion, he believed in the state and did his best to save\nit.\n\n\nChapter VIII Footnotes:\n\n[1] Keim, _Celsus' Wahres Wort_ (1873).\n\n[2] Keim, pp. 264-273.\n\n[3] Tertullian, _Apol._ 38, _nec ulla res aliena magis quam publica_.\nElsewhere Tertullian explains this: _laedimas Romanos nec Romani habemur\nqui non Romanorum deum colimus, Apol._ 24.\n\n[4] Apud Origen, _c. Cels._ viii, 2.  References in what follows will\nbe made to the book and chapter of this work without repetition of\nOrigen's name.  The text used is that of Koetschau.\n\n[5] _c. Cels._ iii, 44.\n\n[6] _Ibid._ iii, 59.\n\n[7] iii, 55.  I have omitted a clause or two.\n\nClem  A. _Strom._ iv, 67, on the other hand, speaks of the difficult\nposition of wife or slave in such a divided household, and (68) of\nconversions in spite of the master of the house.  Tert. _ad Scap._ 3,\nhas a story of a governor whose wife became a Christian, and who in\nanger began a persecution at once.\n\n[8] iii, 75.\n\n[9] i, 9.  Cf. Clem. Alex. _Strom._ i, 43, on some Christians who think\nthemselves _euphusis_ and \"ask for faith--faith alone and bare.\"  In\n_Paed._ i, 27, he says much the same himself, _to pisteusai monon kai\nanagennethunai teleiois estin en zoe_.\n\n[10] vi, 10.  Clem. Alex. _Strom._ ii, 8, \"The Greeks think Faith empty\nand barbarous, and revile it,\" but (ii, 30) \"if it had been a human\nthing, as they supposed, it would have been quenched.\"\n\n[11] iii, 62.\n\n[12] iii, 62.\n\n[13] iii, 65, _tous hamartangin pephykotas te kai eithismenous_.\n\n[14] iii, 71.\n\n[15] Clement of Alexandria, _Protr._ 92, uses this simile of worms in\nthe mud of swamps, applying it to people who live for pleasure.\n\n[16] iv, 23.\n\n[17] iv, 74.\n\n[18] So Lucian _Icaromenippus_, 19, explicitly.\n\n[19] iv, 88.  Cf. Clem. Alex. _Paedag._ i, 7, _to philtron endon estin\nen to anthropo touth' oper emphysema legetai theou_.\n\n[20] _c. Cels._ iv, 74-99.  Cf. Plato, _Laws_, 903 B, _hos to tou\npantos epimeloumeno pros ten soterian kai areten tou holou pant' esti\nsyntetagmena kte_, explicitly developing the idea of the part being for\nthe whole.  Also Cicero, _N.D._ ii, 13, 34-36.\n\n[21] Of. M. Aurelius, xi, 3, the criticism of the theatricality of the\nChristians.  See p. 198.\n\n[22] _c. Cels._ vii, 42, _ton men oun poieten kai patera toude tou\npantos ehurein te epgon kai ehuronta eis pantas adynaton legein_;\n_Timaeus_, 28 C--often cited by Clement too.\n\n[23] vii, 42.\n\n[24] vii, 42.\n\n[25] vii, 45.\n\n[26] iv, 14.\n\n[27] iv, 18.  See Tertullian's argument on this question of God\nchanging, in _de Carne Christi_, 3.  See Plato, _Rep._ ii, 381 B.\n\n[28] iv, 52.  See _Timaeus_, 34 B ff. on God making soul.\n\n[29] iv, 73.  See Clem. Alex. _Paed._ i, ch. 10, on God threatening;\nand Strom, ii, 72; iv, 151; vii, 37, for the view that God is without\nanger, and for guidance as to the understanding of language in the O.T.\nwhich seems to imply the contrary.  For a different view, see\nTertullian, _de Testim. Animae_, 2, _unde igitur naturalis timor animae\nin deum, si deus nan novit irasci?  adv. Marc._ i, 26, 27, on the\nnecessity for God's anger, if the moral law is to be maintained; and\n_adv. Marc._ ii, 16, a further account of God's anger, while a literal\ninterpretation of God's \"eyes\" and \"right hand\" is excluded.\n\n[30] iv, 65.\n\n[31] iv, 69.\n\n[32] iv, 70.  Long before (about 500 B.C.)\n Heraclitus had said (fragm. 61): \"To\nGod all things are beautiful and good and just; but men have supposed\nsome things to be unjust and others just.\"  For this doctrine of the\nrelativity of good and bad to the whole, cf. hymn of Cleanthes to\nZeus:--\n\n  _alla su kai ta perissa t' epistasai artia theinai_,\n  _kai kosmein ta kosma, kai ou phila soi phila estin_.\n  _ode gar eis en panta synermokas esthla kakoisin_\n  _osth' ena gignesthai panton logon aien eonta_.\n\nCf. also the teaching of Chrysippus, as given by Gellius, _N.A._ vii,\n1: _cum bona malis contraria sint, utraque necessum est opposita inter\nsese et quasi mutuo adverse quaeque fulta nisu consistere; nullum adeo\ncontrarium est sine contrario altero ... situleris unum abstuleris\nutrumque_.  See also M. Aurelius in the same Stoic vein, viii, 50; ix,\n42.  On the other side see Plutarch's indignant criticism of this\nattribution of the responsibility for evil to God, _de comm. not. adv.\nSto._ 14, 1065 D, ff.  In opposition to Marcion, Tertullian emphasizes\nthe worth of the world; his position, as a few words will show, is not\nthat of Celsus, but Stoic influence is not absent: _adv. Marc._ i, 13,\n14; _Ergo nec mundus deo indignus: nihil etenim deus indignum st fecit,\netsi mundum homini non sibi fecit, etsi omne opus inferius est suo\nartifice_; see p. 317.\n\n[33] iv, 3.\n\n[34] iv, 6.\n\n[35] iv, 7.\n\n[36] vii, 36.\n\n[37] viii, 63.\n\n[38] viii, 66.\n\n[39] vi, 69.  \"Men, who count themselves wise,\" says Clement (_Strom._\ni, 88), \"count it a fairy tale that the son of God should speak through\nman, or that God should have a son, and he suffer.\"\n\n[40] vi, 72.\n\n[41] vi, 73.  Cf. the Marcionite view; cf. Tert. _adv. Marc._ iii, 11;\niv, 21; v, 19, _cuius ingeniis tam longe abest veritas nostra ut ...\nChristum ex vulva virginis natum non erubescat, ridentibus philosophis\net haereticis et ethnicis ipsis_.  See also _de carne Christi_, 4, 5,\nwhere he strikes a higher note; Christ loved man, born as man is, and\ndescended for him.\n\n[42] vi, 75.  Cf. Tert. _de carne Christi_, 9, _adeo nec humanae\nhonestatis corpus fuit; adv. Jud._ 14, _ne aspectu quidem honestus_.\n\n[43] vi, 78.  Cf. Tert. _adv. Marc._ iii, i, _atquin nihil putem a deo\nsubitum quia nihil a deo non dispositum_.\n\n[44] vii, 13, _skataophagein_.  Origen's reply is absurd--_hina gar kai\ndoxe hoti hesthein, hos soma phoron ho Iesous hesthein_.  So also said\nClement (_Strom._ vi, 71).  Valentinus had another theory no better,\n_Strom._ iii. 59.  Marcion, Tertullian says (_adv. Marc._ iii, 10),\ncalled the flesh _terrenam et stercoribus infusam_.  They are all\nfilled with the same contempt for matter--not Tertullian, however.\n\n[45] i, 69.\n\n[46] i, 54.\n\n[47] i, 12.\n\n[48] ii, 23, 24.\n\n[49] ii, 34.\n\n[50] ii, 37.\n\n[51] ii, 66, 67.  Tertullian meets this in _Apol._ 21.  _Nam nec ille\nse in vulgus eduxit ne impii errore liberarcntur, ut et fides, non\nmediocri praemio destinata, difficultate constaret_.\n\n[52] ii, 68,\n\n[53] viii, 39.\n\n[54] viii, 41.\n\n[55] v, 65.\n\n[56] vi, 34.  Cf. a curious passage of Clem. Alex. _Protr._ 114, _outos\nten dusin eis anatolen metegagen kai ton thanaton eis zoen anestaursen\nexarpasas de tes apoleias ton anthropon prosekremasen aitheri_, and so\nforth.  Cf. Tert. _adv. Valent._ 20, who suggests that the Valentinians\nhad \"nut-trees in the sky\"--it is a book in which he allows himself a\ngood deal of gaiety and free quotation.\n\n[57] i, 28.\n\n[58] M. Aurelius, i, 6, \"From Diognetus I learnt not to give credit to\nwhat was said by miracle-workers and jugglers (_goeton_) about\nincantations and the sending away of daemons and such things.\"  Cf.\nTertullian, _adv. Marc._ iii, 2-4, on inadequacy of proof from miracles\nalone, without that from prophecy; also _de Anima_, 57, on these\nconjurers, where he remarks, _nec magnum illi exteriores oculos\ncircumscribere, an interiorem mentis aciem excalcare perfacile est_.\nSee also _Apol._ 22, 23.\n\n[59] i, 68.\n\n[60] vii, 9.\n\n[61] iii, 36.\n\n[62] vi, 16.  Cf. Plato, _Laws_, v, 12, p. 743 A.\n\n[63] vi, 17-19; _Phaedrus_, 247 C.\n\n[64] vi, 42.\n\n[65] vii, 32; cf. Min. Felix, 11, 9.\n\n[66] iv, 11.\n\n[67] vi, 8.\n\n[68] vi, 47.  Cf. Plato, _Timaeus_ (last words), 92 C, _eis ouranos ode\nmonogenes on_.\n\n[69] v, 14.\n\n[70] v, 14.\n\n[71] vii, 34.\n\n[72] viii, 49.\n\n[73] viii. 48.\n\n[74] iii, 14.\n\n[75] v, 59.\n\n[76] iii, 12.\n\n[77] vi, II.\n\n[78] iii, 9.  Tertullian speaks in a somewhat similar way of heretics,\nespecially of the Gnostics: _de praescriptione haeret_. c. 42.\n\n[79] vii, 68.\n\n[80] v, 25.\n\n[81] viii, 53, 58.\n\n[82] vii, 68.\n\n[83] vii, 2.\n\n[84] Cf. v, 34, 35.\n\n[85] viii, ii.  Cf. Tert. _adv. Prax._ 3, where it is argued that God's\nmonarchy is not impaired _tot angelorum numero_, nor by the _oikonomia_\nof the Trinity.\n\n[86] v, 41.\n\n[87] v, 41.\n\n[88] viii, 45.\n\n[89] vii, 35.\n\n[90] iii, 24.  Cf. p. 222.\n\n[91] viii, 35.\n\n[92] viii, 63.\n\n[93] viii, 12.\n\n[94] vii, 68.\n\n[95] viii, 24.\n\n[96] i, 9, _Mithrais kai Sabadiois_.\n\n[97] viii, 60.  See note on ch. iii, p. 107.\n\n[98] viii, 67.\n\n[99] Cf. Tert. _de cor. mil._ 11, if a soldier is converted, _aut\ndeserendum statim ut a multis actum, aut,_ etc.  The chapter is a\ngeneral discussion whether military service and Christianity are\ncompatible.  Cf. also Tert. _de idol._ 19, _Non convenit sacramento\ndivino et humano, signo Christi et signo diaboli, castris lucis et\ncastris tenebrarum ... quomodo autem bellabit immo quomodo etiam in\npace militabit sine gladio quem dominus abstulit? .... omnem postea\nmilitem dominus in Petro exarmando discinxit_.  Tertullian, it may be\nremembered, was a soldier's son.\n\n[100] viii, 68.  The Greeks used _basileus_ as Emperor.\n\n[101] viii, 69.  For this taunt against the Jews, cf. Cicero, _pro\nFlacco_, 28, 69.\n\n[102] viii, 72.\n\n[103] viii, 73.\n\n[104] viii, 75.\n\n[105] Cf. Clem. Alex. _Strom._ i, 55, who says that hardly any words\ncould be to the many more absurd than the mysteries of the faith.\n\n[106] Clem. Alex. _Protr._ 56 (on idols).  _ou gar moi themis\nempisteusai pote tois apsychois tas tes psyches elpidas_.\n\n[107] This was at all events the view of Clement, _Strom._ i, 19.\n_oude katapsephixesthai ton Hellenon oion te psile te peri ton\ndogmatiothenton autois chromenous phrasei, me synembrainontas eis ten\nkata meros achri syllnoseos ekkalypsin.  pistos gar eu mala ho met'\nempeirias elegchos, hoti kai teleiotate apadeixis ehurisketai he gnosis\nton kategnosmenon_.\n\n[108] It is regrettable that Clement should have flung one of these\nagainst the school of Carpocrates, _Strom._ iii, 10.\n\n\n\n\n{262}\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nCLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA\n\nViderint qui Stoicum et Platonicum et dialecticum Christianismum\nprotulerunt.--TERTULLIAN, _de praescr. haeret._ 7.\n\nNo one can allege that the Bible has failed to win access for want of\nmetaphysics being applied to it.--MATTHEW ARNOLD, _Literature and\nDogma_, p. 121.\n\n\nThough Celsus had much to say upon the vulgar and servile character of\nthe members of the Christian community, he took the trouble to write a\nbook to refute Christianity; and this book, as we have seen, was\nwritten from a more or less philosophical point of view.  He professed\nhimself doubtful as to whether his opponents would understand his\narguments; but that he wrote at all, and that he wrote as he did, is\nevidence that the new faith was making its way upward through society,\nand was gaining a hold upon the classes of wealth and education.\n\n[Sidenote: The rise of the Church]\n\nIt is not hard to understand this.  Though conditions of industry were\nnot what they are to-day, it is likely that conversion was followed by\nthe economic results with which we are familiar.  The teaching of the\nchurch condemned the vices that war against thrift; and the new life\nthat filled the convert had its inevitable effect in quickening insight\nand energy.  The community insisted on every man having a trade and\nworking at it.  With no such end in view, the church must have numbered\namong its adherents more and more people of wealth and influence in\nspite of all defections, just as to-day Protestantism in France has\npower and responsibility out of all proportions to mere numbers.  The\nEmperor Hadrian, is said to have made the observation that in Egypt,\nwhether men worshipped Christ or Serapis, they all worshipped money.[1]\nThe remark had probably as much truth as such sayings generally have,\nbut we may probably infer that many Christians were punctual in {263}\ntheir observance of the duty laid on them to be \"not slothful in\nbusiness.\"\n\nThe first four or five generations of Christians could not, on the\nwhole, boast much culture--so far as their records permit us to judge.\n\"Not many wise,\" said Paul, and their fewness has left an impress on\nthe history of the church.  A tendency to flightiness in speculation on\nthe one hand, and a stolid refusal to speculate at all on the other,\nare the marks of second century Christianity.  The early attempts made\nto come to terms with \"human wisdom\" were not happy, either at the\ncentre or on the circumference of the body.  The adjustment of the\nGospel story to Old Testament prophecy was not a real triumph of the\nhuman mind, nor were the efforts at scientific theology any better.\nDocetism, with its phantom Christ, and Gnosticism with its antithesis\nof the just God and the good God, were not likely to satisfy mankind.\nSimple people felt that these things struck at their life, and they\nrejected them, and began to suspect the intellect.  The century saw the\ngrowth of ecclesiastical system, episcopal order and apostolic\ntradition.  Men began to speak of the \"old church,\" the \"original\nchurch\" and the \"catholic church,\" and to cleave to its \"rule of faith\"\nand \"tradition of sound words.\"  By 200 A.D. the church was no longer a\nnew thing in the world; it had its own \"ancient history\" without going\nback to Judaism and the old covenant; it had its legends; and it could\nnow speak like the Greeks of \"the old faith of our fathers.\"\n\nAs it rose in the world, the church came into contact with new\nproblems.  As long as men were without culture, they were not troubled\nby the necessity of reconciling culture with faith, but the time had\ncome when it must be done in earnest.  Wealth was bringing leisure, and\nrefinement, and new intellectual outlooks and interests.  Could the\nchurch do with them? was the urgent question.  Was it possible for a\nman to be at once a Greek gentleman of wealth and culture and a simple\nChristian like the humble grandfathers of his fellow-believers--or like\nhis own slaves, the fuller and the cobbler of his household?  We shall\nunderstand the problem better if we can make some acquaintance with the\ndaily life and environment of these converts of the better classes.\n\nIn the second and third books of his _Pedagogue_ Clement of {264}\nAlexandria deals with the daily round and deportment of Christians, for\nwhom extravagance and luxury might be a real temptation.  A few points,\ngathered here and there from the two books, will suffice.  He\nrecommends simplicity of diet with health and strength as its\nobjects--the viands, which the Gospels suggest, fish and the honeycomb,\nbeing admirable for these purposes.[2]  Wine provokes the passions--\"I\ntherefore admire those who have chosen the austere life and are fond of\nwater, the medicine of temperance.\"  \"Boys and girls should as a\ngeneral rule abstain from the [other] drug\"--wine.[3] Good manners at\ntable--no noisy gulping, no hiccupping, no spilling, no soiling of the\ncouch, no slobbering of hand or chin--\"how do you think the Lord drank,\nwhen he became man for us?\"[4]  Vessels of silver and gold, furniture\nof rare woods inlaid with ivory, rugs of purple and rich colours, are\nhardly necessary for the Christian--\"the Lord ate from a cheap bowl and\nmade his disciples lie on the ground, on the grass, and he washed their\nfeet with a towel about him--the lowly-minded God and Lord of the\nuniverse.  He did not bring a silver foot-bath from heaven to carry\nabout with him.  He asked the Samaritan woman to give him to drink in a\nvessel of clay as she drew it up from the well,--not seeking the royal\ngold, but teaching us to quench thirst easily.\"  \"In general as to\nfood, dress, furniture and all that pertains to the house, I say at\nonce, it should all be according to the institutions of the Christian\nman, fitting appropriately person, age, pursuits and time.\"[5]\n\n[Sidenote: Christian manners]\n\nClement passes from the table to a general discussion of manners and\nhabits.  Man is a \"laughing animal,\" but he should not laugh all the\ntime.  Humour is recommended rather than wit (_charientisteon ou\ngelotopoieteon_, 45, 4).  \"The orderly relaxation of the face which\npreserves its harmony\" is a smile (46, 3)--giggling and excessive\nlaughter are perversions.  Care should be taken in conversation to\navoid low talk, and the scoff that leads the way to insolence, and the\nargument for barren victory--\"man is a creature of peace,\" as the\ngreeting \"Peace with you\" shows us.  Some talkers are like old\nshoes--only the tongue left for mischief.  {265} There are many tricks\nunfit for a Christian gentleman--spitting, coughing, scratching and\nother things; and he would do well to avoid whistling and snapping his\nfingers to call the servants.  Fidgetting is the mark of mental levity\n(_symbolon kouphotetos_).[6]\n\nIn the care of one's person, oil may be used; it is a sign of the\nluxury of the times that scents and unguents are so universally applied\nto such various purposes.  The heathen crowned their heads with flowers\nand made it a reproach that Christians gave up the practice.  But, as\nTertullian said, they smelt with their noses; and Clement urges that on\nthe head flowers are lost to sight and smell, and chill the brain.  A\nflower-garden in spring, with the dew upon all its colours, and all the\nnatural scents of the open air, is another thing.  The Christian too\nwill remember--Tertullian also has this thought--that it was another\ncrown that the Lord wore[7]--_ex spinis opinor, et tribulis_.  The real\nobjection was that the custom was associated with idol-worship.\n\nSilk and purple and pearls are next dealt with--and earrings, \"an\noutrage on nature\"--if you pierce the ear, why not the nose too?[8]\nAll peculiarity of dress should be avoided, and so should cosmetics--or\nelse you may remind people of the Egyptian temple, outside all\nsplendour, inside a priest singing a hymn to a cat or a crocodile.[9]\n\"Temperance in drink and symmetry in food are wonderful cosmetics and\nquite natural.\"[10]  Let a woman work with her hands, and health will\ncome and bring her beauty.  She should go veiled to church, like AEneas'\nwife leaving Troy.[11]  Men may play at ball, take country walks, and\ntry gardening and drawing water and splitting billets.[12]\nFinger-rings are allowed for them--gold rings, to be used as seals for\nsecurity against the slaves.  {266} \"Let our seals be a dove, or a\nfish, or a ship running before the wind, or a lyre, or a ship's\nanchor\"--not an idol's face, or a sword or a cup or something\nworse.[13]  Men should wear their hair short (unless it is curly), grow\ntheir beards and keep their moustaches trimmed with the scissors.[14]\nOur slaves we should treat as ourselves, for they are men as we; \"God\"\n(as a verse, perhaps from Menander, puts it) \"is the same for all, free\nor slave, if you think of it.\"[15]\n\nAll these admonitions imply an audience with some degree of wealth.\nThe Christian artisan of Celsus had no temptation to use a silver\nfoot-bath or to plaster himself with cosmetics.  It may also be\nremarked that the man who gives the advice shows himself well\nacquainted with the ways of good society--and perhaps of society not so\nwell gifted with taste.  With all this refinement went education.  The\nchildren of Christian parents were being educated, and new converts\nwere being made among the cultured classes, and the adjustment of the\nnew faith and the old culture was imperative.  The men to make it were\nfound in a succession of scholars, learned in all the wisdom of Greece,\nenthusiastic for philosophy and yet loyal to the Gospel tradition.\n\nThe first of these, whose name we know, was Pantaenus; but beyond his\nname there is little to be known of him.  Eusebius says that he began\nas a Stoic philosopher and ended as a Christian missionary to\nIndia.[16]  His pupil, Clement, is of far greater importance in the\nhistory of Christian thought.\n\n[Sidenote: His classical training]\n\nOf Clement again there is little to be learnt beyond what can be\ngathered from his own writings.  He alludes himself to the death of the\nEmperor Commodus as being \"194 years, 1 month and 13 days\" after the\nbirth of Christ (it was in 192 A.D.); and Eusebius quotes a passage\nfrom a contemporary letter which shows that Clement was alive in 211\nA.D., and another written in or about 215, which implies that he was\ndead.[17]  We have also an indication from Eusebius that his activity\nas a teacher in Alexandria lasted from 180 {267} to 202 or 203.[18]  We\nmay then assume that Clement was born about the middle of the century.\n\nEpiphanius says that Clement was either an Alexandrine or an Athenian.\nA phrase to be quoted below suggests that he was not an Alexandrine,\nand it has been held possible that he came from Athens.[19]  It also\nseems that he was born a pagan.[20]  Perhaps he says this himself when\nhe writes: \"rejoicing exceedingly and renouncing our old opinions we\ngrow young again for salvation, singing with the prophecy that chants\n'How good is God to Israel.'\"[21]\n\nIt is obvious that he had the usual training of a Greek of his social\nposition.  If his code of manners is lifted above other such codes by\nthe constant suggestion of the gentle spirit of Jesus, it yet bears the\nmark of his race and of his period.  It is Greek and aristocratic, and\nit would in the main command the approval of Plutarch.  He must have\nbeen taught Rhetoric like every one else,--his style shows this as much\nas his protests that he does not aim at eloquence (_euglottia_), that\nhe has not studied and does not practise \"Greek style\"\n(_helleixein_).[22]  He has the diffuse learning of his day--wide,\nsecond-hand and uncritical; and, like other contemporary writers, he\nwas a devotee of the note-book.  No age of Greek literature has left us\nso many works of the kind he wrote--the sheer congeries with no attempt\nat structure, no \"beginning, middle and end,\"--easy, accumulative books\nof fine miscellaneous feeding, with titles that playfully confess to\ntheir character.  Like other authors of this class, Clement preserves\nfor us many and many a fragment of more interest and value than any\noriginal piece of literature could have been.  He clearly loved the\npoetry of Greece, and it comes spontaneously and irresistibly to his\nmind as he writes, and the sayings of Jesus are reinforced by those of\nMenander or Epicharmus.  The old words charm him, and {268} he cannot\nreject them.  His _Stromateis_ are \"not like ornamental paradises laid\nout in rows to please the eye, but rather resemble some shady and\nthickly-wooded hill, where you may find cypress and plane, bay and ivy,\nand apple trees along with olives and figs\"[23]--trees with literary\nconnotations.  Such works imply some want of the creative instinct, of\noriginality, and they are an index to the thinking of the age,\nimpressed with its great ancestry.  It is to be remarked that the\nwriters of our period care little for the literature of the past two or\nthree centuries; they quote their own teachers and the great\nphilosophers and poets of ancient Greece.[24]  Few of them have any new\nthoughts at all, and those who have are under the necessity of clothing\nthem in the hallowed phrases of their predecessors.  This was the\ntraining in which Clement shared.  Later on, he emancipated himself,\nand spoke contemptuously of the school--\"a river of words and a trickle\nof mind\";[25] but an education is not easily shaken off.  He might\nquarrel with his teachers and their lessons, but he still believed in\nthem.  It may be noted that in his quotations of Greek literature his\nattention is mainly given to the thought which he finds in the\nwords--or attaches to them--that he does not seem to conceive of a work\nof art as a whole, nor does he concern himself with the author.  He\nused the words as a quotation, and it is not unlikely that many of the\npassages he borrowed he knew only as quotations.\n\nIn philosophy his training must have been much the same, but here he\nhad a more living interest.  Philosophy touched him more nearly, for it\nbore upon the two great problems of the human soul--conduct and God.\nLike Seneca and Plutarch he was not interested in Philosophy apart from\nthese issues--epistemology, psychology, physics and so forth were not\npractical matters.  The philosophers he judged by their theology.  With\nreligious men of his day he leant to the Stoics and \"truth-loving\nPlato\"--especially Plato, whom he {269} seems to have read for\nhimself--but he avows that Philosophy for him means not the system of\nany school or thinker, but the sum of the unquestionable dogmata of all\nthe schools, \"all that in every school has been well said, to teach\nrighteousness with pious knowledge--this eclectic whole I call\nPhilosophy.\"[26] To this Philosophy all other studies contribute--they\nare \"the handmaidens, and she the mistress\"[27]--and she herself owns\nthe sway of Theology.\n\n[Sidenote: Clement and the mysteries]\n\nAt some time of his life Clement acquired a close acquaintance with\npagan mythology and its cults.  It may be that he was initiated into\nmysteries; in his _Protrepticus_ he gives an account of many of them,\nwhich is of great value to the modern student.  It is probable enough\nthat an earnest man in search of God would explore the obvious avenues\nto the knowledge he sought--avenues much travelled and loudly vaunted\nin his day.  Having explored them, it is again not unlikely that a\nspirit so pure and gentle should be repelled by rituals and legends\nfull of obscenity and cruelty.  It is of course possible that much of\nhis knowledge came from books, perhaps after his conversion, for one\ngreat part of Christian polemic was the simple exposure of the secret\nrites of paganism.  Yet it remains that his language is permanently\ncharged with technical terms proper to the mysteries, and that he loves\nto put Christian knowledge and experience in the old language--\"Oh!\nmysteries truly holy!  Oh! stainless light!  The daduchs lead me on to\nbe the epopt of the heavens and of God; I am initiated and become holy;\nthe Lord is the hierophant and seals the mystes for himself, himself\nthe photagogue.\"[28]  It is again a little surprising to hear of \"the\nSaviour \"being\" our mystagogue as in the tragedy--\n\n  He sees, we see, he gives the holy things (_orgia_);\n\nand if thou wilt inquire\n\n{270}\n\n  These holy things--what form have they for thee?\n\nthou wilt hear in reply\n\n  Save Bacchus' own initiate, none may know.\"[29]\n\nIt is inconceivable that a Hebrew, or anyone but a Greek, could have\nwritten such a passage with its double series of allusions to Greek\nmysteries and to Euripides' _Bacchae_.  Clement is the only man who\nwrites in this way, with an allusiveness beyond Plutarch's, and a fancy\nas comprehensive as his charity and his experience of literature and\nreligion.\n\nHe had the Greek's curious interest in foreign religions, and he speaks\nof Chaldaeans and Magians, of Indian hermits and Brahmans--\"and among\nthe Indians are those that follow the precepts of Buddha (_Boutta_),\nwhom for his exceeding holiness they have honoured as a god\"--of the\nholy women of the Germans and the Druids of the Gauls.[30]  Probably in\neach of these cases his knowledge was soon exhausted, but it shows the\ndirection of his thoughts.  Egypt of course furnished a richer field of\ninquiry to him as to Plutarch.  He has passages on Egyptian\nsymbolism,[31] and on their ceremonial,[32] which contain interesting\ndetail.  It was admitted by the Greeks--even by Celsus--that barbarians\nexcelled in the discovery of religious dogma, though they could not\nequal the Greeks in the philosophic use of it.  Thus Pausanias says the\nChaldaeans and Indian Magians first spoke of the soul's immortality,\nwhich many Greeks have accepted, \"not least Plato son of Ariston.\"[33]\n\nIn the course of his intellectual wanderings, very possibly before he\nbecame a Christian, Clement investigated Jewish thought so far as it\nwas accessible to him in Greek, for Greeks did not learn barbarian\nlanguages.  Eusebius remarks upon his allusions to a number of Jewish\nhistorians.[34]  His debt to {271} Philo is very great, for it was not\nonly his allegoric method in general and some elaborate allegories that\nhe borrowed, but the central conception in his presentment of\nChristianity comes originally from the Jewish thinker, though Clement\nwas not the first Christian to use the term Logos.\n\nClement does not tell us that he was born of pagan parents, nor does he\nspeak definitely of his conversion.  It is an inference, and we are\nleft to conjecture the steps by which it came, but without the help of\nevidence.  One allusion to his Christian teachers is dropped when he\njustifies his writing the _Stromateis_--\"memoranda treasured up for my\nold age, an antidote against forgetfulness, a mere semblance and\nshadow-picture of those bright and living discourses, those men happy\nand truly remarkable, whom I was counted worthy to hear.\"  And then the\nreading is uncertain, but, according to Dr Stahlin's text he says: \"Of\nthese, one was in Greece--the Ionian; the next (pl.) in Magna Graecia\n(one of whom was from Coele Syria and the other from Egypt); others in\nthe East; and in this region one was an Assyrian, and the other in\nPalestine a Hebrew by descent.  The last of all (in power he was the\nfirst) I met and found my rest in him, when I had caught him hidden\naway in Egypt.  He, the true Sicilian bee, culling the flowers of the\nprophetic and apostolic meadow, begot pure knowledge in the souls of\nthose who heard him.  These men preserved the true tradition of the\nblessed teaching direct from Peter and James, John and Paul, the holy\napostles, son receiving it from father ('and few be sons their fathers'\npeers'), and reached down by God's blessing even to us, in us to\ndeposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds.\"[35]  It is supposed that\nthe Assyrian was Tatian, while the Sicilian bee hidden away in Egypt\nwas almost certainly Pantaenus.\n\nClement's education had been wide and superficial, his reading\nsympathetic but not deep, his philosophy vague and eclectic, and now\nfrom paganism with its strange and indefinite aggregation of religions\nbased on cult and legend, he passed to a faith that rested on a\ntradition jealously maintained and a rule beginning to be venerable.\nHe met men with a definite language in which they expressed a common\nexperience--who had moreover seen a good many efforts made to mend the\n{272} language and all of them ending in \"shipwreck concerning the\nfaith\"; who therefore held to the \"form of sound words\" as the one\nfoundation for the Christian life.\n\nIt says a great deal for Clement's character--one might boldly say at\nonce that it is an index to his personal experience--that he could\nsympathize with these men in the warm and generous way he did.  Now and\nagain he is guilty of directing a little irony against the\nlouder-voiced defenders of \"faith only, bare faith\"[36] and \"straight\nopinion\"--\"the _orthodoxasts_, as they are called.\"[37]  (The curious\nword shows that the terms \"orthodox\" and \"orthodoxy\" were not yet quite\ndeveloped.)  But he stands firmly by the simplest Christians and their\nexperience.  If he pleads for a wider view of things--for what he calls\n\"knowledge,\" it is, he maintains, the development of the common faith\nof all Christians.  It is quite different from the wisdom that is\nimplanted by teaching; it comes by grace.  \"The foundation of knowledge\nis to have no doubts about God, but to believe; Christ is\nboth--foundation and superstructure alike; by him is the beginning and\nthe end....  These, I mean faith and love, are not matters of\nteaching.\"[38]  As Jesus became perfect by baptism and was hallowed by\nthe descent of the spirit, \"so it befals us also, whose pattern is the\nLord.  Baptized, we are enlightened; enlightened, we are made sons;\nmade sons we are perfected; made perfect we become immortal [all these\nverbs and participles are in the present].  'I,' he saith, 'said ye are\ngods and sons of the Most High, all of you.'  This work has many names;\nit is called gift [or grace, _charisma_], enlightenment, perfection,\nbaptism....  What is wanting for him who knows God?  It would be\nstrange indeed if that were called a gift of God which was incomplete;\nthe Perfect will give what is perfect, one supposes....  Thus they that\nhave once grasped the borders of life are already perfect; we live\nalready, who are separated from death.  Salvation is following\nChrist....  So to believe--only to believe--and to be born again is\nperfection in life.\"[39]  He praises the poet of {273} Agrigentum for\nhymning faith, which his verses declare to be hard; 'and that is why\nthe Apostle exhorts 'that your faith may not be in the wisdom of\nmen'--who offer to persuade--'but in the power of God'--which alone and\nwithout proofs can by bare faith save.\"[40]\n\n[Sidenote: \"The real polymetis\"]\n\nIt was this strong sympathy with the simplest view of the Christian\nfaith that made the life-work of Clement possible.  He was to go far\noutside the ordinary thoughts of the Christian community round about\nhim--inevitably he had to do this under the compulsion of his wide\nexperience of books and thinkers--but the centre of all his larger\nexperience he found where his unlettered friends, \"believing without\nletters,\" found their centre, and he checked his theories, original and\nborrowed--or he aimed at checking them--by life.  \"As in gardening and\nin medicine he is the man of real learning (_chrestomathes_), who has\nhad experience of the more varied lessons...; so, I say, here too, of\nhim who brings everything to bear on the truth....  We praise the pilot\nof wide range, who 'has seen the cities of many men'... so he who turns\neverything to the right life, fetching illustrations from things Greek\nand things barbarian alike, he is the much-experienced (_polypeiros_)\ntracker of truth, the real _polymetis_; like the touchstone--the Lydian\nstone believed to distinguish between the bastard and the true-born\ngold, he is able to separate,--our _polyidris_ and man of knowledge\n(_gnostikos_) as he is,--sophistic from philosophy, the cosmetic art\nfrom the true gymnastic, cookery from medicine, rhetoric from\ndialectic, magic and other heresies in the barbarian philosophy from\nthe actual truth.\"[41]  This, in spirit and letter, is a very\ncharacteristic utterance.  Beginning with the Lord as \"the vine\"--from\nwhich some expect to gather clusters of grapes in the twinkling of an\neye--he ranges into medicine and sea-faring, from Odysseus \"of many\nwiles, who saw the cities of many men and learnt their mind,\" to\nPlato's _Gorgias_, and brings all to bear on the Christian life.  What\nhis simple friends made of such a passage--if they were able to read at\nall, or had it read to them--it is not easy to guess, but contact must\nhave shown them in the man a genuine and tender Christian as\nChristocentric as themselves, if in speech he {274} was oddly\nsuited,--a gay epitome of Greek literature in every sentence.\n\nThis, then, is the man, a Greek of wide culture and open heart, who has\ndipped into everything that can charm the fancy and make the heart\nbeat,--curious in literature, cult, and philosophy, and now submitted\nto the tradition of the church and the authority of Hebrew prophet and\nChristian apostle, but not as one bowing to a strange and difficult\nnecessity.  Rather, with the humblest of God's children--those \"tender,\nsimple and guileless\" children on whom God lavishes all the little\nnames which he has for his only Son, the \"lamb\" and the \"child\"[42]--he\nfinds in Christ \"thanksgiving, blessing, triumph and joy,\" while Christ\nhimself bends from above, like Sarah, to smile upon their\n\"laughter.\"[43]  Such was the range of Clement's experience, and now,\nunder the influence of the great change that conversion brought, he had\nto re-think everything and to gather it up in a new unity.  Thus in one\nman were summed up all the elements of import in the general situation\nof the church of his day.  He was representative alike in his\nsusceptibility to the ancient literature and philosophy and his love of\nScripture--\"truth-loving Isaiah\" and \"St Paul\"--in his loyalty to the\nfaith, and, not less, in his determination to reach some higher ground\nfrom which the battle of the church could be fought with wider outlook,\nmore intelligent grasp of the factors in play, and more hope of winning\nmen for God.\n\n[Sidenote: Faith and philosophy]\n\nClement did not come before his time.  Philosophy had begun to realize\nthe significance of the church.  The repression of the \"harmful\nsuperstition\" was no longer an affair of police; it was the common\nconcern of good citizens.  The model Emperor himself, the philosopher\nupon the throne, had openly departed from the easy policy laid down by\nTrajan and continued by his successors.  He had witnessed, or had\nreceived reports of, executions.  Writing in his diary of death, he\nsays: \"What a soul is that which is ready, if the moment has come for\nits separation from the body, whether it is to be extinguished, or\ndissolved, or to continue a whole.  This readiness--see that it come\nfrom your own judgment, not in mere obstinacy, as with the Christians,\nbut reflectively and {275} with dignity, in a way to persuade another,\nwith nothing of the actor in it.\"[44]  This sentence betrays something\nof the limitations of a good man--a beautiful spirit indeed, but not a\nlittle over-praised by his admirers in modern days.  Celsus at once\ntaunts his Christian opponents with their prospects of painful death\nand demonstrates the absurdity of their tenets from the point of view\nof philosophy.  The Apologists say, too, that the philosophers lent\nthemselves (as did also the daemons) to inciting the mob to massacre.\nBut after all the dialectical weapons of Philosophy were the more\ndangerous, for they shook the faith of the Christian which death did\nnot shake.\n\nAgain, the candid and inquiring temper of some notable converts and\nfriends had led them to question the tradition of the church and to\nexamine their Christian experience with a freedom from prejudice, at\nleast in the evangelic direction, which had resulted in conclusions\nfatal, it seemed, to the Christian movement.  Their philosophy had\ncarried them outside the thoughts of Jesus--they had abandoned the idea\nof the Abba Father, of the divine love, of the naturalness and\ninstinctiveness of Christian life.  Incarnation and redemption they\nrejected, at least in the sense which made the conceptions of value to\nmen.  Jesus they remodelled into one and another figure more amenable\nto their theories--a mere man, a demi-god, a phantom, into anything but\nthe historic personality that was and could remain the centre and\ninspiration of Christian life.  Of all this mischief philosophy, men\nsaid, was the cause.[45]\n\n\"I know quite well,\" writes Clement, \"what is said over and over again\nby some ignorantly nervous people who insist that we should confine\nourselves to the inevitable minimum, to what contains the faith, and\npass over what is outside and superfluous, as it wears us out to no\npurpose and occupies us with what contributes nothing to our end.\nOthers say philosophy comes of evil and was introduced into life for\nthe ruin of {276} men by an evil inventor.\"[46]  They were afraid of\nphilosophy, as children might fear a ghost, in case it should take them\naway[47]--but this, as Clement saw, was no way to meet the danger.  The\nChristian must not philosophize, they said--Tertullian said it too; but\nhow could they know they must not philosophize unless they\nphilosophized?[48]  Whether philosophy is profitable or not, \"you\ncannot condemn the Greeks on the basis of mere statements about their\nopinions, without going into it with them till point by point you\ndiscover what they mean and understand them.  It is the refutation\nbased upon experience that is reliable.\"[49]\n\n[Sidenote: His defence of philosophy]\n\nSo Clement has first of all to fight the battle of education inside the\nchurch, to convince his friends that culture counts, that philosophy is\ninevitable and of use at once for the refutation of opponents and for\nthe achievement of the full significance of faith.  Then he has to show\nhow philosophy at its best was the foe of superstition and the champion\nof God's unity and goodness--a preparation for the Gospel.  Lastly he\nhas to restate the Christian position in the language of philosophy and\nto prove that the Gospel is reaffirming all that was best in the\nphilosophic schools and bringing it to a higher point, indeed to the\nhighest; that the Gospel is the final philosophy of the universe, the\nsolution of all the problems of existence, the revelation of the\nultimate mind of God.\n\nClement boldly asserts the unity of all knowledge.  Everything\ncontributes, everything is concentric.  \"Just as every family goes back\nto God the Creator, so does the teaching of all good things go back to\nthe Lord, the teaching that makes men just, that takes them by the hand\nand brings them that way.\"[50]  And again:--\"When many men launch a\nship, pulling together, you could not say there are many causes, but\none consisting of many--for each of them is not by himself the cause of\nits being launched but only in conjunction with others; so philosophy,\nwhich is a search for truth, contributes to the perception\n(_katalepsis_) of truth, though it is not the {277} cause of\nperception, except in conjunction and co-operation with other things.\nYet perhaps even a joint-cause we might call a cause.  Happiness is\none, and the virtues more than one which are its causes.  The causes of\nwarmth may be the sun, the fire, the bath and the clothing.  So, truth\nis one and many things co-operate in the search for it, but the\ndiscovery is by the Son....  Truth is one, but in Geometry we have\ngeometrical truth, in Music musical; so in Philosophy--right\nPhilosophy--we should have Greek truth.  But alone the sovereign Truth\nis unassailable, which we are taught by the Son of God.\"[51]\nElsewhere, when challenged to say what use there is in knowing the\ncauses that explain the sun's motion,[52] geometry and dialectics, when\nGreek philosophy is merely man's understanding, he falls back upon the\nmind's instinctive desire for such things, its free will (_ten\nproairesin tou nou_), and quickly marshals a series of texts from the\nBook of _Wisdom_ on the divine source of wisdom and God's love of it,\nconcluding with an allegory drawn from the five barley loaves and the\ntwo fishes on which the multitude were fed, the former typifying the\nHebrew Law (\"for barley is sooner ripe for harvest than wheat\") and the\nfishes Greek philosophy \"born and moving amid Gentile billows.\"  (\"If\nyou are curious, take one of the fishes as signifying ordinary\neducation and the other the philosophy that succeeds it....\n\n  A choir of voiceless fish came sweeping on,\n\nthe Tragic muse says somewhere\"[53]).  His appeal to the mind is a much\nstronger defence than any such accumulation of texts, but for the\npeople he had in view the texts were probably more convincing.\n\nThe impulse to Philosophy is an inevitable one, native to the human\nmind, and he shows that it is to the Divine Reason working in all\nthings, to Providence, that we must attribute it.  {278} \"Everything,\nso far as its nature permits, came into being, and does so still,\nadvancing to what is better than itself.  So that it is not out of the\nway that Philosophy too should have been given in Divine Providence, as\na preliminary training towards the perfection that comes by Christ....\n'Your hairs are numbered' and your simplest movements; can Philosophy\nbe left out of the account?  [An allegory follows from Samson's hair.]\nProvidence, it says, from above, from what is of first importance, as\nfrom the head, reaches down to all men, as 'the myrrh,' it says, 'that\ndescends upon Aaron's beard and to the fringe of his garment'--viz.:\nthe Great High Priest, 'by whom all things came into being, and without\nhim nothing came'--not, that is, on to the beauty of the body;\nPhilosophy is outside the people [possibly Israel is meant] just as\nraiment is.  The philosophers then, who are trained by the perceptive\nspirit for their own perception,--when they investigate not a part of\nPhilosophy, but Philosophy absolutely, they testify in a truth-loving\nway and without pride to truth by their beautiful sayings even with\nthose who think otherwise, and they advance to understanding\n(_synesin_), in accordance with the divine dispensation, that\nunspeakable goodness which universally brings the nature of all that\nexists onward toward the better so far as may be.\"[54]\n\nThought (_phronesis_) takes many forms, and it is diffused through all\nthe universe and all human affairs, and in each sphere it has a\nseparate name--Thought, Knowledge, Wisdom or Faith.  In the things of\nsense it is called Right Opinion; in matters of handicraft, Art; in the\nlogical discussion of the things of the mind, it is Dialectic.  \"Those\nwho say that Philosophy is not from God, come very near saying that God\ncannot know each several thing in particular and that He is not the\ncause of all good things, if each of them is a particular thing.\nNothing that is could have been at all without God's will; and, if with\nHis will, then Philosophy is from God, since He willed it to be what it\nis for the sake of those who would not otherwise abstain from evil.\"\n\n  \"He seeth all things and he heareth all[55]\n\n{279}\n\nand beholds the soul naked within, and he has through all eternity the\nthought (_epinoia_) of each several thing in particular,\" seeing all\nthings, as men in a theatre look around and take all in at a glance.\n\"There are many things in life that find their beginning in human\nreason, though the spark that kindles them is from God.[56]  Thus\nhealth through medicine, good condition through training, wealth\nthrough commerce, come into being and are amongst us, at once by Divine\nProvidence and human co-operation.  And from God comes understanding\ntoo.  And the free will (_proairesis_) of good men most of all obeys\nGod's will....  The thoughts (_epinoiai_) of virtuous men come by\ndivine inspiration (_epipnoia_), the soul being disposed so and the\ndivine will conveyed (_diadidonenou_) to human souls, the divine\nministers taking part in such services; for over all nations and cities\nare assigned angelic governances--perhaps even over individuals.\"[57]\nPhilosophy makes men virtuous, so it cannot be the product of\nevil--that is, it is the work of God.  As it was given to the best\namong the Greeks, we can divine who was the Giver.[58]\n\nThis is a favourite thought with Clement, and, as he does with all\nideas that please him, he repeats it over and over again, in all sorts\nof connexions and in all variety of phrase.  When a man is avowedly\nmaking \"patchwork\" books (_Stromateis_), there is really no occasion on\nwhich we can call it irrelevant for him to repeat himself, and this is\na thought worth repeating.  \"Before the advent of the Lord, Philosophy\nwas necessary to the Greeks for righteousness, and it is still\nprofitable for piety, a sort of primary instruction for those who reap\nfaith by revelation....  God is the cause of all good things, of some\ndirectly, as of the Old and New Testament, of others indirectly as of\nPhilosophy.  And perhaps even directly it was given in those times to\nthe Greeks, before the Lord called the Greeks also; for Philosophy too\nwas a _paidagogos_ for the Greek world, as the Law was for the Hebrews,\nto bring them to Christ.\"[59] {280} \"Generally speaking, we should not\nbe wrong in saying that all that is necessary and profitable to life\ncomes to us from God--and that Philosophy was more especially given to\nthe Greeks, as a sort of covenant (_diatheke_) of their own, a step\n(_hypobathra_) toward the Philosophy according to Christ,--if Greek\nphilosophers will not close their ears to the truths, through contempt\nof the barbarian speech.\"[60]  \"God is the bestower (_choregos_) of\nboth covenants, who also gave Philosophy to the Greeks, whereby among\nthe Greeks the Almighty is glorified.\"[61]  \"In those times Philosophy\nby itself 'justified' the Greeks--though not to the point of perfect\nrighteousness.\"[62] \"As in due season the Preaching now comes, so in\ndue season the law and the prophets were given to the barbarians and\nPhilosophy to the Greeks, to train their ears for the Preaching.\"[63]\n\n[Sidenote: The origin of philosophy]\n\nPhilosophy however fell short of the Law.  Those, who were righteous by\nthe Law, still lacked Faith; while the others, whose righteousness was\nby Philosophy, not only lacked Faith but failed to break with\nidolatry.[64]  (This was in many quarters the capital charge against\ncontemporary philosophy.)  It was for this reason that the Saviour\npreached the Gospel in Hades, just as after him, according to Hermas,\n\"the apostles and teachers, when they fell asleep in the power and\nfaith of the Son of God, preached to those who had fallen asleep before\nthem.\"[65]  It is curious that Clement not only cites Philosophy as a\ngift of God to the Gentiles before Faith came, that God's judgments\nmight be just, but he also says, on the authority of the Law (quoting\ninaccurately and perhaps from memory), that God gave them the sun, the\nmoon and stars to worship, which God made for the Gentiles that they\nmight not become utterly atheistic and so utterly perish.  \"It was a\nroad given to them, that in worshipping the stars they might look up to\nGod.\"[66]  That they fell into idolatry was however only too patent a\nfact.\n\n{281}\n\nThe exact means, by which the Greeks received the truths contained in\ntheir philosophy, is not certain.  A favourite explanation with\nChristian writers, and one to which Clement gives a good deal of\nthought, is that Greek thinkers borrowed at large from the Old\nTestament, for Moses lived some six hundred years before the\ndeification of Dionysos, the Sibyl long before Orpheus.[67]  Clement's\nillustrations are not very convincing.  \"The idea of bringing\nProvidence as far down as the moon came to Aristotle from this _Psalm_:\n'Lord, in heaven is thy mercy and thy truth as far as (_heos_) the\nclouds.'\"  Epicurus took his conception of Chance from \"Vanity of\nvanities, all is vanity;\" while the Sabbath is found in several lines\nof Homer--unfortunately spurious.  An attempt to convict Euripides of\nplagiarism from Plato's _Republic_ shows the worth of these\nsuggestions, and the whole scheme wakes doubts as to the value of\nClement's judgment.[68]\n\nAnother theory was angelic mediation.  God might have communicated with\nthe Greeks by inferior angels;[69] or those angels who fell into\npleasure might have told their human wives what they knew of divine\nsecrets, \"and so the doctrine of Providence got about.\"[70]  Or else by\nhappy guess or accident the Greeks found parts of the truth for\nthemselves--or in virtue of some naturally implanted notion (_ennoia_)\nor common mind, and then \"we know who is the author of nature.\"[71]\n\nWhatever the explanation, in any case the hand of God was to be traced\nin it--Providence foreknew all, and so designed that the wickedness of\nfallen angels and men should promote righteousness and truth.[72]  So\nmuch for those who quote the text \"All that ever came before me were\nthieves and robbers,\"[73] or who say that the devil is the author of\n{282} Philosophy[74] (though we may admit Epicureanism to have been\nsown by the sower of tares).[75]  We might look far for a more vivid\nillustration of the contrast between sound instinct and absurd theory.\n\n[Sidenote: The _Protrepticus_]\n\nThus he vindicates the right of the Christian to claim Philosophy as\nthe manifestation of the Divine Logos, and as a fore-runner of the\nGospel, and in his _Protrepticus_ he shows how the Christian thus\nre-inforced can deal with paganism.  If the _Stromateis_ weary even the\nsympathetic reader with their want of plan, their diffuseness and\nrepetition, and their interminable and fanciful digressions--faults\ninherent in all works of the kind--the _Protrepticus_ makes a different\nimpression.  It is written by the same hand and shows the same\ntendencies, but they are under better control.  Allegories, analogies\nand allusions still hinder the development of his thought--like\nAtalanta he can never let a golden apple run past him.  He is not\nproperly a philosopher in spite of all his love of Philosophy, and he\nthinks in colours, like a poet.  Yet he is not essentially a man of\nletters or a poet; he is too indolent; his style is not inevitable or\ncompulsive.  It is too true a confession when he says that he does not\naim at beauty of language.  His sentence will begin well, and then grow\nintricate and involved--in breaks an allusion, not always very\nrelevant, and brings with it a quotation that has captured his fancy\nand paralyses his grammar--several perhaps--some accommodation is made,\nand the sentence straggles on, and will end somehow--with a pile of\nlong words, for which others have been patiently waiting since before\nthe quotation, in pendent genitives, accusatives and so forth.  But in\nthe _Protrepticus_--in the better parts of it--something has happened\nto his style, for (to speak after his own manner)\n\n  Nothing of him that doth fade,\n  But doth suffer a sea-change\n  Into something rich and strange.\n\nHe is no longer arguing; he surrenders to a tide of emotion, and is\nborne along singing, and as he sings, he seems to gather up all the\nmusic of the ancient world; we catch notes that come from Greek and\nHebrew song, and the whole is woven together {283} into a hymn to \"the\nSaviour,\" \"my Singer,\" \"our new Orpheus,\" that for sheer beauty, for\ngladness and purity of feeling is unmatched in early Christian\nliterature.  One comes back to it after years and the old charm is\nthere still.  That it can survive in a few translated fragments is\nhardly to be expected.\n\nHe begins with the famous singers of Greek myth--Amphion, Arion, and\nEunomus with the grass-hopper...  You will believe empty myths, he\nsays, but \"Truth's bright face seems to you to be false and falls under\neyes of unbelief.\"  But Cithaeron and Helicon are old.  \"Let us bring\nTruth and shining Wisdom from heaven above to the holy mount of God and\nthe holy choir of the prophets.  Let her, beaming with light that\nspreads afar, illumine all about her them that lie in darkness, and\nsave men from error.\"  \"My Eunomus sings not Terpander's strain, nor\nCapion's, not the Phrygian, the Lydian or the Dorian, but the eternal\nstrain of the new harmony, the strain that bears the name of God, the\nnew song, the song of the Levite, with\n\n  A drug infused antidote to the pains\n  Of grief and anger, a most potent charm\n  For ills of every name,[76]\n\na sweet and true cure of sorrow.\"  Orpheus sang to enslave men to\nidols, to foolish rites, to shadows.  \"Not such is my singer; he has\ncome, soon to end cruel slavery to tyrannic daemons; he transfers us to\nthe gentle and kindly yoke of piety, and calls to heaven them that were\nfallen to earth.\"[77]\n\nIt was this new song that first made the whole cosmos a harmony, and it\nis still the stay and harmony of all things.  It was this Logos of God\nwho framed \"the little cosmos, man,\" setting soul and body together by\nthe holy spirit, and who sings to God upon this organ of many\ntones--man.  The Logos himself is an organ for God, of all the\nharmonies, tuneful and holy.[78]  What does this organ, this new song,\ntell us?\n\nThe Logos, that was before the Day-Star was, has appeared among men as\na teacher,--he by whom all things were made.  {284} As Demiurge he gave\nlife; as teacher he taught to live well; that, as God, he may lavish\nupon us life forever.  Many voices and many means has the Saviour\nemployed for the saving of men.  Lest you should disbelieve these, the\nLogos of God has himself become man that you might learn from man how\nman may become God.[79]\n\nHe casts a glance over Greek myths and mysteries--cymbals, tambourines,\nemblems, legends and uncleanness, the work of men who knew not the God\nwho truly is, men \"without hope and without God in the world.\"  \"There\nwas from of old a certain natural fellowship of men with heaven, hidden\nin the darkness of their ignorance, but now on a sudden it has leapt\nthrough the darkness and shines resplendent--even as that said by one\nof old,\n\n  See'st thou that boundless aether there on high\n  That laps earth round within its dewy arms?\n\nand again,\n\n  O stay of earth, that hast thy seat on earth,\n  Whoe'er thou art, beyond man's guess to see;\n\nand all the rest that the children of the poets sing.\"[80]  But wrong\nconceptions have turned \"the heavenly plant, man,\" from the heavenly\nlife and laid him low on earth, persuading him to cleave to things\nfashioned of earth.  So he returns to the discussion of pagan\nworships--\"but by now your myths too seem to me to have grown old\"--and\nhe speaks of the daemon-theory by which the pagans themselves explained\ntheir religion.  The daemons are inhuman and haters of men; they enjoy\nthe slaying of men--no wonder that with such a beginning superstition\nis the source of cruelty and folly.  But \"no! I must never entrust the\nhopes of the soul to things without souls.\"[81]  \"The only refuge, it\nseems, for him who would come to the gates of \"Salvation is the Divine\nWisdom.\"[82]\n\n{285}\n\nHe now reviews the opinions of the philosophers about God.  The Stoics\n(to omit the rest) \"saying that the divine goes through all matter,\neven the most dishonourable, shame Philosophy.\"[83]  \"Epicurus alone I\nwill gladly forget.\"[84] \"Where then are we to track out God, Plato?\n'The Father and maker of this whole it is hard to find, and, when one\nhas found him, to declare him to all is impossible.'  In his name why?\n'For it is unspeakable.'  Well said!  Plato! thou hast touched the\ntruth!\"[85]  \"I know thy teachers,\" still addressing Plato, \"Geometry\nthou dost learn from Egyptians, Astronomy from Babylonians, the charms\nthat give health from Thracians; much have the Assyrians taught thee;\nbut thy laws--such of them as are true--and thy thought of God, to\nthese thou hast been helped by the Hebrews.\"[86]  After the\nphilosophers the poets are called upon to give evidence--Euripides in\nparticular.[87]  Finally he turns to the prophets and their message of\nsalvation--\"I could quote you ten thousand passages, of which 'not one\ntittle shall pass' without being fulfilled; for the mouth of the Lord,\nthe holy spirit, spoke them.\"[88]\n\nGod speaks to men as to his children--\"gentle as a father,\" as Homer\nsays.  He offers freedom, and you run away to slavery; he gives\nsalvation, and you slip away into death.  Yet he does not cease to\nplead--\"Wake, and Christ the Lord shall lighten upon you, the sun of\nresurrection.\"[89]  \"What would you have covenanted to give, oh! men!\nif eternal salvation had been for sale?  Not though one should measure\nout all Pactolus, the mythic river of gold, will he pay a price equal\nto salvation.\"[90]  Yet \"you can buy this precious salvation with your\nown treasure, with love and faith of life ... that is a price God is\nglad to accept.\"[91]  Men grow to the world, like seaweed to the rocks\nby the sea, and despise immortality \"like the old Ithacan, yearning not\nfor Truth and the fatherland {286} in heaven, and the light that truly\nis, but for the smoke.\"[92]  It is piety that \"makes us like God\"--a\nreference to Plato's familiar phrase.  God's function (_ergon_) is\nman's salvation.  \"The word is not hidden from any.  Light is common\nand shines upon all men; there is no Cimmerian in the reckoning.  Let\nus hasten to salvation, to re-birth.  Into one love to be gathered,\nmany in number, according to the unity of the essence of the Monad, let\nus hasten.  As we are blessed, let us pursue unity, seeking the good\nMonad.  And this union of many, from a medley of voices and\ndistraction, receives a divine harmony and becomes one symphony,\nfollowing one coryphaeus (_choreutes_) and teacher, the Word, resting\nupon the Truth itself, and saying 'Abba Father.'\"[93] Here indeed\nPhilosophy and the Gospel join hands, when the Monad and Abba Father\nare shown to be one and the same.[94]\n\nIt is easy to see which of the thoughts represented by these names\nmeans most to Clement.  \"Our tender loving Father, the Father indeed,\nceases not to urge, to admonish, to teach, to love; for neither does he\ncease to save\"--\"only, oh! child! thirst for thy Father, and God will\nbe shown to thee without a price.\"[95]  \"Man's proper nature is to be\nat home with God;\" as then we set each animal to its natural task, the\nox to plough and the horse to hunt, so \"man, too, who is born for the\nsight of heaven, a heavenly plant most truly, we call to the knowledge\nof God....  Plough, we say, if you are a ploughman, but know God as you\nplough; sail, if you love sea-faring, but calling on the heavenly\npilot\"[96] \"A noble hymn to God is an immortal man, being built up in\nrighteousness, in whom are engraved the oracles of truth\"[97]; and very\nsoon he quotes \"Turn the other cheek\" as a \"reasonable law to be\nwritten in the heart.\"[98] {287} \"God's problem is always to save the\nflock of men.  It was for that the good God sent the good Shepherd.\nThe Logos has made truth simple and shown to men the height of\nsalvation.\"[99]  \"Christ wishes your salvation; with one word he gives\nyou life.  And who is he?  Hear in brief: the Word of truth, the Word\nof immortality, that gives man re-birth, bears him up to truth, the\ngoad of salvation, who drives away destruction, who chases forth death,\nwho built in men a temple that he might make God to dwell among\nmen.\"[100]\n\nThe last chapter is a beautiful picture of the Christian life, full of\nwonderful language from Homer, the _Bacchae_ of Euripides, and the\nMysteries, and in the centre of it--its very heart--\"Come unto me, all\nye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.\"\n\nIn the passages here quoted from the _Protrepticus_ some of Clement's\nmain ideas in the realm of Christian thought are clearly to be seen;\nand we have now to give them further and more detailed examination.  We\nhave to see what he makes of the central things in the new religion--of\nGod, and the Saviour, and of man, and how he interprets the Gospel of\nJesus in the language of Greek philosophy.  It is to be noted that,\nwhatever happened in the course of his work--and very few books are,\nwhen written, quite what the writer expected on beginning--Clement\nlooked upon his task as interpretation.  The Scriptures are his\nauthorities--\"he who has believed the divine Scriptures, with firm\njudgment, receives in the voice of God who gave the Scriptures a proof\nthat cannot be spoken against.\"[101]  Amid the prayers and hymns of the\nideal Christian comes daily reading of the sacred books.[102]  Clement\nhas no formal definition of inspiration, but he loved the sacred text,\nand he made it the standard by which to judge all propositions.  It is\nperhaps impossible to over-estimate the importance of this loyalty in\nan age, when Christian speculation was justly under suspicion on\naccount {288} of the free re-modelling of the New Testament text that\nwent with it.  Clement would neither alter, nor excise, but he found\nall the freedom he wanted in the accepted methods of exegesis.\nAllegory and the absence of any vestige of historical criticism--and,\nnot least, the inability induced by the training of the day to conceive\nof a work of art, or even a piece of humbler literature, as a\nwhole--his very defects as a student secured his freedom as a\nphilosopher.  He can quote Scripture for his purpose; the phrase will\nsupport him where the context will not; and sometimes a defective\nmemory will help him to the words he wants, as we have seen in the case\nof the worship of sun, moon and stars.  To the modern mind such a use\nof Scripture is unwarrantable and seems to imply essential indifference\nto its real value, but in Clement and his contemporaries it is not\ninconsistent with--indeed, it is indicative of--a high sense of the\nvalue of Scripture as the _ipsissima verba_ of God.  And after all a\nmis-quotation may be as true as the most authentic text, and may help a\nman as effectually to insight into the thoughts of God.\n\n[Sidenote: The Logos]\n\nWe have seen that Clement quarrelled with the Stoics for involving God\nin matter--\"even the most dishonourable.\"  The World-soul was, in fact,\nrepugnant to men who were impressed with the thought of Sin, and who\nassociated Sin with matter.  This feeling and a desire to keep the idea\nof God disentangled from every limitation led to men falling back (as\nwe saw in the case of Plutarch) on the Platonic conception of God's\ntranscendence.  Neo-Platonism has its \"golden chain\" of existence\ndescending from Real Being--God--through a vast series of beings who\n_are_ in a less and less degree as they are further down the scale.  It\nis not hard to sympathize with the thoughts and feelings which drew men\nin this direction.  The best thinkers and the most religious natures in\nthe Mediterranean world (outside the circle of Jesus, and some Stoics)\nfound the transcendence of God inevitably attractive, and then their\nhearts sought means to bridge the gulf their thoughts had made.  For\nnow he was out of all knowledge, and away beyond even revelation; for\nrevelation involved relation and limitation, and God must be absolute.\n\n{289}\n\nWe have seen how Plutarch found in the existence of daemons a\npossibility of intercourse between gods and men, while above the daemons\nthe gods, he implies, are in communication with the remote Supreme.\nBut for some thinkers this solution was revolting.  Philo, with the\ngreat record before him of the religious experience of his race, was\nnot prepared to give up the thought \"O God, thou art my God.\"[103]\nLinking the Hebrew phrase \"the word of the Lord\" with the Stoic Logos\nSpermaticos and Plato's Idea, he found in the resulting conception a\ndivine, rational and spiritual principle immanent in man and in the\nuniverse, and he also found a divine personality, or quasi-personality,\nto come between the Absolute and the world.  He pictures the Logos as\nthe Son of God, the First-born, the oldest of angels, the \"idea of\nideas,\" and again as the image of God, and the ideal in whose likeness\nman was made.  As the ambassador of God, and High Priest, the Logos is\nable to mediate directly between man and God, and bridges the gulf that\nseparates us from the Absolute.[104] More than anything else, this\ngreat conception of Philo's prepared the way for fusion of Greek\nthought and Christianity.  Clement is conspicuously a student and a\nfollower of Philo--nor was he the first among Christian writers to feel\nhis influence.\n\nClement, as already said, professed himself an eclectic in philosophy,\nand of such we need not expect the closest reasoning.  Our plan will be\nto gather passages illustrative of his thoughts--we might almost say of\nhis moods--and set side by side what he says from time to time of God.\nOn such a subject it is perhaps impossible to hope for logic or\nconsistency except at the cost of real aspects of the matter in hand.\nSomething will be gained if we can realize the thoughts which most\nmoved the man, even though their reconciliation is questionably\npossible.  This doubt however does not seem to have occurred to\nhimself, for he connects the dogmata of the philosophers and the\nteaching of the New Testament as if it were the most natural thing in\nthe world.\n\n{290}\n\nTo begin with the account of God which Clement gives in philosophical\nlanguage.  \"The Lord calls himself 'one' (_hen_)--'that they all may be\none ... as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be\nperfected into one.'  Now God is 'one' (_hen_) and away beyond the\n'one' (_henos_) and above the Monad itself.\"[105]  Again, after quoting\nSolon and Empedocles and \"John the Apostle\" (\"no man hath seen God at\nany time\"), Clement enlarges on the difficulty of speaking of\nGod:--\"How can that be expressed, which is neither genus, nor\ndifferentia, nor species, neither indivisible, nor sum, nor accident,\nnor susceptive of accident?  Nor could one properly call him a whole\n(_holon_); for whole (_to holon_) implies dimension, and he is Father\nof the Whole (_ton holon_).  Nor could, one speak of his parts, for the\none is indivisible and therefore limitless, not so conceived because\nthere is no passing beyond it, but as being without dimension or limit,\nand therefore without form or name.  And if we ever name him, calling\nhim, though not properly, one, or the good, or mind, or absolute being,\nor father, or God, or demiurge, or lord, we do not so speak as putting\nforward his name; but, for want of his name, we use beautiful names,\nthat the mind may not wander at large, but may rest on these.  None of\nthese names, taken singly, informs us of God; but, collectively and\ntaken all together, they point to his almighty power.  For predicates\nare spoken either of properties or of relation, and none of these can\nwe assume about God.  Nor is he the subject of the knowledge which\namounts to demonstration; for this depends on premisses (_protera_) and\nthings better known (_gnorimotepa_);[106] but nothing is anterior to\nthe unbegotten.  It remains then by divine grace and by the Logos alone\nthat is from him to perceive the unknowable.\"[107] Again, \"God has no\nnatural relation (_physiken schesin_) to us, as the founders of\nheresies hold (not though he make us of what is not, or fashion us from\nmatter, for _that_ is not at all, and _this_ is in every point\ndifferent from God)--unless you venture to say that we are part of him\nand of one essence (_homoousious_) with God; and I do not understand\nhow anyone who {291} knows God will endure to hear that said, when he\ncasts his eye upon our life and the evils with which we are mixed up.\nFor in this way (and it is a thing not fit to speak of) God would be\nsinning in his parts, that is, if the parts are parts of the whole and\ncomplete the whole--if they do not complete it, they would not be\nparts.  However, God, by nature (_physei_) being rich in pity\n(_eleos_), of his goodness he cares for us who are not his members nor\nby nature his children (_mete morion onton autou mete physei teknon_).\nIndeed this is the chief proof of God's goodness, that though this is\nour position with regard to him, by nature utterly 'alienated' from\nhim, he nevertheless cares for us.  For the instinct of kindness to\noffspring is natural (_physike_) in animals, and so is friendship with\nthe like-minded based on old acquaintance, but God's pity is rich\ntowards us who in no respect have anything to do with him, I mean, in\nour being (_ousia_) or nature or the peculiar property of our being\n(_dynamei te oikeia tes ousias hemon_), but merely by our being the\nwork of His will.\"[108]  \"The God of the Whole (_ton helon_), who is\nabove every voice and every thought and every conception, could never\nbe set forth in writing, for his property is to be unspeakable.\"[109]\n\nIt follows that the language of the Bible is not to be taken literally\nwhen it attributes feelings to God.  Clement has cited texts which\nspeak of \"joy\" and \"pity\" in connexion with God, and he has to meet the\nobjection that these are moods of the soul and passions (_tropas\npsyches kai pathe_).  We mistake, when we interpret Scripture in\naccordance with our own experience of the flesh and of passions,\n\"taking the will of the passionless God (_tou apathous theou_) on a\nline with our own perturbations (_kinemasi_).  When we suppose that the\nfact in the case of the Almighty is as we are able to hear, we err in\nan atheistic way.  For the divine was not to be declared as it _is_;\nbut as we, fettered by flesh, were able to understand, even so the\nprophets spoke to us, the Lord accommodating himself to the weakness of\nmen with a mind to save them {292} (_soterios_).\"  Thus the language of\nour emotions, though not properly to be employed, is used to help our\nweakness.[110]  For God is, in fact, \"without emotion, without wrath,\nwithout desire\" (_apathes_, _athumos_, _anepithumetos_).[111]  Clement\nrepeatedly recurs with pleasure to this conception of \"Apathy\"; it is\nthe mark of God, of Christ, of the Apostles, and of the ideal\nChristian, with whom it becomes a fixed habit (_hexis_).[112]\n\nGod is not like a man (_anthropoeides_), nor does he need senses to\nhear with, nor does he depend on the sensitiveness of the air (_to\neupathes tou heros_) for his apprehensions, \"but the instantaneous\nperception of the angels and the power of conscience touching the\nsoul--these recognize all things, with the quickness of thought, by\nmeans of some indescribable faculty apart from sensible hearing.  Even\nif one should say that it was impossible for the voice, rolling in this\nlower air, to reach to God, still the thoughts of the saints (_agion_)\ncleave, not the air alone, but the whole universe as well.  And the\ndivine power instantly penetrates the whole soul like light.  Again do\nnot our resolves also find their way to God, uttering a voice of their\nown?  And are not some things also wafted heavenward by the conscience?\n... God is all ear and all eye, if we may make use of these\nexpressions.\"[113]  Thus it would seem that God is not so far from\nevery one of us as we might have supposed from the passages previously\nquoted, and the contrast between the two views of God grows wider when\nwe recall Clement's words in the _Protrepticus_ about the Heavenly\nFather.  While a Greek, the pupil of the philosophers, could never use\nthe language of a Jew about \"God our Father\" with the same freedom from\nmental reservation, Clement undoubtedly speaks of God at times in the\nsame spirit that we feel in the utterances of Jesus.  He goes beyond\nwhat contemporary philosophers would have counted suitable or\ndesirable, as we can see in the complaints which Celsus makes of\nChristian language about God, though Celsus, of course, is colder than\nthe religious {293} of his day.  But the main difference between\nChristians and philosophers was not as to God the Father, but as to\nChrist.\n\nWhen Clement, in his work of restatement, came to discuss Christ, he\nfound Philo's Logos ready to his hand and he was not slow to use it.\nIt is characteristic that, just as he unquestioningly accepted the\ncurrent philosophic account of God and saw no great difficulty in\nequating a God best described in negations with the Abba Father of\nJesus, so he adopted, not less light-heartedly, the conflate conception\nof the Logos.  Whether its Platonic and Stoic elements would hold\ntogether; whether either of them was really germane to the Hebrew part;\nwhether in any case any of the three sets of constituents corresponded\nwith anything actually to be reached by observation or experience; or\nwhether, waiving that point, the combination was equal to its task of\nhelping man to conceive of God at once as immanent and transcendent,\nClement hardly inquired.  So far he followed Philo.  Then came in a new\nfactor which might well have surprised Plato, Zeno and Philo alike.\nFollowing once more, but this time another leader, Clement equates the\nPhilonian Logos with the historic Jesus of Nazareth.\n\nSo stated, the work of Clement may well look absurd.  But after all he\nis not the only man who has identified the leading of instinct with\nphilosophic proof.  In succession he touched the central thoughts of\nhis various leaders, and he found them answer to cravings within him.\nHe wanted a God beyond the contagion of earth, Supreme and Absolute;\nand Plato told him of such a God.  Yet the world needed some divine\nelement; it must not be outside the range and thought of God; and here\nthe conception of divine Reason, linking man and nature with God\nHimself, appealed to his longing.  Lastly the impossibility of thinking\nJesus and his work to be accidental, of conceiving of them as anything\nbut vitally bound up with the spiritual essence of all things, with God\nand with God's ultimate mind for man and eternity, was the natural\noutcome of entering into the thoughts of Jesus, of realizing his\npersonality and even of observing his effect upon {294} mankind.[114]\nWhen one remembers how in every age men have passed through one form\nand another of experience, and have then compacted philosophies to\naccount for those experiences, have thought their constructions final,\nand have recommended their theories as of more value than the facts on\nwhich, after reflection, slight or profound, but perhaps never\nadequate, they have based them, it will not seem strange that Clement\ndid the same.\n\n  Ah yet, when all is thought and said,\n  The heart still overrules the head;\n  Still what we hope we must believe,\n  And what is given us receive.\n\nThe old task is still to do.  The old cravings are still within us;\nstill the imperishable impulse lives to seek some solution of the great\nquestion of the relations of God and the soul and the universe, which\nmay give us more abiding satisfaction than Clement's can now have, and\nwhich will yet recognize those old cravings, will recognize and meet\nthem, not some but all of them.\n\n\"Most perfect, and most holy of all,\" says Clement, \"most sovereign,\nmost lordly, most royal and most beneficent, is the nature of the Son,\nwhich approaches most closely to the One Almighty Being.  The Son is\nthe highest Pre-eminence, which sets in order all things according to\nthe Father's will, and steers the universe aright, performing all\nthings with unwearying energy, beholding the Father's secret thoughts\nthrough his working.  For the Son of God never moves from his\nwatch-tower, being never divided, never dissevered, never passing from\nplace to place, but existing everywhere at all times and free from all\nlimitations.  He is all reason, all eye, all light from the Father,\nseeing all things, hearing all things, knowing all things, with power\nsearching the powers.  To him is subjected the whole army of angels and\nof gods--to him, the Word of the Father, who has received the holy\nadministration by reason of Him who subjected it to him; through whom\nalso all men belong to him, but some by way of knowledge, while others\nhave not yet attained to this; some as friends, some as faithful\nservants, others as servants merely.\"[115]\n\n{295}\n\n[Sidenote: The Logos]\n\nThe Logos is the source of Providence, the author, as already seen, of\nall human thought and activity, of the beauty of the human body\ntoo,[116] Saviour and Lord at once of all men--man being \"his peculiar\nwork,\" for into him alone of animals was a conception of God instilled\nat his creation.  \"Being the power of the Father, he easily prevails\nover whomsoever he will, not leaving even the smallest atom of his\ngovernment uncared for.\"[117]  \"He it is in truth that devises the\nbridle for the horse, the yoke for the bull, the noose for the wild\nbeast, the rod for the fish, the snare for the bird; he governs the\ncity and ploughs the land, rules and serves, and all things he maketh;\n\n  Therein he set the earth, the heaven, the sea,\n  And all the stars wherewith the heaven is crowned.\n\nO the divine creations!  O the divine commands!  This water, let it\nroll within itself; this fire, let it check its rage; this air, let it\nspread to aether; and let earth be fixed and borne, when I will it.  Man\nI yet wish to make; for his material I have the elements; I dwell with\nhim my hands fashion.  If thou know me, the fire shall be thy\nslave.\"[118]\n\n\"All[119] gaze on the supreme Administrator of the universe, as he\npilots all in safety according to the Father's will, rank being\nsubordinated to rank under different leaders till in the end the Great\nHigh Priest is reached.  For on one original principle, which works in\naccordance with the Father's will, depend the first and second and\nthird gradations; and then at the extreme end of the visible world\nthere is the blessed ordinance of angels; and so, even down to\nourselves, ranks below ranks are appointed, all saving and being saved\nby the initiation and through the instrumentality of One.  As then the\nremotest particle of iron is drawn by the breath (_pneumati_) of the\nstone of Heraklea [the magnet] extending through a long series of iron\nrings, so also through the attraction of the holy spirit (_pneumati_)\nthe virtuous are adapted to the highest {296} mansion; and the others\nin their order even to the last mansion; but they that are wicked from\nweakness, having fallen into an evil habit owing to unrighteous greed,\nneither keep hold themselves nor are held by another, but collapse and\nfall to the ground, being entangled in their own passions.\"[120] This\nlast clause raises questions as to evil and freewill.  Clement believed\nin freewill; for one thing, it was necessary if God was to be acquitted\nof the authorship of evil.  \"God made all things to be helpful for\nvirtue, in so far as might be without hindering the freedom of man's\nchoice, and showed them to be so, in order that he who is indeed the\nOne Alone Almighty might, even to those who can only see darkly, be in\nsome way revealed as a good God, a Saviour from age to age through the\ninstrumentality of his Son, and in all ways absolutely guiltless of\nevil.\"[121]\n\nClement also brings in the Platonic Idea to help to express Christ.\n\"The idea is a thought of God (_ennoema_), which the barbarians have\ncalled God's Logos.\"[122]  \"All the activity of the Lord is referred to\nthe Almighty, the Son being, so to speak, a certain activity\n(_energeia_) of the Father,\"[123] and a little lower he adds that the\nSon is \"the power (_dynamis_) of the Father.\"[124]  As such he may well\nbe \"above the whole universe, or rather beyond the region of\nthought.\"[125]  And yet, as we have seen, he leans to the view that the\nLogos is a person--the Great High Priest.  In criticizing him, it is\nwell to remember how divergent are the conceptions which he wishes to\nkeep, and to keep in some kind of unity.\n\nOnce again, in many of Clement's utterances upon the Logos there is\nlittle that Philo, or perhaps even a pagan philosopher, could not have\napproved; but through it all there is a new note which is Clement's own\nand which comes from another series of thoughts.  For it is a\ndistinctive mark of Clement's work that the reader rises from it\nimpressed with the idea of \"the Saviour.\"  The _Protrepticus_ is full\nof the thought of that divine love of men, warm and active, which {297}\nJesus associated with \"your heavenly Father,\" but which Clement, under\nthe stress of his philosophy must connect with the Logos--\"cleansing,\nsaving and kindly; most manifest God indeed, made equal with the ruler\nof the universe.\"[126] He is our \"only refuge\" (_mone kataphyge_), the\n\"sun of resurrection,\" the \"sun of the soul.\"[127]  And yet one group\nof ideas, familiar in this connection, receives little notice from\nClement.  The Logos is indeed the Great High Priest, but the symbolism\nof priest and sacrifice and sin-bearer is left rather remarkably\nunemphasized.  He is \"the all-availing healer of mankind,\"[128] but his\nfunction is more to educate, to quicken, and to give knowledge than to\nexpiate.\n\nThe great and characteristic feature of the Logos is that \"he took the\nmask (_prosopeion_) of a man and moulded it for himself in flesh and\nplayed a part in the drama of mankind's salvation; for he was a true\nplayer (_gnesios agonistes_), a fellow-player with the creature; and\nmost quickly was he spread abroad among all men, more quickly than the\nsun, when he rose from the Father's will, and proved whence he was and\nwho he was by what he taught and showed, he, the bringer of the\ncovenant, the reconciler, the Logos our Saviour, the fountain of life\nand peace, shed over the whole face of the earth, by whom (so to say)\nall things have become an ocean of blessings.\"[129]  Though essentially\nand eternally free from passion (_apathes_) \"for our sake he took upon\nhim our flesh with its capacity for suffering\" (_ten patheten\nsarka_)[130] and \"descended to sensation (_aisthesis_).\"[131]  \"It is\nclear that none can in his lifetime clearly apprehend God; but 'the\npure in heart shall see God' when they come to the final perfection.\nSince, then, the soul was too weak for the perception of what _is_\n(_ton onton_), we needed a divine teacher.  The Saviour is sent down to\nteach us how to acquire good, and to give it to us (_choregos_)--the\nsecret and holy knowledge of the great Providence,\"[132]--\"to show God\nto foolish men, to end corruption, {298} to conquer death, to reconcile\ndisobedient children to their Father....  The Lord pities, educates,\nencourages, exhorts, saves and guards, and as the prize of learning he\npromises us out of his abundance the kingdom of heaven--this alone\ngiving him joy in us, that we are saved.\"[133]  All this was foreknown\nbefore the foundation of the world; the Logos was and is the divine\nbeginning or principle of all things, \"but because he has now taken the\nlong-hallowed name, the name worthy of his power, the Christ, that is\nwhy I call it the new song.\"[134] And indeed he is right, for \"the\nEpiphany, now shining among us, of the Word that was in the beginning\nand before it\"[135] is new in philosophy; and it is a new thing also\nthat the doctrine of a Logos should be \"essentially musical.\"  The\nIncarnation of the divine Teacher is the central fact for Clement.\n\nThe identification of this incarnate Logos with Jesus of Nazareth was\npart of Clement's inheritance, and as usual he accepted the form which\nthe tradition of the Church had assumed.  But Clement's theology\naltered the significance of Jesus.  For the Abba Father whom Jesus\nloved, he substituted the great Unknowable, and then he had to bring in\na figure unfamiliar to the thought of Jesus--the Logos, whom he clothed\nwith many of the attributes of the Father of Jesus, and then identified\nwith Jesus himself.  Not unnaturally in this combination the historic\nis outweighed by the theoretic element, and indeed receives very little\nattention.  The thought of Incarnation is to Clement much more\nimportant than the Personality.\n\n[Sidenote: The virgin-birth]\n\nJesus is \"God and pedagogue,\" \"good shepherd,\" and \"mystic Angel (or\nmessenger),\" \"the pearl,\" \"the great High Priest,\" and so forth.[136]\nIn a few passages (some of them already quoted) Clement speaks of the\nearthly life of Jesus--of the crown of thorns, the common ware, and the\nabsence of a silver foot-bath.  But he takes care to make it clear that\nJesus was \"not an ordinary man,\" and that was why he did not marry and\nhave children--this in opposition to certain {299} vain persons who\nheld up the Lord's example as a reason for rejecting marriage, which\n\"they call simple prostitution and a practice introduced by the\ndevil.\"[137]  So far was Jesus from being \"an ordinary man\" that\nClement takes pains to dissociate him from ordinary human experience.\nTo the miraculous birth he refers incidentally but in a way that leaves\nno mistake possible.  \"Most people even now believe, as it seems, that\nMary ceased to be a virgin through the birth of her child, though this\nwas not really the case--for some say she was found by the midwife to\nbe a virgin after her delivery.\"[138]  This expansion of the\ntraditional story is to be noted as an early illustration of the\ninfluence of dogma.  The episode appears in an elaborate form in the\napocryphal Gospels.[139]  But Clement goes further.  \"In the case of\nthe Saviour, to suppose that his body required, _qua_ body, the\nnecessary attentions for its continuance, would be laughable (_gelos_).\nFor he ate--not on account of his body, which was held together by holy\npower, but that it might not occur to those who consorted with him to\nthink otherwise of him--as indeed later on some really supposed him to\nhave been manifested merely in appearance [_i.e._ the Docetists who\ncounted his body a phantom].  He himself was entirely without passion\n(_apathes_) and into him entered no emotional movement (_kinema\npathetikon_), neither pleasure nor pain.\"[140] A fragment (in a Latin\ntranslation) of a commentary of Clement's upon the first _Epistle of\nJohn_, contains a curious statement: \"It is said in the traditions that\nJohn touched the surface of the body of Jesus, and drove his hand deep\ninto it, and the firmness of the flesh was no obstacle but gave way to\nthe hand of the disciple.\"[141]  At the same time we read: \"It was not\nidly that the Lord chose to employ a body of mean form, in order that\nno one, while praising his comeliness {300} and beauty, should depart\nfrom what he said, and in cleaving to what is left behind should be\nsevered from the higher things of thought (_ton noeton_).\"[142]\n\nIt is consistent with the general scheme of Clement's thought that the\ncross has but a small part in his theology.  \"It was not by the will of\nhis Father that the Lord suffered, nor are the persecuted so treated in\naccordance with his choice\"--it is rather in both cases that \"such\nthings occur, God not preventing them; this alone saves at once the\nprovidence and goodness of God.\"[143]  Yet \"the blood of the Lord is\ntwofold; there is the fleshly, whereby we have been redeemed from\ncorruption, and the spiritual, by which we have been anointed.\"[144]\nThe cross is the landmark between us and our past.[145]  On the whole\nClement has not much to say about sin, though of course he does not\nignore it.  It is \"eternal death\";[146] it is \"irrational\";[147] it is\nnot to be attributed \"to the operation (energy) of daemons,\" as that\nwould be to acquit the sinner, still it makes a man \"like the daemons\"\n(_daimonikos_).[148]  God's punishments he holds to be curative in\npurpose.[149]  He says nothing to imply the eternity of\npunishment,[150] and as we have seen he speaks definitely of the Gospel\nbeing preached to the dead.\n\n[Sidenote: The vision of the true gnostic]\n\nThe Christian religion, according to Clement, begins in faith and goes\non to knowledge.  The heavier emphasis with him always falls on\nknowledge, though he maintains in a fine chapter that faith is its\nfoundation.[151]  \"The Greeks,\" he says, \"consider faith an empty and\nbarbarous thing,\"[152] but he is far from such a view.  Faith must be\nwell-founded--\"if faith is such as to be destroyed by plausible talk,\nlet it be destroyed.\"[153] But the word left upon the reader's mind is\nknowledge.  A passage like the following is unmistakable.  \"Supposing\none were to offer the Gnostic his choice, whether he would prefer {301}\nthe knowledge of God or eternal salvation, one or the other (though of\ncourse they are above all things an identity); without the slightest\nhesitation he would choose the knowledge of God for its own sake.\"[154]\nThe ideal Christian is habitually spoken of in this way, as the \"man of\nknowledge\"--the true \"Gnostic,\" as opposed to the heretics who\nillegitimately claim the title.  A very great deal of Clement's writing\nis devoted to building up this Gnostic, to outlining his ideal\ncharacter.  He is essentially man as God conceived him, entering into\nthe divine life, and, by the grace of the Logos, even becoming God.\n\nThis thought of man becoming God Clement repeats very often, and it is\na mark of how far Christianity has travelled from Palestine.  It begins\nwith the Platonic ideal of being made like to God, and the means is the\nknowledge of God or the sight of God given by the Logos.  \"'Nought say\nI of the rest,'[155] glorifying God.  Only I say that those Gnostic\nsouls are so carried away by the magnificence of the vision (_theopia_)\nthat they cannot confine themselves within the lines of the\nconstitution by which each holy degree is assigned and in accordance\nwith which the blessed abodes of the gods have been marked out and\nallotted; but being counted as 'holy among the holy,' and translated\nabsolutely and entirely to another sphere, they keep on always moving\nto better and yet better regions, until they no longer greet the divine\nvision in mirrors or by means of mirrors, but with loving souls feast\nfor ever on the uncloying never-ending sight, radiant in its\ntransparent clearness, while throughout the endless ages they taste a\nnever-wearying delight, and thus continue, all alike honoured with an\nidentity of pre-eminence.  This is the apprehensive vision of the pure\nin heart.  This, then, is the work (_energeia_) of the perfected\nGnostic--to hold communion with God through the Great High Christ being\nmade like the Lord as far as may be.  Yes, and in this process of\nbecoming like God the Gnostic creates and fashions himself anew, and\nadorns those that hear him.\"[156]  In an interesting chapter Clement\ndiscusses abstraction from material things as a necessary {302}\ncondition for attaining the knowledge of God; we must \"cast ourselves\ninto the greatness of Christ and thence go forward.\"[157] \"If a man\nknow himself, he shall know God, and knowing God shall be made like to\nhim....  The man with whom the Logos dwells ... is made like to God ...\nand that man _becomes_ God, for God wishes it.\"[158]  \"By being deified\ninto Apathy (_apatheian_) a man becomes Monadic without stain.\"[159] As\nHomer makes men poets, Crobylus cooks, and Plato philosophers; \"so he\nwho obeys the Lord and follows the prophecy given through him, is fully\nperfected after the likeness of his Teacher, and thus becomes a god\nwhile still moving about in the flesh.\"[160]  \"Dwelling with the Lord,\ntalking with him and sharing his hearth, he will abide according to the\nspirit, pure in flesh, pure in heart, sanctified in word.  'The world\nto him,' it says, 'is crucified and he to the world.'  He carries the\ncross of the Saviour and follows the Lord 'in his footsteps as of a\ngod,' and is become holy of the holy.\"[161]\n\nWe seem to touch the world of daily life, when after all the beatific\nvisions we see the cross again.  Clement has abundance of suggestion\nfor Christian society in Alexandria, and it is surprising how simple,\nnatural and wise is his attitude to the daily round and common task.\nMen and women alike may \"philosophize,\" for their \"virtue\" (in\nAristotle's phrase) is the same--so may the slave, the ignorant and the\nchild.[162]  The Christian life is not to eradicate the natural but to\ncontrol it.[163] Marriage is a state of God's appointing--Clement is no\nJerome.  Nature made us to marry and \"the childless man falls short of\nthe perfection of Nature.\"[164]  Men must marry for their country's\nsake and for the completeness of the universe.[165]  True manhood is\nnot proved by celibacy--the married man may \"fall short of the other as\nregards his personal salvation, but he has {303} the advantage in the\nconduct of life inasmuch as he really preserves a faint (_oligen_)\nimage of the true Providence.\"[166]  The heathen, it is true, may\nexpose their own children and keep parrots, but the begetting and\nupbringing of children is a part of the married Christian life.[167]\n\"Who are the two or three gathering in the name of Christ, among whom\nthe Lord is in the midst?  Does he not mean man, wife and child by the\n_three_, seeing woman is made to match man by God.\"[168]\n\nThe real fact about the Christian life is simply this, that the New\nSong turns wild beasts into men of God.[169]  \"Sail past the siren's\nsong, it works death,\" says Clement, \"if only thou wilt, thou hast\novercome destruction; lashed to the wood thou shalt be loosed from\nruin; the Word of God will steer thee and the holy spirit will moor\nthee to the havens of heaven.\"[170]  To the early Christian \"the wood\"\nalways meant the cross of Jesus.  The new life is \"doing good for\nlove's sake,\"[171] and \"he who shows pity ought not to know that he is\ndoing it....  When he does good by instinctive habit (_en hexei_) then\nhe will be imitating the nature of good.\"[172] God breathed into man\nand there has always been something charming in a man since then\n(_philtron_).[173]  So \"the new people\" are always happy, always in the\nfull bloom of thought, always at spring-time.[174] The Church is the\none thing in the world that always rejoices.[175]\n\nClement's theology is composite rather than organic--a structure of\nmaterials old and new, hardly fit for the open air, the wind and the\nrain.  But his faith is another thing--it rests upon the living\npersonality of the Saviour, the love of God and the significance of the\nindividual soul, and it has the stamp of such faith in all the\nages--joy and peace in believing.  It has lasted because it lived.  If\nChristianity had depended on the {304} Logos, it would have followed\nthe Logos to the limbo whither went AEon and Aporrhoia and Spermaticos\nLogos.  But that the Logos has not perished is due to the one fact that\nwith the Cross it has been borne through the ages on the shoulders of\nJesus.\n\n\nChapter IX Footnotes:\n\n[1] See the letter of Hadrian quoted by Vopiscus, _Saturninus_, 8\n(_Script. Hist. Aug._).\n\n[2] _Paedag._ ii, 2; 13; 14.\n\n[3] _Paed._ ii, 20, 2, 3.\n\n[4] _Paed._ ii, 32, 2.\n\n[5] _Paed._ ii, 38, 1-3.\n\n[6] _Paed._ ii, 45-60.\n\n[7] _Paed._ ii, 61-73; Tertullian, _de corona militis_, 5, flowers on\nthe head are against nature, etc.; _ib._ 10, on the paganism of the\npractice; _ib._ 13 (end), a list of the heathen gods honoured if a\nChristian hang a crown on his door.\n\n[8] _Paed._ ii, 129, 3; iii, 56, 3; Tertullian ironically, _de cultu\nfem._ ii, 10, _scrupulosa deus et auribus vulnera intulit_.\n\n[9] iii, 4, 2.  Cf. Erman, _Handbook of Egyptian Religion_, p. 22: \"In\nthe temple of Sobk there was a tank containing a crocodile, a cat dwelt\nin the temple of Bast.\"  The simile also in Lucian, _Imag._ 11, and\nused by Celsus _ap._ Orig. _c. Cels._ iii, 17.\n\n[10] iii, 64, 2.\n\n[11] iii, 79, 5.\n\n[12] iii, 50.\n\n[13] iii, 59, 2.\n\n[14] ii, 60, 61.\n\n[15] iii, 92.  Cf., in general, Tertullian, _de Cultu Feminarum_.\n\n[16] Euseb. _E.H._  v, 10.\n\n[17] Euseb. _E.H._ vi, 11, 6; vi, 14, 8.\n\n[18] Euseb. _E.H._ vi, 6; see de Faye, _Clement d'Alexandrie_, pp. 17\nto 27, for the few facts of his life--a book I have used and shall\nquote with satisfaction.\n\n[19] Epiphanius, _Haer._ I, ii, 26, p. 213; de Faye, _Clement\nd'Alexandrie_, p. 17, quoting Zahn.\n\n[20] Euseb. _Praepar. Ev._ ii, 2, 64.  _Klemes ... panton men dia peiras\nelthon aner, thatton ge men planes ananeusas, hos an pros tou soteriou\nlogou kai dia tes euaggelikes didaskalias ton kakon lelutromenos_.\n\n[21] _Paed._ i, 1, 1.\n\n[22] _Strom._ i, 48, 1; ii, 3, 1.\n\n[23] _Strom._ vii. 111.  Such hills are described in Greek novels; cf.\nAElian, _Varia Historia_, xiii, 1, Atalanta's bower.\n\n[24] One may perhaps compare the admiration of the contemporary\nPausanias for earlier rather than later art; cf. Frazer, _Pausanias and\nother Sketches_, p. 92.\n\n[25] _Strom._ i, 22, 5.\n\n[26] _Strom._ i, 37, 6; and vi, 55, 3.\n\n[27] _Strom._ i, 29, 10 (the phrase is Philo's); Truth in fact has been\ndivided by the philosophic schools, as Pentheus was by the Maenads,\nStrom, i, 57.  Cf. Milton, _Areopagitica_.\n\n[28] _Protr._ 120, 1; _o ton hagion hos alethos mysterion, o phooos\nakeratou.  dadouchoumai tous ouranous kai ton theon epopteusai, hagios\nginomai muoumenos, hierophantei de ho kyrios kai ton musten\nsphragizetai photagogon_.  Strange as the technical terms seem to-day,\nyet when Clement wrote, they suggested religious emotion, and would\nhave seemed less strange than the terms modern times have kept from the\nGreek--bishop, deacon, liturgy, diocese, etc.\n\n[29] _Strom._ iv, 162, 3.\n\n[30] _Strom._ i, 71, 4.  The Brahmans also in iii, 60.\n\n[31] _Strom._ v, 20, 3; 31, 5; etc.\n\n[32] _Strom._ vi, ch. iv, Sec. 35 f.\n\n[33] Origen, _c. Cels._ i, 2.  Celsus' words: _hikanous ehurein dogmata\ntous barbarous_, and then _krinai de kai bebaiosasthai kai askesai pros\nareten ta hypo barbaron ehurethenta ameinones eisin hellenes_.\nPausanias, iv, 32, 4, _ego de Chaldaious kai Indon tous magous protous\noida eipontas hos athanatos estin anthrotou phyche.  kai sphisi kai\nHellenon alloi te epeisthesan kai ouch hekista Platon ho Aristonos_.\n\n[34] Euseb. _E.H._ vi, 13.\n\n[35] _Strom._ i, 11.  The quotation is roughly from Homer, _Od._ ii,\n276.\n\n[36] _Strom._ i, 43, i.  Some who count themselves _euphueis, monen kai\npsilen ten pistin apaitousi_.\n\n[37] _Strom._ i, 45, 6, _oi orthodoxastai_.\n\n[38] _Strom._ vii, 55.\n\n[39] _Paedag._ i, 26; 27.  Perhaps for \"he saith,\" we should read \"it\nsaith,\" viz. Scripture.\n\n[40] _Strom._ v, 9.\n\n[41] _Strom._ 43, 3-44, 2.\n\n[42] _Paed._ i, 14, 2; 19.  Cf. Blake's poem.\n\n[43] _Paed._ i, 22, 3.\n\n[44] Marcus Aurelius, xi, 3.  He may have had in mind some who courted\nmartyrdom.\n\n[45] Euseb. _E.H._ v, 28, quotes a document dealing with men who study\nEuclid, Aristotle and Theophrastus, and all but worship Galen, and have\n\"corrected\" the Scriptures.  For the view of Tertullian on this, see p.\n337.\n\n[46] _Strom._ i, 18, 2.\n\n[47] _Strom._ vi, 80, 5.\n\n[48] _Strom._ vi, 162, 5.\n\n[49] _Strom._ i, 19, 2.  _psile te peri ton dogmatisthenton autois\nchromenous phrasei, ue synembainontas eis ten kata meros achri\nsyggnoseos ekkalypsin_.\n\n[50] _Strom._ vi, 59, 1.  The exact rendering of the last clause is\ndoubtful; the sense fairly clear.\n\n[51] _Strom._ i, 97, 1-4.\n\n[52] Spherical astronomy.  A curious passage on this at the beginning\nof Lucan's _Pharsalia_, vii.\n\n[53] _Strom._ vi, 93, 94.  The line comes from a play of Sophocles, fr.\n695.  It may be noted that Clement has a good many such fragments, and\nthe presence of some very doubtful ones among them, which are also\nquoted in the same way by other Christian writers (_e.g._ in _Strom_,\nv, 111-113), raises the possibility of his borrowing other men's\nquotations to something near certainty.  Probably they all used books\nof extracts.  See Justin, _Coh. ad. Gent._ 18; Athenagoras, _Presb._ 5,\n24.\n\n[54] _Strom._ vi, 152, 3-154, 1.  Cf. _Strom._ iv, 167, 4, \"the soul is\nnot sent from heaven hither for the worse, for God energizes all things\nfor the better.\"--If the English in some of these passages is involved\nand obscure, it perhaps gives the better impression of the Greek.\n\n[55] Cf. _Iliad_, 3, 277.\n\n[56] We may note his fondness for the old idea of Plato that man is an\n_phyton ouranion_ and has an _emphytos archaia pros ouranon koinonia_.\nCf. _Protr._ 25, 3; 100, 3.\n\n[57] _Strom._ vi, 156, 3-157, 5.\n\n[58] _Strom._ vi, 159.  Cf. vi, 57, 58, where he asks Who was the\noriginal teacher, and answers that it is the First-born, the Wisdom.\n\n[59] _Strom._ i, 28, _kata proegoumenon_ and _kat epakolouthema_.  See\nde Faye, p. 168, 169.  Note ref. to Paul, _Galat._ 3, 24.\n\n[60] _Strom._ vi, 67, 1.\n\n[61] _Strom._ vi, 42, 1.\n\n[62] _Strom._ i, 99, 3.\n\n[63] _Strom._ vi, 44, 1.\n\n[64] _Strom._ vi, 44, 4.\n\n[65] _Strom._ vi, 45-7; Cf. _Strom._ ii, 44, citing Hermas, _Sim._ ix,\n16, 5-7.  A curious discussion follows (in _Strom._ vi, 45-52) on the\nobject of the Saviour's descent into Hades, and the necessity for the\nGospel to be preached in the grave to those who in life had no chance\nof hearing it.  \"Could he have done anything else?\" (Sec. 51).\n\n[66] _Strom._ vi, 110, 111; Deuteronomy 4, 19, does not bear him\nout--neither in Greek nor in English.\n\n[67] _Strom._ i, 105 and 108.  Cf. Tert. _adv. Marc._ ii, 17, _sed ante\nLycurgos et Salonas omnes Moyses et deus; de anima_, 28, _mutio\nantiquior Moyses etiam Saturno nongentis circiter annis_; cf. _Apol._\n19.\n\n[68] For the Scripture parallels see _Strom._ v, 90-107.  For Euripides\nand other inter-Hellenic plagiarisms, _Strom._ vi, 24.\n\n[69] _Strom._ vii, 6.\n\n[70] _Strom._ v, 10, 2.  See an amusing page in Lecky, _European\nMorals_, i, 344.\n\n[71] _Strom._ i, 94, 1; _kata periptosin_; _kata syntychian_; _physiken\nennoian_; _koinon noun_.\n\n[72] _Strom._ v, 10; i, 18; 86; 94.\n\n[73] _Strom._ i, 81, 1; _John_ 10, 8.\n\n[74] _Strom._ vi, 66; 159.\n\n[75] _Strom._ vi, 67, 2.\n\n[76] _Odyssey_, iv, 221, Cowper's translation.\n\n[77] _Protr._ 1-3.\n\n[78] _Ibid._ 5; 6.\n\n[79] _Protr._ 8, 4, _logos ho tou theou anthropos genomenos hina de kai\nsu para anthropou mathes, pe pote ara anthropos gentai theos_.\n\n[80] _Protr._ 25, 3; ref. to Euripides, _fr._ 935, and _Troades_, 884.\nThe latter (not quite correctly quoted by Clement) is one of the poet's\nfinest and profoundest utterances.\n\n[81] _Protr._ 56, 6.\n\n[82] _Ibid._ 63, 5.\n\n[83] _Protr._ 66, 3.\n\n[84] _Ibid._ 66, 5.\n\n[85] _Ibid._ 68, 1.\n\n[86] _Protr._ 70, 1; in _Strom._ i, 150, 4, he quotes a description of\nPlato as _Mouses attikixon_.  Cf. Tertullian, _Apol._ 47.\n\n[87] _Protr._ 76.  He quotes _Orestes_, 591 f.; _Alcestis_, 760; and\nconcludes (anticipating Dr Verrall) that in the _Ion gymne te kephale\nekkuklei to theatro tous theous_, quoting _Ion_, 442-447.\n\n[88] _Protr._ 82, 1.\n\n[89] _Ibid._ 84, 2.\n\n[90] _Ibid._ 85, 4.\n\n[91] _Ibid._ 86, 1.\n\n[92] _Protr._ 86, 2.  The reference is to _Odyssey_, i, 57.  One feels\nthat, with more justice to Odysseus, more might have been made of his\ncraving for a sight of the smoke of his island home.\n\n[93] _Protr._ 88, 2, 3.\n\n[94] Elsewhere, he says God is beyond the Monad, _Paed._ i, 71, 1,\n_epekein tou henos kai hyper auten ten monada_.  See p. 290.\n\n[95] _Protr._ 94, 1, 2.  On God making the Christian his child, cf.\nTert. _adv. Marc._ iv, 17.\n\n[96] _Protr._ 100, 3, 4.\n\n[97] _Ibid._ 107, 1.\n\n[98] _Ibid._ 108, 5.\n\n[99] _Protr._ 116, 1, _hypsos_ (height) is the word used in literature\nfor \"sublimity,\" and that may be the thought here.  Cf. Tert. _de\nBapt._ 2, _simplicitas divinorum operum ... et magnificentia_.  See p.\n328.\n\n[100] _Protr._ 117, 4.\n\n[101] _Strom._ ii, 9, 6.\n\n[102] _Ibid._ vii, 49.\n\n[103] _Psalm_ 63, 1.\n\n[104] See Caird, _Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers_, ii,\npp. 183 ff; de Faye, _Clement_, pp. 231-8.\n\n[105] _Paed._ i, 71, 1; cf. Philo, _Leg. Alleg._ ii, Sec. 1, 67 M.\n_tattetai oun ho theos kata to en kai ten monada, mallon de kai he\nmonas kata ton hena theon_.  Cf. de Faye, p. 218.\n\n[106] Expressions taken from Aristotle, _Anal. Post._ i, 2, p. 71 b, 20.\n\n[107] _Strom._ v, 81, 5-82, 3.\n\n[108] _Strom._ ii, 74, 1-75, 2; cf. Plutarch, _de def. or._ 414 F, 416\nF (quoted on p. 97), on involving God inhuman affairs; and also _adv.\nSto._ 33, and _de Sto. repugn._ 33, 34, on the Stoic doctrine making\nGod responsible for human sin.  Cf. further statements in the same vein\nin _Strom._ ii, 6, 1; v 71, 5; vii, 2.\n\n[109] _Strom._ v. 65, 2.\n\n[110] _Strom._ ii, 72, 1-4.\n\n[111] _Strom._ iv, 151, 1.\n\n[112] See _Strom._ ii, 103, 1; iv, 138, 1; vi, 71-73; _Paed._ i, 4, 1.\n\n[113] _Strom._ vii, 37, Mayor's translation.  The \"expressions\" are\nsaid to go back to Xenophanes (cited by Sext. Empir. ix, 144) _oulos\ngar hora, oulos de noei, oulos de t' akouei_.  Cf. Pliny, _N. H._ ii,\n7, 14, _quisquis est deus, si modo est alius, et quacumque in parte,\ntotus est sensuus, totus visuus, totus audituus, totus animae, totus\nanimae, totus sui_.\n\n[114] Cf. _Strom._ ii, 30, 1, _ei gar anthropinon en to epitedeuma, hos\nHellenes epelabon, kan apesbe_.  _he de auxei_ (_sc._ _he pistis_).\n_Protr._ 110, 1, _ou gar an outos en oligo chrono tosouton ergon aneu\ntheias komides exenusen ho kurios_.\n\n[115] _Strom._ vii, 5, J. B. Mayor's translation.\n\n[116] _Paed._ i, 6, 6, _to de soma kallei kai eurythmia synekerasato_.\n\n[117] Phrases mostly from Strom, vii, 6-9.  _ennoian enestachtai\ntheou_.  See criticism of Celsus, p. 244.\n\n[118] _Paed._ iii, 99, 2-100, 1.  The quotation is from Homer's\ndescription of Hephaistos making the shield for Achilles, _Il._ 18, 483.\n\n[119] All parts of the universe.\n\n[120] _Strom._ vii, 9.  Mayor's translation, modified to keep the\ndouble use of _pneuma_.  For the magnet see Plato, _Ion._ 533 D, E.\n\n[121] _Strom._ vii, 12.\n\n[122] _Strom._ v, 16, 3 (no article with Logos).\n\n[123] _Strom._ vii, 7\n\n[124] _Strom._ vii, 9.\n\n[125] _Strom._ v, 38, 6, _ho kurios hyperano tou kosmon, mallon de\nepekeino tou noetou_.\n\n[126] _Protr._ 110, 1.\n\n[127] _Protr._ 63, 5; 84, 2; 68, 4.\n\n[128] _Paed._ i, 6, 2, _olou kedetai tou plasmatos, kai soma kai psychen\nakeitai autou no panarkes tes anthropotetos iatros_.\n\n[129] _Protr._ 110, 2, 3.  Cf. also _Paed._ i, 4, 1-2.\n\n[130] _Strom._ vii, 6.  Cf. _Paed._ i, 4, 2.  _apolutos eis to panteles\nanthropinon pathon_.\n\n[131] _Strom._ v, 40, 3.\n\n[132] _Strom._ v, 7, 7-8.\n\n[133] _Protr._ 6, 1-2, _touto monon apolauon hemon ho sozometha_.\n\n[134] _Protr._ 6, 5.\n\n[135] _Protr._ 7, 3.\n\n[136] The references are (in order) _Paed._ i, 55; i, 53, 2; i, 59, 1;\nii, 118, 5; _Protr._ 120, 2.\n\n[137] _Strom._ iii, 49, 1-3, _oude anthropos en koinos_.\n\n[138] _Strom._ vii, 93.\n\n[139] See _Protevangelium Jacobi_, 19, 20 (in Tischendorf's _Evangelia\nApocrypha_, p. 36), a work quoted in the 4th century by Gregory of\nNyssa, and possibly the source of this statement of Clement's.\nTischendorf thinks it may also have been known to Justin.  See also\n_pseudo-Matthei evangelium_, 13 (Tischendorf, p. 75), known to St\nJerome.\n\n[140] _Strom._ vi, 71, 2.  A strange opinion of Valentinus about Jesus\neating may be compared, which Clement quotes without dissent in\n_Strom._ iii, 59, 3.  See p. 249, n. 4.\n\n[141] Printed in Dindorf's edition, vol. iii, p. 485.\n\n[142] _Strom._ vi, 151, 3.  Cf. Celsus, p. 249, and Tert. _de carne\nChristi_, 9, _Adeo nec humanae honestatis corpus fuit_; Tertullian\nhowever is far from any such fancies as to Christ's body not being\nquite human, see p. 340.\n\n[143] _Strom._ iv, 86, 2, 3; contrast Tertullian's attitude in _de Fuga\nin Persecutione_, etc.\n\n[144] _Paed._ 19, 4.\n\n[145] _Paed._ iii, 85, 3.\n\n[146] _Protr._ 115, 2.\n\n[147] _Paed._ i, ch. 13.\n\n[148] _Strom._ vi, 98, 1.\n\n[149] Cf. _Strom._ i, 173; iv, 153, 2; _Paed._ i, 70, _he gar kolasis\nep' agatho kai ep' opheleia tou kolazomenon_.\n\n[150] Cf. J. B. Mayor, Pref. to _Stromateis_, vii, p. xl.\n\n[151] _Strom._ ii, ch. 4.  Cf. ii, 48.\n\n[152] _Strom._ ii, 8, 4.\n\n[153] _Strom._ vi, 81, 1.\n\n[154] _Strom._ iv, 136, 5.\n\n[155] From AEsch. _Agam._ 36.\n\n[156] _Strom._ vii, 13. (Mayor's translation in the main).  Cf.\n_Protr._ 86, 2, _theosebeia exomoiousa to theo_; _Paed._ 1, 99, 1;\n_Strom._ vi, 104, 2.\n\n[157] _Strom._ v, 71, 3.\n\n[158] _Paed._ iii, 1, 1, and 5.\n\n[159] _Strom._ iv, 152, 1.\n\n[160] _Strom._ vii, 101.\n\n[161] _Strom._ ii, 104, 2, 3, with reff. to Paul _Gal._ 6, 14; and\nOdyssey, 2, 406.  Other passages in which the notion occurs are\n_Strom._ iv, 149, 8; vii, 56, 82.  Augustine has the thought--all the\nFathers, indeed, according to Harnack.  See Mayor's note on _Strom._\nvii, 3.  It also comes in the _Theologia Germanica_.\n\n[162] _Strom._ iv.  62, 4; 58, 3; the _arete_ in _Paed._ i, 10, 1.\n\n[163] _Paed._ ii, 46, 1.\n\n[164] _Strom._ ii, 139, 5.\n\n[165] _Strom._ ii, 140, 1, a very remarkable utterance.\n\n[166] _Strom._ vii, 70, end.\n\n[167] _Paed._ ii, 83, 1,\n\n_tois de bebamekosi skopos he paidopoiia, telos de he euteknia_.  Cf.\nTertullian, _adv. Marc._ iv, 17, on the impropriety of God calling us\nchildren if we suppose that he _nobis filios facere non permisit\nauferendo connubium_.  The opposite view, for purposes of argument\nperhaps, in _de exh. castitatis_, 12, where he ridicules the idea of\nproducing children for the sake of the state.\n\n[168] _Strom._ iii, 68, 1.\n\n[169] _Protr._ 4, 3.\n\n[170] _Protr._ 118, 4.\n\n[171] _Strom._ iv, 135, 4.\n\n[172] _Strom._ iv, 138, 2, 3.\n\n[173] _Paed._ i, 7, 2.\n\n[174] _Paed._ i, 20, 3, 4.\n\n[175] _Paed._ i, 22, 2, _mone pute eis tous aionas menei chairous aei_.\n\n\n\n\n{305}\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTERTULLIAN\n\nIn his most famous chapter Gibbon speaks at one point of the\naffirmation of the early church that those who persisted in the worship\nof the daemons \"neither deserved nor could expect a pardon from the\nirritated justice of the Deity.\"  Oppressed in this world by the power\nof the Pagans, Christians \"were sometimes seduced by resentment and\nspiritual pride to delight in the prospect of their future triumph.\n'You are fond of spectacles,' exclaims the stern Tertullian, 'expect\nthe greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment of the\nuniverse.  How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when\nI behold so many proud monarchs, and fancied gods, groaning in the\nlowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates, who persecuted the name\nof the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against\nthe Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot flames\nwith their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets trembling before\nthe tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ; so many tragedians more\ntuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers----'\nBut the humanity of the reader will permit me to draw a veil over the\nrest of this infernal description, which the zealous African pursues in\na long variety of affected and unfeeling witticisms.\"[1]\n\nThe passage is a magnificent example of Gibbon's style and\nmethod,--more useful, however, as an index to the mind of Gibbon than\nto that of Tertullian.  He has abridged his translation, and in one or\ntwo clauses he has missed Tertullian's points; finally he has drawn his\nveil over the rest of the infernal description exactly when he knew\nthere was little or nothing more to be quoted that would serve his\npurpose.  He has made no attempt to understand the man he quotes, nor\nthe {306} mood in which he spoke, nor the circumstances which gave rise\nto that mood.  Yet on the evidence of this passage and a sonnet of\nMatthew Arnold's, English readers pass a swift judgment on \"the stern\nTertullian\" and his \"unpitying Phrygian sect.\"  But to the historian of\nhuman thought, and to the student of human character, there are few\nfigures of more significance in Latin literature.  Of the men who\nmoulded Western Christendom few have stamped themselves and their ideas\nupon it with anything approaching the clearness and the effect of\nTertullian.  He first turned the currents of Christian thought in the\nWest into channels in which they have never yet ceased to flow and will\nprobably long continue to flow.  He was the first Latin churchman, and\nhis genius helped to shape Latin Christianity.  He, too, was the first\ngreat Puritan of the West, precursor alike of Augustine and of the\nReformation.  The Catholic Church left him unread throughout the Middle\nAges, but at the Renaissance he began once more to be studied, and\nsimultaneously there also began the great movement for the purification\nof the church and the deepening of Christian life, which were the\ncauses to which he had given himself and his genius.\n\nSuch a man may be open to criticism on many sides.  He may be\npermanently or fitfully wrong in thought or speech or conduct; but it\nis clear that an influence so great rests upon something more profound\nthan irritability however brilliant in expression.  There must be\nsomewhere in the man something that corresponds with the enduring\nthoughts of mankind--something that engages the mind or that wins the\nfriendship of men--something that is true and valid.  And this,\nwhatever it is, is the outcome of many confluent elements--of\ntemperament, environment and experience, perhaps, in chief.  The man\nmust be seen as his personal friends saw him and as his enemies saw\nhim; what is more, they--both sets of them--must be seen as he saw\nthem.  The critic must himself, by dint of study and imagination, be\nplayed upon by as many of the factors of the man's experience as he can\nre-capture.  Impressions, pleasures, doubts, hopes, convictions,\nfriendships, inspirations--everything that goes to shape a man is\nrelevant to that study of character without which, in the case of {307}\nformative men, history itself becomes pedantry and illusion.\nParticularly in the case of such a man as Tertullian is it needful to\nrepeat this caution.  The impetuous dogmatism in which his mind and,\nquite as often, his mood express themselves, and his hard words, harder\na great deal than his heart, no less than his impulsive convictions,\n\"seem,\" as Gibbon put it, \"to offend the reason and the humanity of the\npresent age.\"  On the other side, the church, which the historian in a\nfootnote saddles with the responsibility of sharing Tertullian's most\nharsh beliefs, is at one with \"the present age\" in repudiating him on\ngrounds of her own.  Yet, questioned or condemned, Tertullian played\nhis part, and that no little one, in the conflict of religions; he\nstood for truth as he saw it, and wrote and spoke with little thought\nof the praise or blame of his contemporaries or of posterity--all\n_that_ he had abandoned once for all, when he made the great choice of\nhis life.  Questioned or condemned, he is representative, and he is\nindividual, the first man of genius of the Latin race to follow Jesus\nChrist, and to re-set his ideas in the language native to that race.\n\n[Sidenote: Carthage]\n\nTertullian was born about the middle of the second century A.D. at\nCarthage, or in its neighbourhood.  The city at all events is the scene\nof his life--a great city with a great history.  \"Tyre in Africa\" is\none of his phrases for Carthage and her \"sister-cities,\" and he quotes\nVirgil's description of Dido's town _studiis asperrima belli_.[2]  But\nhis Carthage was not that of Dido and Hannibal.  It was the re-founded\ncity of Julius Caesar, now itself two hundred years old--a place with a\ncharacter of its own familiar to the reader of Apuleius and of\nAugustine's _Confessions_,--a character confirmed by the references of\nTertullian to its amusements and its daily sights.  \"What sea-captain\nis there that does not carry his mirth even to the point of shame?\nEvery day we see the frolics in which sailors take their pleasure.\"[3]\nScholars have played with the fancy that they could trace in\nTertullian's work the influence of some Semitic strain, as others with\nequal reason have found {308} traces of the Celt in Virgil and Livy.\nTertullian himself has perhaps even fewer references to Punic speech\nand people than Apuleius, while, like Apuleius, he wrote in both Greek\nand Latin,[4] and it is possible that, like Apuleius, and Perpetua the\nmartyr, he spoke both.\n\nJerome tells us that Tertullian was the son of a centurion.[5] He tells\nus himself, incidentally and by implication, that he was the child of\nheathen parents.  \"Idolatry,\" he says, \"is the midwife that brings all\nmen into the world;\" and he gives a very curious picture of the pagan\nceremonies that went with child-birth, the fillet on the mother's womb,\nthe cries to Lucina, the table spread for Juno, the horoscope, and\nfinally the dedication of a hair of the child, or of all his hair\ntogether, as the rites of clan or family may require.[6]  Thus from the\nvery first the boy is dedicated to a genius, and to the evil he\ninherits through the transmission of his bodily nature is added the\ninfluence of a false daemon--\"though there still is good innate in the\nsoul, the archetypal good, divine and germane, essentially natural; for\nwhat comes from God is not so much extinguished as overshadowed.\"[7]\nThe children of Christian parents have so far, he indicates, a better\nbeginning; they are holy in virtue of their stock and of their\nupbringing.[8]  With himself it had not been so.  It is curious to find\nthe great controversialist of later days recalling nursery tales, how\n\"amid the difficulties of sleep one heard from one's nurse about the\nwitch's towers and the combs of the sun\"--recalling too the children's\nwitticisms about the apples that grow in the sea and the fishes that\ngrow on the tree.[9]  They come back into his mind as he thinks of the\nspeculations of Valentinus and his followers.\n\n[Sidenote: His training]\n\nHis education was that of his day,--lavish rhetoric, and knowledge of\nthat very wide character which in all his contemporaries is perhaps too\nsuggestive of manual and {309} cyclopaedia[10]--works never so abundant\nin antiquity as then.  But he was well taught, as a brilliant boy\ndeserved, and his range of interests is remarkable.  Nor is he\noverwhelmed by miscellaneous erudition, like Aulus Gellius for\ninstance, or like Clement of Alexandria, to come to a man more on his\nown level.  He is master of the great literature of Rome; he has read\nthe historians and Cicero; he can quote Virgil with telling effect.\n_Usque adeone mori miserum est?_ he asks of the Christian who hesitates\nto be martyred;[11] \"a hint from the world\" he says.  Sooner or later,\nhe read Varro's books, the armoury of every Latin Christian against\npolytheism.\n\nHe \"looked into medicine,\" he tells us, and a good many passages in his\ntreatises remind us of the fact.[12]  It may help to explain an\nexplicitness in the use of terms more usual in the physician perhaps\nthan in the layman.\n\nBut his career lay not in medicine but in law, and he caught the spirit\nof his profession.  It has been debated whether the Tertullian, whose\ntreatise _de castrensi peculio_ is quoted in the Digest, is the\napologist or another, but no legal treatises are needed to convince the\nreader how thoroughly a lawyer was the author of the theological works.\nHe has every art and every artifice of his trade.  He can reason\nquietly and soundly, he can declaim, he can do both together.  He is a\nmaster of logic, delighting in huge chains of alternatives.  He can\nquibble and wrest the obvious meaning of a document to perfection,\nbrowbeat an opponent, argue _ad hominem_,[13] evade a clear issue, and\nanticipate and escape an obvious objection, as well as any lawyer that\never practised.  Again and again he impresses us as a special pleader,\nand we feel that he is forcing us away from the evidence of our own\nsense and intelligence to a conclusion which he prefers on other\ngrounds.  His {310} epigrams rival Tacitus, and there is even in his\nrhetoric a conviction and a passion which Cicero never reaches.  The\nsuddenness of his questions, and the amazing readiness of his jests,\nsavage, subtle, ironic, good-natured, brilliant or commonplace,[14]\nimpress the reader again and again, however well he knows him.  Yet\nTertullian never loses sight of his object, whatever the flights of\nrhetoric or humour on which he ventures.  In one case, he plainly says\nthat his end will best be achieved by ridicule.  \"Put it down, reader,\nas a sham fight before the battle.  I will show how to deal wounds, but\nI will not deal them.  If there shall be laughter, the matter itself\nshall be the apology.  There are many things that deserve so to be\nrefuted; gravity would be too high a compliment.  Vanity and mirth may\ngo together.  Yes, and it becomes Truth to laugh, because she is glad,\nto play with her rivals, because she is free from fear.\"[15]  Then,\nwith a caution as to becoming laughter, he launches into his most\namusing book--that against the Valentinians.\n\n[Sidenote: His style]\n\nTertullian rivals Apuleius in brilliant mastery of the elaborate and\nartificial rhetoric of the day.  He has the same tricks of rhyming\nclauses and balancing phrases.  Thus: _attente custoditur quod tarde\ninvenitur_;[16] or more fully: _spiritus enim dominatur, caro\nfamulatur; tamen utrumque inter se communicant reatum, spiritus ob\nimperium, caro ob ministerium_.[17]  Here the vanities of his pagan\ntraining subserve true thought.  Elsewhere they are more playful, as\nwhen he suggests to those, who like the pagans took off their cloaks to\npray, that God heard the three saints in the fiery furnace of the\nBabylonian king though they prayed _cum sarabaris et tiaris suis_--in\nturbans and trousers.[18]  But when he gives us such a string of\nphrases as _aut Platonis honor, aut Zenonis vigor, aut Aristotelis\ntenor, aut Epicuri stupor, aut Heracliti moeror, aut Empedoclis\nfuror,_[19] one feels that he is for the moment little better than one\nof the wicked.  At the beginning of his tract on Baptism, after\nspeaking {311} of water he pulls himself up abruptly--he is afraid, he\nsays, that the reader may fancy he is composing _laudes aquae_ (in the\nmanner of rhetorical adoxography) rather than discussing the principles\nof baptism.[20]  His tract _de Pallio_ is frankly a humorous excursion\ninto old methods, in which the elderly Montanist, who has left off\nwearing the _toga_, justifies himself for his highly conservative and\nentirely suitable conduct in adopting the _pallium_.  The \"stern\"\nTertullian appears here in the character that his pagan friends had\nlong ago known, and that his Christian readers might feel somewhere or\nother in everything that he writes.  There is a good-tempered\nplayfulness about the piece, a fund of splendid nonsense, which suggest\nthe fellow-citizen of Apuleius rather than the presbyter.[21]  But\nearnestness, which is not incompatible with humour, is his strong\ncharacteristic, and when it arms itself with an irony so powerful as\nthat of Tertullian, the result is amazing.  Sometimes he exceeds all\nbounds, as when in his _Ad Nationes_ he turns that irony upon the\nhorrible charges, which the pagans, knowing them to be false, bring\nagainst the Christians, while he, pretending for the moment that they\nare true, invites his antagonists to think them out to their\nconsequences and to act upon them.[22] Or again take the speech of\nChrist on the judgment day, in which the Lord is pictured as saying\nthat he had indeed entrusted the Gospel once for all to the Apostles,\nbut had thought better of it and made some changes--as of course,\nTertullian suggests, he really would have to say, if it could be\nsupposed that the latest heretics were right after all.[23]\n\nBut, whatever be said or thought of the rhetoric, playful or earnest,\nit has another character than it wears in his contemporaries.  For here\nwas a far more powerful brain, strong, clear and well-trained, and a\nheart whose tenderness and sensibility have never had justice.  In some\nways he very much suggests Thomas Carlyle--he has the same passion, the\nsame vivid imagination and keen sensibility, the same earnestness and\nthe same loyalty to truth as he sees it regardless of {312} consequence\nand compromise,--and alas! the same \"natural faculty for being in a\nhurry,\" which Carlyle deplored, and Tertullian before him--\"I, poor\nwretch, always sick with the fever of impatience\"[24]--the same fatal\ngift for pungent phrase, and the same burning and indignant sympathy\nfor the victim of wrong and cruelty.[25]  The beautiful feeling, which\nhe shows in handling the parables of the lost sheep and the prodigal\nson, in setting forth from them the loving fatherhood of God,[26] might\nsurprise some of his critics.  Nor has every great Christian of later\nand more humane days been capable of writing as he wrote of victory in\nbattle against foreigners--\"Is the laurel of triumph made of leaves--or\nthe dead bodies of men?  With ribbons is it adorned--or with graves?\nIs it bedewed with unguents, or the tears of wives and\nmothers?--perhaps too of some who are Christians, for even among the\nbarbarians is Christ.\"[27] There are again among his books some which\nhave an appeal and a tender charm throughout that haunt the\nreader--that is, if he has himself passed through any such experience\nas will enable him to enter into what was in Tertullian's mind and\nheart as he wrote.  So truly and intimately does he know and with such\nsympathy does he express some of the deepest religious emotions.[28]\n\n[Sidenote: His early life]\n\nFrom time to time Tertullian drops a stray allusion to his earlier\nyears.  He was a pagan--_de vestris sumus_--\"one of yourselves\"\n(_Apol._ 18); \"the kind of man I was myself once, blind and without the\nlight of the Lord.\"[29]  A Roman city, and Carthage perhaps in\nparticular, offered to a gifted youth of Roman ways of thinking endless\nopportunities of self-indulgence.  Tertullian speaks of what he had\nseen in the arena--the condemned criminal, dressed as some hero or god\nof the mythology, mutilated or burned alive, for the amusement of a\nshouting {313} audience,[30] \"exulting in human blood.\"[31]  \"We have\nlaughed, amid the mocking cruelties of noonday, at Mercury as he\nexamined the bodies of the dead with his burning iron; we have seen\nJove's brother too, with his mallet, hauling out the corpses of\ngladiators.\"[32]  In later days when he speaks of such things, he\nshudders and leaves the subject rather than remember what he has\nseen--_malo non implere quam meminisse_.[33]  He knew the theatre of\nthe Roman city--\"the consistory of all uncleanness\" he calls it.  \"Why\nshould it be lawful (for a Christian),\" he asked, \"to see what it is\nsin to do?  Why should the things, which 'coming out of the mouth\ndefile a man,' seem not to defile a man when he takes them in through\neyes and ears?\"[34]  He speaks of Tragedies and Comedies, teaching\nguilt and lust, bloody and wanton; and the reader of the _Golden Ass_\ncan recall from fiction cases wonderfully illuminative of what could\nhave been seen in fact.  When he apostrophizes the sinner, he speaks of\nhimself.  \"You,\" he cries, \"you, the sinner, like me--no! less sinner\nthan I, for I recognize my own pre-eminence in guilt.\"[35]  He is, he\nsays, \"a sinner of every brand, born for nothing but repentance.\"[36]\nTo say, with Professor Hort, on the evidence of such passages that\nTertullian was \"apparently a man of vicious life\" might involve a\nsimilar condemnation of Bunyan and St Paul; while to find the charge\n\"painfully\" confirmed by \"the foulness which ever afterwards infested\nhis mind\" is to exaggerate absurdly in the first place, and in the\nsecond to forget such parallels as Swift and Carlyle, who both carried\nexplicit speech to a point beyond ordinary men, while neither is open\nto such a suggestion as that brought against Tertullian.  With such\ncases as Apuleius, Hadrian or even Julius Caesar before us, it is\nimpossible to maintain that Tertullian's early life must have been\nspotless, but it is possible to fancy more wrong than there was.  The\nexcesses of a man of genius are generally touched by the {314}\nimagination, and therein lies at once their peculiar danger, and also\nsomething redemptive that promises another future.\n\nTertullian at any rate married--when, we cannot say; but, as a\nChristian and a Montanist, he addressed a book to his wife, and in his\n_De Anima_ he twice alludes to the ways of small infants in a manner\nwhich suggests personal knowledge.  In the one he speaks with curious\nobservation of the sense-perception of very young babies; in the other\nhe appeals to their movements in sleep, their tremors and smiles, as\nevidence that they also have dreams.  Such passages if met in\nAugustine's pages would not so much surprise us.  They suggest that the\ndepth and tenderness of Tertullian's nature have not been fully\nunderstood.[37]\n\n[Sidenote: The evidence of nature]\n\nMeanwhile, whatever his amusements, the young lawyer had his serious\ninterests.  If he was already acquiring the arts of a successful\npleader, the more real aspects of Law were making their impression upon\nhim.  The great and ordered conceptions of principle and harmony, which\nfill the minds of reflective students of law in all ages, were then\nreinforced by the Stoic teaching of the unity of Nature in the\nindwelling of the Spermaticos Logos with its universal scope and power.\nLaw and Stoicism, in this union, formed the mind and character of\nTertullian.  In later days, under the stress of controversy (which he\nalways enjoyed) he could find points in which to criticize his Stoic\nteachers; but the contrast between the language he uses of Plato and\nhis friendliness (for instance) for _Seneca saepe noster_[38] is\nsuggestive.  But that is not all.  A Roman lawyer could hardly\nspeculate except in the terms of Stoicism--it was his natural and\npredestined language.  Above all, the constant citation of Nature by\nTertullian shows who had taught him in the first instance to think.\n\nWhen, years after, in 212 A.D., he told Scapula that \"it is a\nfundamental human right, a privilege of Nature, that any and every man\nshould worship what he thinks right,\" he had sub-consciously gone back\nto the great Stoic _Jus Naturae_.[39] {315} Nature is the original\nauthority--side by side, he would say in his later years, with the\ninspired word of God,--yet even so \"it was not the pen of Moses that\ninitiated the knowledge of the Creator....  The vast majority of\nmankind, though they have never heard the name of Moses--to say nothing\nof his book--know the God of Moses none the less.\"[40]  One of his\nfavourite arguments rests on what he calls the _testimonium animae\nnaturaliter Christianae_--the testimony of the soul which in its\nultimate and true nature is essentially Christian; and this argument\nrests on his general conception of Nature.  Let a man \"reflect on the\nmajesty of Nature, for it is from Nature that the authority of the soul\ncomes.  What you give to the teacher, you must allow to the pupil.\nNature is the teacher, the soul the pupil.  And whatever the one has\ntaught or the other learnt, comes from God, who is the teacher of the\nteacher (_i.e._ Nature)\";[41] and neither God nor Nature can lie.[42]\nAn extension of this is to be found in his remark, in a much more\nhomely connexion, that if the \"common consciousness\" (_conscientia\ncommunis_) be consulted, we shall find \"Nature itself\" teaching us that\nmind and soul are livelier and more intelligent when the stomach is not\nheavily loaded.[43]  The appeal to the _consensus_ of men, as the\nexpression of the universal and the natural, and therefore as evidence\nto truth, is essentially Stoic.\n\nOver and over he lays stress upon natural law.  \"All things are fixed\nin the truth of God,\"[44] he says, and \"our God is the God of\nNature.\"[45]  He identifies the natural and the rational--\"all the\nproperties of God must be rational just as they are natural,\" that is a\nclear principle (_regula_);[46] \"the rational element must be counted\nnatural because it is native to the soul from the beginning--coming as\nit does from a rational author (_auctore_).\"[47]  He objects to Marcion\nthat everything is so \"sudden\"--so spasmodic--in his scheme of\nthings.[48]  For himself, he holds with Paul (\"doth not Nature teach\nyou?\") that \"law is natural and Nature legal,\" that {316} God's law is\npublished in the universe, and written on the natural tables of the\nheart.[49]\n\nThis clear and strong conception of Nature gives him a sure ground for\ndealing with antagonists.  There were those who denied the reality of\nChrist's body, and declaimed upon the ugly and polluting features in\nchild-birth--could the incarnation of God have been subjected to\nthis?[50]  But Nature needs no blush--_Natura veneranda est non\nerubescenda_; there is nothing shameful in birth or procreation, unless\nthere is lust.[51] On the contrary, the travailing woman should be\nhonoured for her peril, and counted holy as Nature suggests.[52]  Here\nonce more we have an instance of Tertullian's sympathy and tenderness\nfor woman, whom he perhaps never includes in his most sweeping attacks\nand condemnations.  Similarly, he is not carried away by the extreme\nasceticism of the religions of his day into contempt for the flesh.  It\nis the setting in which God has placed \"the shadow of his own soul, the\nbreath of his own spirit\"--can it really be so vile?  Yet is the soul\n_set_, or not rather blended and mingled with the flesh, \"so that it\nmay be questioned whether the flesh carries the soul or the soul the\nflesh, whether the flesh serves the soul, or the soul serves the\nflesh....  What use of Nature, what enjoyment of the universe, what\nsavour of the elements, does the soul not enjoy by the agency of the\nflesh?\"  Think, he says, of the services rendered to the soul by the\nsenses, by speech, by all the arts, interests and ingenuities dependent\non the flesh; think of what the flesh does by living and dying.[53]\nThe Jove of Phidias is not the world's great deity, because the ivory\nis so much, but because Phidias is so great; and did God give less of\nhand and thought, of providence and love, to the matter of which he\nmade man?  Whatever shape the clay took, Christ was in his mind as the\nfuture man.[54]\n\nSome of these passages come from works of Tertullian's later years,\nwhen he was evidently leaning more than of old to ascetic theory.  They\nare therefore the more significant.  {317} If he wrote as a pagan at\nall, what he wrote is lost; but it is not pushing conjecture too far to\nsuggest that his interest in Stoicism precedes his Christian period,\nwhen such an interest is so clearly more akin to the bent of the Roman\nlawyer than the Christian of the second century.\n\n[Sidenote: The goodness of the Creator]\n\nThe rationality and the order of the Universe are commonplaces of Stoic\nteachers, and, in measure, its beauty.  Of this last Tertullian shows\nin a remarkable passage how sensible he was.  Marcion condemns the God\nwho created this world.  But, says Tertullian, \"one flower of the\nhedge-row by itself, I think--I do not say a flower of the meadows; one\nshell of any sea you like,--I do not say the Red Sea; one feather of a\nmoor-fowl--to say nothing of a peacock,--will they speak to you of a\nmean Creator?\"  \"Copy if you can the buildings of the bee, the barns of\nthe ant, the webs of the spider.\"  What of sky, earth and sea?  \"If I\noffer you a rose, you will not scorn its Creator!\"[55]  It is surely\npossible to feel more than the controversialist here.  \"It was Goodness\nthat spoke the word; Goodness that formed man from the clay into this\nconsistency of flesh, furnished out of one material with so many\nqualities; Goodness that breathed into him a soul, not dead, but alive;\nGoodness that set him over all things, to enjoy them, to rule them,\neven to give them their names; Goodness, too, that went further and\nadded delight to man ... and provided a helpmeet for him.\"[56]\n\nOf his conceptions of law something will be said at a later point.  It\nshould be clear however that a man with such interests in a profession,\nin speculation, in the beauty and the law of Nature, could hardly at\nany time be a careless hedonist, even if, like most men converted in\nmid-life, he knows regret and repentance.\n\nOn the side of religion, little perhaps can be said.  He had laughed at\nthe gods burlesqued in the arena.  To Mithras perhaps he gave more\nattention.  In discussing the soldier's crown he is able to quote an\nanalogy from the rites of Mithras, in which a crown was rejected, and\nin which one grade of {318} initiates were known as \"soldiers.\"[57]\nElsewhere he speaks of the oblation of bread and the symbol of\nresurrection in those rites, \"and, if I still remember, Mithras there\nseals his soldiers on the brow.\"[58]  _Si memini_ is a colloquialism,\nwhich should not be pressed, but the _adhuc_ inserted may make it a\nmore real and personal record.\n\nTo Christian ideas he gave little attention.  There were Christians\nround about him, no doubt in numbers, but they did not greatly interest\nhim.  He seems, however, to have looked somewhat carelessly into their\nteaching, but he laughed at resurrection, at judgment and retribution\nin an eternal life.[59] He was far from studying the\nScriptures--\"nobody,\" he said later on, \"comes to them unless he is\nalready a Christian.\"[60] Justin devoted about a half of his _Apology_\nto prove the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy in the life of\nJesus--an _Apology_ addressed to a pagan Emperor.  Tertullian, in his\n_Apology_, gives four chapters to the subject, and one of these seems\nto be an alternative draft.  The difference is explained by Justin's\nnarrative of his conversion, in which he tells us how it was by the\npath of the Scriptures and Judaism that he, like Tatian and Theophilus,\ncame to the church.  Tertullian's story is different, and, not\nexpecting pagans to pay attention to a work in such deplorable\nstyle[61] as the Latin Bible, which he had himself ignored, he used\nother arguments, the weight of which he knew from experience.  In his\n_de Pallio_, addressed to a pagan audience, as we have seen, he alludes\nto Adam and the fig-leaves, but he does not mention Adam's name and\nrapidly passes on--\"But this is esoteric--nor is it everybody's to know\nit.\"[62]\n\n[Sidenote: The martyrs]\n\nTertullian is never autobiographical except by accident, yet it is\npossible to gather from his allusions how he became a Christian.  In\nhis address to Scapula[63] he says that the first governor to draw the\nsword on the Christians of Africa was Vigellius Saturninus.  Dr\nArmitage Robinson's discovery of the original Latin text of the _Acts\nof the Scillitan Martyrs_, who {319} suffered under Saturninus, has\nenabled us to put a date to the event, for we read that it took place\nin the Consulship of Praesens (his second term) and of Claudianus--that\nis in 180 A.D., the year of the death of Marcus Aurelius.  These _Acts_\nare of the briefest and most perfunctory character.  One after another,\na batch of quite obscure Christians in the fewest possible words\nconfess their faith, are condemned, say _Deo Gratias_, and then--\"so\nall of them were crowned together in martyrdom and reign with the\nFather and the Son and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.  Amen.\"  That\nis all.  They were men and women, some of them perhaps of Punic\nextraction--Nartzalus and Cittinus have not a Roman sound.  After this,\nit would seem that in Africa, as elsewhere, persecution recurred\nintermittently; it might be the governor who began it, or the chance\ncry of an unknown person in a mob, and then the people, wild and sudden\nas the Gadarene swine and for the same reason (Christians said),[64]\nwould fling themselves into unspeakable orgies of bloodshed and\ndestruction.  What was more, no one could foretell the hour--it might\nbe years before it happened again; it might be now.  And the Christians\nwere surprisingly ready, whenever it came.\n\nSometimes they argued a little, sometimes they said hardly anything.\n_Christiana sum_, was all that one of the Scillitan women said.  But\none thing struck everybody--their firmness, _obstinatio_.[65]  Some,\nlike the philosophic Emperor, might call it perversity; he, as we have\nseen, found it thin and theatrical, and contrasted it with \"the\nreadiness\" that \"proceeded from inward conviction, of a temper rational\nand grave\"[66]--an interesting judgment from the most self-conscious\nand virtuous of men.  On other men it made a very different\nimpression--on men, that is, more open than the Caesar of the\npassionless face[67] to impression, men of a more sensitive and\nimaginative make, quicker in penetrating the feeling of others.\n\nTertullian, in two short passages, written at different dates, shows\nhow the martyrs--perhaps these very Scillitan {320} martyrs--moved him.\n\"That very obstinacy with which you taunt us, is your teacher.  For who\nis not stirred up by the contemplation of it to find out what there is\nin the thing within? who, when he has found out, does not draw near?\nand then, when he has drawn near, desire to suffer, that he may gain\nthe whole grace of God, that he may receive all forgiveness from him in\nexchange for his blood?\"[68]  So he wrote in 197-8 A.D., and fourteen\nyears later his last words to Scapula were in the same tenor--\"None the\nless this school (_secta_) will never fail--no! you must learn that\nthen it is built up the more, when it seems to be cut down.  Every man,\nwho witnesses this great endurance, is struck with some misgiving and\nis set on fire to look into it, to find what is its cause; and when he\nhas learnt the truth, he instantly follows it himself as well.\"[69]  It\nwould be hard to put into a sentence so much history and so much\ncharacter.  _Et ipse statim sequitur_.\n\nThe martyrs made him uneasy (_scrupulo_).  There must be more behind\nthan he had fancied from the little he had seen and heard of their\nteaching.  \"No one would have wished to be killed unless in possession\nof the truth,\" he says.[70]  In spite of his laughter at resurrection\nand judgment, he was not sure about them.  When he speaks in later life\nof the _naturalis timor animae in deum_[71]--that instinctive fear of\nGod which Nature has set in the soul--he is probably not himself\nwithout consciousness of sharing here too the common experience of men;\nand this is amply confirmed by the frequency and earnestness with which\nhe speaks of things to come after death.  Here however were men who had\nnot this fear.  Their obstinacy was his teacher.  He looked for the\nreason, he learned the truth and he followed it at once.  That energy\nis his character--to be read in all he does.  Like Carlyle's his\nwritings have \"the signature of the writer in every word.\" {321} \"It is\nthe idlest thing in the world,\" he says, \"for a man to say, 'I wished\nit and yet I did not do it.'  You ought to carry it through\n(_perficere_) because you wish it, or else not to wish it at all\nbecause you do not carry it through.\"[72]  And again: \"Why debate?  God\ncommands.\"[73]  Tertullian obeyed, and ever after he felt that men had\nonly to look into the matter, to learn and to obey.  \"All who like you\nwere ignorant in time past, and like you hated,--as soon as it falls to\ntheir lot to know, they cease to hate who cease to be ignorant.\"[74]\n\n[Sidenote: Idolatry]\n\nTertullian's tract _On Idolatry_ illustrates his mind upon this\ndecisive change.  There he deals with Christians who earn their living\nby making idols--statuaries, painters, gilders, and the like; and when\nthe plea is suggested that they _must_ live and have no other way of\nliving, he indignantly retorts that they should have thought this out\nbefore.  _Vivere ergo habes?_[75] _Must_ you live? he asks.  Elsewhere\nhe says \"there are no musts where faith is concerned.\"[76]  The man who\nclaims to be _condidonalis_,[77] to serve God on terms, Tertullian\ncannot tolerate.  \"Christ our Master called himself Truth--not\nConvention.\"[78]  Every form of idolatry must be renounced, and\nidolatry took many forms.  The schoolmaster and the _professor\nlitterarum_ were almost bound to be disloyal to Christ; all their\nholidays were heathen festivals, and their very fees in part due to\nMinerva; while their business was to instruct the youth in the\nliterature and the scandals of Olympus.  But might not one study pagan\nliterature? and, if so, why not teach it?  Because, in teaching it, a\nman is bound, by his position, to drive heathenism deep into the minds\nof the young; in personal study he deals with no one but himself, and\ncan judge and omit as he sees fit.[79]  The dilemma of choosing between\nliterature and Christ was a painful thing for men of letters for\ncenturies after this.[80]  So Tertullian lays down the law for others;\nwhat for himself?\n\n{322}\n\nUnder the Empire there were two ways to eminence, the bar and the camp,\nand Tertullian had chosen the former.  His rhetoric, his wit, his force\nof mind, and his strong grasp of legal principles in general and the\nissue of the moment in particular, might have carried him far.  He\nmight have risen as high as a civilian could.  It was a tempting\nprospect,--the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them--and he\nrenounced it; and never once in all the books that have come down to\nus, does he give any hint of looking back, never so much as suggests\nthat he had given up anything.  Official life was full of religious\nusage, full too of minor duties of ritual which a Christian might not\ndischarge.  Tertullian was not the first to see this.  A century\nearlier Flavius Clemens, the cousin of Domitian, seems to have been a\nChristian--Dio Cassius speaks of his atheism and Jewish practices, and\nSuetonius remarks upon his \"contemptible inertia,\" though he was\nconsul.[81]  In other words, the Emperor's cousin found that public\nlife meant compromise at every step.  This is Tertullian's decision of\nthe case--it has the note of his profession about it.  \"Let us grant\nthat it is possible for a man successfully to manage that, whatever\noffice it be, he bears merely the title of that office; that he does\nnot sacrifice, nor lend his authority to sacrifices, nor make contracts\nas to victims, nor delegate the charge of temples, nor look after their\ntributes; that he does not give shows (_spectacula_) at his own or the\npublic cost, nor preside over them when being given; that he makes no\nproclamation or edict dealing with a festival; that he takes no oath;\nthat--and these are the duties of a magistrate--he does not sit in\njudgment on any man's life or honour (for you might bear with his\njudging in matters of money); that he pronounces no sentence of\ncondemnation nor any [as legislator] that should tend to condemnation;\nthat he binds no man, imprisons no man, tortures[82] no man\"--if all\nthis can be managed, a Christian may be a magistrate.[83]  Tertullian\nmade his renunciation and held no magistracy.  It may be said that, as\nhe held none, it was easy to renounce it; but hopes are often harder to\nrenounce than realities.  So Tertullian left the law and the Stoics, to\nstudy {323} the Scriptures, Justin and Irenaeus[84]--the Bible and the\n_regula fidei_ his new code, and the others his commentators.  The\nChristian is \"a stranger in this world, a citizen of the city above, of\nJerusalem\"; his ranks, his magistracies, his senate are the Church of\nChrist; his purple the blood of his Lord, his _laticlave_ in His\ncross.[85]\n\nBut Tertullian could speak, on occasion, of what he had done.  \"We have\nno fear or terror of what we may suffer from those who do not know,\" he\nwrote to Scapula, \"for we have joined this school (_sectam_) fully\naccepting the terms of our agreement; so that we come into these\nconflicts with no further right to our own souls.\"[86]  The contest\nwas, as he says elsewhere, \"against the institutions of our ancestors,\nthe authority of usage, the laws of rulers, the arguments of the wise;\nagainst antiquity, custom, necessity; against precedents, prodigies and\nmiracles,\"[87] and he did not need Celsus to remind him what form the\nresistance of the enemy might take.  He knew, for he had seen, and that\nwas why he stood where he did.  But it is worth our while to understand\nhow vividly he realized the possibilities before him.\n\nThere were the private risks of informers and blackmailers, Jews[88]\nand soldiers, to which the Christians were exposed.[89] They were\nalways liable to be trapped in their meetings--\"every day we are\nbesieged; every day we are betrayed; most of all in our actual\ngatherings and congregations are we surprised.\"[90]  How are we to meet\nat all, asks the anxious Christian, unless we buy off the soldiers?  By\nnight, says Tertullian, \"or let three be your church.\"[91]  Then came\nthe appearance before the magistrate, where everything turned on the\ncharacter or the mood of the official.  Tertullian quotes to Scapula\nseveral instances of kindness on the bench, rough and ready, or\nhigh-principled.[92]  Anything might {324} happen--\"then,\" wrote\nPerpetua, \"he had all our names recited together and condemned us to\nthe beasts.\"[93]\n\nWhat followed in the arena may be read in various Acts of Martyrdom--in\nthe story of Perpetua herself, as told in tense and quiet language by\nTertullian.  He, it is generally agreed, edited her visions, preserving\nwhat she wrote as she left it, and adding in a postscript what happened\nwhen she had laid down her pen for ever.  The scene with the beasts is\nnot easy to abridge, and though not long in itself it is too long to\nquote here; but no one who has read it will forget the episode of\nSaturus drenched in his own blood from the leopard's bite, amid the\nyells of the spectators, _Salvum lotum! salvum lotum!_ nor that of\nPerpetua and Felicitas, mothers both, one a month or so, the other\nthree days, stripped naked to be tossed by a wild cow.  And here comes\na curious touch; the mob, with a superficial delicacy, suggested\nclothing; rough cloths were put over the women, and the cow was let\nloose; they were tossed, and then all were put to the sword.\n\n[Sidenote: On martyrdom]\n\n\"At this present moment,\" writes Tertullian, \"it is the very middle of\nthe heat, the very dog-days of persecution--as you would expect, from\nthe dog-headed himself, of course.  Some Christians have been tested by\nthe fire, some by the sword, some by the beasts; some, lashed and torn\nwith hooks, have just tasted martyrdom, and lie hungering for it in\nprison.\"[94]  Cross, hook, and beasts[95]--the circus, the prison, the\nrack[96]--the _vivicomburium_,[97] burning alive--and meanwhile the\nrenegade Jew is there with his placard of the \"god of the Christians,\"\nan ugly caricature with the ears and one hoof of an ass, clad in a\ntoga, book in hand[98]--the Gnostic and the nervous Christian are\nasking whether the text \"flee ye to the next\" may not be God's present\ncounsel--and meantime \"faith glows and the church is burning like the\nbush.\"[99]  Yet, says Tertullian to the heathen, \"we say, and we say it\nopenly,--while you are torturing us, torn and bleeding, we cry aloud\n'We worship God through Christ.'\"[100]  To {325} the Christian he says:\n\"The command is given to me to name no other God, whether by act of\nhand, or word of tongue ... save the One alone, whom I am bidden to\nfear, lest he forsake me; whom I am bidden to love with all my being,\nso as to die for him.  I am his soldier, sworn to his service, and the\nenemy challenge me.  I am as they are, if I surrender to them.  In\ndefence of my allegiance I fight it out to the end in the battle-line,\nI am wounded, I fall, I am killed.  Who wished this end for his\nsoldier--who but he who sealed him with such an oath of enlistment?\nThere you have the will of my God.\"[101]  \"And therefore the Paraclete\nis needed, to guide into all truth, to animate for all endurance.\nThose, who receive him, know not to flee persecution, nor to buy\nthemselves off; they have him who will be with us, to speak for us when\nwe are questioned, to help us when we suffer.\"[102a]  \"He who fears to\nsuffer cannot be his who suffered.\"[102b]  The tracts _On Flight in\nPersecution_ and _The Antidote for the Scorpion_ are among his most\nimpressive pieces.  They must have been read by his friends with a\nstrange stirring of the blood.  Even to-day they bring back the\nsituation--living as only genius can make it live.\n\nBut what of the man of genius who wrote them?  At what cost were they\nwritten?  \"Picture the martyr,\" he writes, \"with his head under the\nsword already poised, picture him on the gibbet his body just\noutspread, picture him tied to the stake when the lion has just been\ngranted, on the wheel with the faggots piled about him\"[103]--and no\ndoubt Tertullian saw these things often enough, with that close\nrealization of each detail of shame and pain which is only possible to\nso vivid and sensitive an imagination.  He saw _himself_ tied to the\nstake--heard the governor in response to the cry _Christiana\nleonem_[104] concede the lion--and then had to wait, how long?  How\nlong would it take to bring and to let loose the lion?  How long would\nit seem?  Through all this he went, in his mind, not once, nor twice.\nAnd meanwhile, what was the audience doing, while he stood there tied,\n{326} waiting interminably for the lion?  He knew what they would be\ndoing, for he had seen it, and in the passage at the end of _de\nSpectaculis_, which Gibbon quotes, every item of the description of the\nspectator is taken in irony from the actual circus.  No man, trained,\nas the public speaker or pleader must be, to respond intimately and at\nonce to the feelings and thoughts, expressed or unexpressed, of the\naudience, could escape realizing in heightened tension every\npossibility of anguish in such a crowd of hostile faces, full of\nfrantic hatred,[105] cruelty and noise.  To this Tertullian looked\nforward, as we have seen, and went onward--as another did who\n\"steadfastly set his face for Jerusalem.\"  The test of emotion is what\nit has survived, and Tertullian's faith in Christ and his peace of mind\nsurvived this martyrdom through the imagination.  Whatever criticism\nhas to be passed upon his work and spirit, to some of his critics he\nmight reply \"_Ye_ have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against\nsin.\"\n\nSo much did martyrdom mean to the individual, yet it was not merely a\npersonal affair.  It was God's chosen way to propagate his church--so\nit had been foretold, and so it was fulfilled.  \"Nothing whatever is\nachieved,\" says Tertullian to the heathen, \"by each more exquisite\ncruelty you invent;[106] on the contrary, it wins men for our school.\nWe are made more as often as you mow us down; the blood of Christians\nis seed.\"[107]\n\nSixteen centuries or so later, Thoreau in his _Plea for Captain John\nBrown_, a work not unlike Tertullian's own in its force, its surprises,\nits desperate energy and high conviction, wrote similarly of the\nopponents of another great movement.  \"Such do not know that like the\nseed is the fruit, and that in the moral world, when good seed is\nplanted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our watering\nand cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a\ncrop of heroes is sure to spring up.  This is a seed of such {327}\nforce and vitality, that it does not ask our leave to germinate.\"\n\n[Sidenote: On baptism]\n\nThere were yet other possibilities in martyrdom.  It was believed by\nChristians that in baptism the sins of the earlier life were washed\naway; but what of sins after baptism?  They involved a terrible\nrisk--\"the world is destined to fire like the man who after baptism\nrenews his sins\"[108]--and it was often felt safer to defer baptism to\nthe last moment in consequence.  Constantine was baptized on his\ndeath-bed.  \"The postponement of baptism is more serviceable especially\nin the case of children;\" says Tertullian, \"let them become Christians\nwhen they shall be able to know Christ.  Why should the innocent age\nhasten to the remission of sins?\"[109]  As to sins committed after\nbaptism, different views were held.  In general, as the church grew\nlarger and more comprehensive, it took a lighter view of sin, but\nTertullian and his Montanist friends did not, and for this they have\nbeen well abused, in their own day and since.  They held that adultery\nand apostasy were not venial matters, to be forgiven by a bishop\nissuing an \"edict,\" like a _Pontifex Maximus_, in the legal style, \"I\nforgive the sins of adultery and fornication to such as have done\npenance, _paenitentia functis_.\"[110]  The Montanist alternative was not\nso easy; God, they held, permitted a second baptism, which should be\nfinal--a baptism of blood.  \"God had foreseen the weaknesses of\nhumanity, the strategems of the enemy, the deceitfulness of affairs,\nthe snares of the world--that faith even after baptism would be\nimperilled, that many would be lost again after being saved--who should\nsoil the wedding dress, and provide no oil for their lamps, who should\nyet have to be sought over mountain and forest, and carried home on the\nshoulders.  He therefore appointed a second consolation, a last\nresource, the fight of martyrdom and the baptism of blood, thereafter\nsecure.\"[111]  This view may not appeal to us to-day; it did not appeal\nto Gnostic, time-server and coward.  The philosophy of sin involved is\nhardly deep enough, but {328} this doctrine of the second baptism\ncannot be said to lack virility.\n\nBut Tertullian himself did not receive the first baptism with any idea\nof looking for a second.  Like men who are baptized of their own motion\nand understanding, he was greatly impressed by baptism.  \"There is\nnothing,\" he says, \"which more hardens the minds of men than the\nsimplicity of God's works, which appears in the doing, and the\nmagnificence, which is promised in the effect.  Here too, because, with\nsuch simplicity, without pomp, without any novel apparatus, and without\ncost, a man is sent down into the water and baptized, while but a few\nwords are spoken, and rises again little or nothing cleaner, on that\naccount his attainment of eternity is thought incredible.\"[112]  It\nmust be felt that the illustration declines from the principle.  It may\nalso be remarked that this is a more magical view of baptism than would\nhave appealed to Seneca or to his contemporaries in the Christian\nmovement, and that, as it is developed, it becomes even stranger.\n\nTertullian's description of baptism is of interest in the history of\nthe rite.  The candidate prepares himself with prayer, watching and the\nconfession of sin.[113]  \"The waters receive the mystery\n(_sacramentum_) of sanctification, when God has been called upon.  The\nSpirit comes at once from heaven and is upon the waters, sanctifying\nthem from himself, and so sanctified they receive (_combibunt_) the\npower of sanctifying.\"[114]  This is due to what to-day we should call\nphysical causes.  The underlying matter, he says, must of necessity\nabsorb the quality of the overlying, especially when the latter is\nspiritual, and therefore by the subtlety of its substance more\npenetrative.[115] We may compare \"the enthusiastic spirit,\" which,\nPlutarch tells us, came up as a gas from the chasm at Delphi,[116] and\nfurther the general teaching of Tertullian (Stoic in origin) of the\ncorporeity of the soul and of similar spiritual beings.  He illustrates\nthe influence of the Spirit in thus affecting the waters of baptism by\nthe analogy of the unclean spirits that haunt streams and fountains,\nnatural and artificial, and similarly affect men, though for\nevil--\"lest any should think it a hard thing that God's holy angel\nshould be present to temper {329} waters for man's salvation.\"[117]\nThus when the candidate has solemnly \"renounced the devil, his pomp and\nhis angels,\"[118] he is thrice plunged,[119] his spirit is washed\ncorporeally by the waters \"medicated\" and his flesh spiritually is\npurified.[120]  \"It is not that in the waters we receive the Holy\nSpirit, but purified in water under the angel, we are prepared for the\nHoly Spirit....  The angel, that is arbiter of baptism, prepares the\nway for the Spirit that shall come.\"[121]  On leaving the water the\nChristian is anointed (_signaculum_).  The hand of blessing is laid\nupon him, and in response to prayer the Holy Spirit descends with joy\nfrom the Father to rest upon the purified and blest.[122]\n\n[Sidenote: Renouncing the world]\n\nTertullian never forgot the baptismal pledge in which he renounced the\ndevil, his pomp and his angels; and, for his part, he never showed any\ntendency to make compromise with them--when he recognized them, for\nsometimes he seems not to have penetrated their disguises.  Again and\nagain his pledge comes back to him.  What has the Christian to do with\ncircus or theatre, who has renounced the devil, his pomp and his\nangels, when both places are specially consecrated to these, when\nthere, above all, wickedness, lust and cruelty reign without\nreserve?[123]  How can the maker of idols, the temple-painter, etc., be\nsaid to have renounced the devil and his angels, if they make their\nliving by them?[124]  We have seen the difficulty of the schoolmaster\nhere.  The general question of trade troubles Tertullian--its cupidity,\nthe lie that ministers to cupidity, to say nothing of perjury.[125]  Of\nastrologers, he would have thought, nothing needed to be said--but that\nhe had \"within these few days\" heard some one claim the right to\ncontinue in the profession.  He reminds him of the source of his\nmagical information--the fallen angels.[126]  One must not even name\nthem--to say _Meditis fidius_ is idolatry, for it is a prayer; but to\nsay \"I live in the street of Isis\" is not sin--it is sense.[127]  Many\ninventions were attributed by pagans to their gods.  If every implement\nof life is set down to some god, \"yet I still must recognize Christ\nlying on a couch--or when he brings a basin {330} to his disciples'\nfeet, or pours water from the jug, and is girded with linen--Osiris'\nown peculiar garb.\"[128]  In fact, common utility, and the service of\nordinary needs and comforts, may lead us to look upon things (to\nwhomsoever attributed) as really due to the inspiration of God himself\n\"who foresees, instructs and gives pleasure to man, who is after all\nHis own.\"[129] Thus common sense and his doctrine of Nature come to his\naid.  \"So amid rocks and bays, amid the shoals and breakers of\nidolatry, faith steers her course, her sails filled by the Spirit of\nGod.\"[130]\n\n[Sidenote: The _Apology_]\n\nTertullian had been a lawyer and a pleader, as we are reminded in many\na page, where the man of letters is overridden by the man of codes and\narguments; and a lawyer he remained.  The Gospel, for instance, bade\nthat, if any man take the tunic, he should be allowed to take the cloak\nalso.  Yes, says Tertullian, if he asks--\"if he threatens, I will ask\nfor the tunic back.\"[131]  A man, with such habits of mind, will not\ntake violent measures to repel injustice, but he may be counted upon to\ndefend himself in his own way.  Tertullian, accordingly, when\npersecution broke out in the autumn of 197 in Carthage, addressed to\nthe governor of the province an Apology for the Christians.  It is one\nof his greatest works.  It was translated into Greek, and Eusebius\nquotes the translation in several places.  It is a most brilliant book.\nAll his wit and warmth, his pungency and directness, his knowledge and\nhis solid sense come into play.  As a piece of rhetoric, as a lawyer's\nspeech, it is inimitable.  But it is more than that, for it is as full\nof his finest qualities as of his other gifts of dexterity and humour.\nIt shows the full grown and developed man, every faculty at its highest\nand all consecrated, and the book glows with the passion of a dedicated\nspirit.\n\nHe begins with the ironical suggestion that, if the governors of\nprovinces are not permitted in their judicial capacity to examine in\npublic the case of the Christians, if this type of action alone their\nauthority is afraid--or blushes--to investigate in the interests of\njustice, he yet hopes that Truth by the {331} silent path of letters\nmay reach their ears.  Truth makes no excuse--she knows she is a\nstranger here, while her race, home, hope, grace and dignity are in\nheaven.  All her eagerness is not to be condemned unheard.\nCondemnation without trial is invidious, it suggests injustice and\nwakes suspicion.  It is in the interests of Christianity, too, that it\nshould be examined--that is how the numbers of the Christians have\ngrown to such a height.  They are not ashamed--unless it be of having\nbecome Christians so late.  The natural characteristics of evil are\nfear, shame, tergiversation, regret; yet the Christian criminal is glad\nto be accused, prays to be condemned and is happy to suffer.  You\ncannot call it madness, when you are shown to be ignorant of what it is.\n\nChristians are condemned for the name's sake, though such condemnation,\nirrespective of the proving of guilt or innocence, is outrage.  Others\nare tortured to confess their guilt, Christians to deny it.  Trajan's\nfamous letter to Pliny, he tears to shreds; Christians are not to be\nhunted down--that is, they are innocent; but they are to be\npunished--that is, they are guilty.  If the one, why not hunt them\ndown?  If the other, why punish?  Of course Trajan's plan was a\ncompromise, and Tertullian is not a man of compromises.  If a founder's\nname is guilt for a school, look around!  Schools of philosophers and\nschools of cooks bear their founders' names with impunity.  But about\nthe Founder of the Christian school curiosity ceases to be inquisitive.\nBut the \"authority of laws\" is invoked against truth--_non licet esse\nvos!_ is the cry.  What if laws do forbid Christians to be?  \"If your\nlaw has made a mistake, well, I suppose, it was a human brain that\nconceived it; for it did not come down from heaven.\"  Laws are always\nbeing changed, and have been.  \"Are you not yourselves every day, as\nexperiment illumines the darkness of antiquity, engaged in felling and\ncutting the whole of that ancient and ugly forest of laws with the new\naxes of imperial rescripts and edicts?\"[132]  Roman laws once forbade\nextravagance, theatres, divorce--they forbade the religions of Bacchus,\nSerapis and Isis.  Where are those laws now?  \"You are always praising\nantiquity, and you improvise your life from day to day.\"[133]\n\nIn passing, one remark may be made in view of what is {332} said\nsometimes of Tertullian and his conception of religion.  \"To Tertullian\nthe revelation through the Christ is no more than a law.\"[134]  There\nis truth in this criticism, of course; but unless it is clearly\nunderstood that Tertullian drew the distinction, which this passage of\nthe _Apology_ and others suggest, between Natural law, as conceived by\nthe Stoics, and civil law as regarded by a Propraetor, he is likely to\nbe misjudged.  He constantly slips into the lawyer's way of handling\nlaw, for like all lawyers he is apt to think in terms of paper and\nparchment; but he draws a great distinction, not so familiar to judges\nand lawyers--as English daily papers abundantly reveal--between the\nlaws of God or Nature and the laws of human convention or human\nlegislatures.  The weak spot was his belief in the text of the\nScriptures as the ultimate and irrefragable word and will of God,\nthough even here, in his happier hours, when he is not under stress of\nargument, he will interpret the divine and infallible code, not by the\nletter, but by the general principles to be observed at once in Nature\nand the book.  _Legis injustae honor nullus est_[135] is not the\nordinary language of a lawyer.\n\nThe odious charges brought by the vulgar against the Christians then,\nas now in China, and used for their own purposes by men who really knew\nbetter, he shows to be incredible.  No one has the least evidence of\nany kind for them, and yet Christian meetings are constantly surprised.\nWhat a triumph would await the spy or the traitor who could prove them!\nBut they are not believed, or men would harry the Christians from the\nface of the earth (c. 8).  As to the idea that Christians eat children\nto gain eternal life--who would think it worth the price?  No! if such\nthings _are_ done, by whom are they done?  He reminds his\nfellow-countrymen that in the reign of Tiberius priests of Saturn were\ncrucified in Africa on the sacred trees around their temple--for the\nsacrifice of children.  And then who are those who practise abortion?\n\"how many of those who crowd around and gape for Christian blood?\"  And\nthe gladiatorial shows? is it the Christians who frequent them?\n\nAtheism and treason were more serious charges.  \"You do {333} not\nworship the gods.\"  What gods?  He cannot mention them all--\"new, old,\nbarbarian, Greek, Roman, foreign, captive, adoptive, special, common,\nmale, female, rustic, urban, nautical and military\"--but Saturn at any\nrate was a man, as the historians know.  But they were made gods after\nthey died.  Now, that implies \"a God more sublime, true owner\n(_mancipem_), so to speak, of divinity,\" who made them into gods, for\nthey could not of course have done it themselves; and meanwhile you\nabolish the only one who could have.  But why should he?--\"unless the\ngreat God needed their ministry and aid in his divine tasks\"--dead\nmen's aid! (c. 11).  No, the whole universe is the work of Reason;\nnothing was left for Saturn to do, or his family.  It rained from the\nbeginning, stars shone, thunders roared, and \"Jove himself shuddered at\nthe living bolts which you put in his hand.\"  Ask the spiders what they\nthink of your gods and their webs tell you (c. 12).  To-day a god,\nto-morrow a pan, as domestic necessity melts and casts the metal.  And\nthe gods are carried round and alms begged for them--_religio\nmendicans_--\"hold out your hand, Jupiter, if you want me to give you\nanything!\"[136]  Does Homer's poetry do honour to the gods (c. 14)--do\nthe actors on the stage (c. 15)?\n\nChristians are not atheists.  They worship one God, Creator, true,\ngreat, whose very greatness makes him known of men and unknown.[137]\nWho he is, and that he is one, the human soul knows full well--_O\ntestimonium animae naturaliter Christianae_!  But God has other\nevidence--_instrumentum litteraturae_.  He sent into the world men\n\"inundated with the divine spirit\" to proclaim the one God, who framed\nall things, who made man, who one day will raise man from the dead for\neternal judgment.  These writings of the prophets are not secret books.\nAnyone can read them in the Greek version, which was made by the\nseventy elders for Ptolemy Philadelphus.  To this book he appeals,--to\nthe majesty of Scripture, to the fulfilment of prophecy.\n\nZeno called the Logos the maker of all things--and named him Fate, God,\nmind of Jove, Necessity.  Cleanthes described him as permeating all\nthings.  This the Christians also hold to {334} be God's Word, Reason\nand Power--and his Son, one with him in being, Spirit as He is Spirit.\nThis was born of a Virgin, became man, was crucified and rose again.\nEven the Caesars would have believed on Christ, if Caesars were not\nneedful to the world, or if there could be Christian Caesars.[138]  As\nfor the pagan gods, they are daemons, daily exorcised into the\nconfession of Christ.\n\nBut the charge of Atheism may be retorted.  Are not the pagans guilty\nof Atheism, at once in not worshipping the true God and in persecuting\nthose who do?  As a rule they conceive, with Plato, of a great Jove in\nheaven surrounded by a hierarchy of gods and daemons.[139]  But, as in\nthe Roman Empire, with its Emperor and its procurators and prefects, it\nis a capital offence to turn from the supreme ruler to the subordinate,\nso \"may it not involve a charge of irreligion to take away freedom of\nreligion, to forbid free choice of divinity, that I may not worship\nwhom I will?\"  Every one else may; but \"we are not counted Romans, who\ndo not worship the god of the Romans.  It is well that God is God of\nall, whose we are, whether we will or no.  But with you it is lawful to\nworship anything whatever--except the true God.\"\n\nBut the gods raised Rome to be what she is.  Which gods?  Sterculus?\nLarentina?  Did Jove forget Crete for Rome's sake--Crete, where he was\nborn, where he lies buried?[140] No, look to it lest God prove to be\nthe dispenser of kingdoms, to whom belong both the world that is ruled\nand the man who rules.  Some are surprised that Christians prefer\n\"obstinacy to deliverance\"--but Christians know from whom _that_\nsuggestion comes, and they know the malevolence of the daemon ranks, who\nare now beginning to despair since \"they recognize they are not a match\nfor us\" (c. 27).\n\nFor the Emperor Christians invoke God, the eternal, the true, the\nliving.  They look up, with hands outspread, heads bared, and from\ntheir hearts, without a form of words, they pray for long life for the\nEmperor, an Empire free from alarms, a safe home, brave armies, a\nfaithful senate, an honest people and a quiet world (c. 30).  They do\nthis, for the Empire stands {335} between them and the world's end.\n(It was a common thought that the world and Rome would end together.)\nChristians however honour Caesar as God's vice-gerent; he is theirs more\nthan any one's, for he is set up by the Christians' God.  They make no\nplots and have no recourse to magic to inquire into his \"health\" (c.\n35).[141]  In fact \"we are the same to the Emperors as to our next-door\nneighbours.  We are equally forbidden to wish evil, to do evil, to\nspeak evil, to think evil of anyone.\"  So much for being enemies of the\nstate (c. 36).\n\nChristians do not retaliate on the mob for its violence, though, if\nthey did, their numbers would be serious.  \"We are but of yesterday,\nand we have filled everything, cities, islands, camps, palace, forum,\"\netc.; \"all we have left you is the temples.\"  But \"far be it that a\ndivine school should vindicate itself with human fire, or grieve to\nsuffer that wherein it is proved\" (c. 37).  Christians make no\ndisturbances and aspire to no offices.  They are content to follow\ntheir religion and look after the poor, the shipwrecked, and men in\nmines and prisons.  \"See how they love each other!\" say the\nheathen.[142]  They are not, as alleged, the cause of public disasters;\nthough if the Nile do not overflow, or if the Tiber do, it is at once\n_Christianos ad leonem_!  But they are \"unprofitable in business!\"\nYes, to pimps, poisoners and mathematicians; still they are not\nBrahmans or solitaries of the woods, exiles from life, and they refuse\nno gift of God.  \"We sail with you, take the field with you, share your\ncountry life, and know all the intercourse of arts and business\" (cc.\n42, 43).  They are innocent, for they fear God and not the proconsul.\nIf they were a philosophic school, they would have toleration--\"who\ncompels a philosopher to sacrifice, to renounce, or to set out lamps at\nmidday to no purpose?\"  Yet the philosophers openly destroy your gods\nand your superstitions in their books, and win your applause for\nit--and they \"bark at your princes.\"  He then points out how much there\nis in common to Christians and philosophers, and yet (in a burst of\ntemper) how unlike they are.  No, \"where is the likeness between the\nphilosopher and the Christian? the disciple of Greece and of heaven?\nthe trafficker in fame and in life? the friend and the foe of error?\"\n(c. 46).  {336} The Christian artisan knows God better than Plato did.\nAnd yet what is knowledge and genius in philosopher and poet, is\n\"presumption\" in a Christian!  \"Say the things are false that protect\nyou--mere presumption! yet necessary.  Silly! yet useful.  For those\nwho believe them are compelled to become better men, for fear of\neternal punishment and hope of eternal refreshment.  So it is\ninexpedient to call that false or count that silly, which it is\nexpedient should be presumed true.  On no plea can you condemn what\ndoes good\" (c. 49).\n\nYet, whatever their treatment, Christians would rather be condemned\nthan fall from God.  Their death is their victory; their \"obstinacy\"\neducates the world; and while men condemn them, God acquits them.  That\nis his last word--_a deo absolvimur_ (c. 50).\n\nSuch, in rough outline, is the great Apology--not quite the work of the\nfuller or baker at whom Celsus sneered.  Yet it has not the accent of\nthe conventional Greek or Latin gentleman, nor that of the philosophic\nGreek Christian.  The style is unlike anything of the age.  Everything\nin it is individual; there is hardly a quotation in the piece.\nEverything again is centripetal; Tertullian is too much in earnest to\nlose himself in the endless periods of the rhetorician, or in the\ncharming fancies dear to the eclectic and especially to contemporary\nPlatonists.  Indeed his tone toward literature and philosophy is\nstartlingly contemptuous, not least so when contrasted with that of\nClement.\n\nFor this there are several reasons.  First of all, like Carlyle,\nTertullian has \"to write with his nerves in a kind of blaze,\" and, like\nCarlyle, he says things strongly and sweepingly.  It is partly\ntemperament, partly the ingrown habit of the pleader.  Something must\nbe allowed to the man of moods, whose way it is to utter strongly what\nhe feels for the moment.  Such men do a service for which they have\nlittle thanks.  Many moods go in them to the making of the mind, moods\nnot peculiar to themselves.  In most men feelings rarely find full and\nliving expression, and something is gained when they are so expressed,\neven at the cost of apparent exaggeration.  The sweeping half-truth at\nonce suggests its complement to the man who utters it, and may stir\nvery wholesome processes of thought in the milder person who hears it.\n\n{337}\n\n[Sidenote: The philosophers]\n\nIn the next place the philosophers may have deserved the criticism.\nFine talk and idle talk, in philosophic terms, had disgusted\nEpictetus;[143] and for few has Lucian more mockery than for the\nphilosophers of his day--Tertullian's day--with their platitudes and\ntheir beards, their flunkeyism and love of gain.  Clement of\nAlexandria, who loved philosophy, had occasional hard words for the\nvanity of its professors.[144]  For a man of Tertullian's earnestness\nthey were too little serious.  _Gloriae animal_[145] is one of his\nphrases--a creature of vainglory was not likely to appeal to a man who\nlived in full view of the lion and the circus.  He had made a root and\nbranch cleavage with idolatry, because no men could die like the\nChristians unless they had the truth.  The philosophers--to say nothing\nof their part now and then in stirring the people against the\nChristians--had made terms with polytheism, beast-worship, magic, all\nthat was worst and falsest in paganism, \"lovers of wisdom\" and seekers\nafter truth as they professed themselves to be.  Ancient Philosophy\nsuggests to the modern student the name of Heraclitus or Plato; but\nTertullian lived in the same streets with Apuleius, philosopher and\nPlatonist, humorist and _gloriae animal_.  But even Plato vexed\nTertullian.[146]  The \"cock to be offered to AEsculapius\" was too\navailable a quotation in a world where the miracles of the great Healer\nwere everywhere famous.  The triflers and the dogmatists of the day\nused Plato's myths to confute the Christian doctrine of the\nresurrection.  And of course Plato and Tertullian are in temperament so\nfar apart, that an antipathy provoked by such causes was hardly to be\novercome.\n\nAgain, Tertullian remarks frequently that heresy has the closest\nconnexion with philosophy.  Both handle the same questions: \"Whence is\nevil, and why? and whence is man and how? and whence is God?\"[147]\nMarcion, for instance, is \"sick (like so many nowadays and, most of\nall, the heretics) with the question of evil, whence is evil?\"[148] and\nturns to dualism.  Or else \"the heretics begin with questions of the\nresurrection, for the resurrection of the flesh they find harder to\nbelieve than the unity of the Godhead.\"[149]  What Celsus, a typical\nproduct of {338} contemporary philosophy, thought of the resurrection\nof the flesh we have seen--a \"hope of worms!\"  Lastly, there was a\nstrong tendency in the church at large for re-statement of the gospel\nin the terms of philosophy; and in such endeavours, as we know, there\nis always the danger of supposing the terms and the philosophy of the\nday to be more permanent and more valid than the experience which they\nare supposed to express.  In Tertullian's century there seemed some\nprospect that every characteristic feature of the gospel would be so\n\"re-stated\" as to leave the gospel entirely indistinguishable from any\nother eclectic system of the moment.  Jesus became a phantom, or an\naeon; his body, sidereal substance, which offered, Clement himself said,\nno material resistance to the touch of St John's hand.  God divided,\nheaven gone, no hope or faith left possible in a non-real Christ even\nin this life--Christians would be indeed of all men most miserable, and\nmorality would have no longer any basis nor any motive.  What in all\nthis could tempt a man to face the lions?  It was not for this that\nChristians shed their blood--no, the Gnostics recommended flight in\npersecution.  It is easy to understand the sweeping\n_Viderint_--Tertullian's usual phrase for dismissing people and ideas\non whom no more is to be said--\"Let them look to it who have produced a\nStoic and Platonic and dialectic Christianity.  We need no curiosity\nwho have Jesus Christ, no inquiry who have the gospel.\"[150]\n\nIt was natural for Clement and his school to try to bring the gospel\nand philosophy to a common basis--a natural impulse, which all must\nshare who speculate.  The mistake has been that the church took their\nconclusions so readily and has continued to believe them.  For\nTertullian is, on his side, right, and we know in fact a great deal\nmore about Jesus than we can know about the Logos.\n\n[Sidenote: The _Praescription of heretics_]\n\nAccordingly a large part of Tertullian's work, as a Christian, was the\nwriting of treatises against heresy.  He has in one book--_de\nPraescriptionibus Haereticorum_--dealt with all heretics together.  The\n_Regula Fidei_, which is a short creed,[151] was instituted, he says,\nby Christ, and is held among Christians without questions, \"save those\nwhich heretics raise and which make heretics.\"  On that _Regula_ rests\nthe Christian faith.  To know nothing against it, is to know\neverything.  But appeal is {339} made to Scripture.  We must then see\nwho has the title to Scripture (_possessio_),[152] and whence it comes.\nJesus Christ while on earth taught the twelve, and they went into the\nworld and promulgated \"the same doctrine of the same faith,\" founding\nchurches in every city, from which other churches have taken faith and\ndoctrine--he uses the metaphors of seed and of layers (_tradux_) from\nplants.  Every day churches are so formed and duly counted Apostolic.\nThus the immense numbers of churches may be reckoned equivalent to the\none first church.  No other than the Apostles are to be received, as no\nothers were taught by Christ.  \"Thus it is established that every\ndoctrine which agrees with those Apostolic mother-churches, the\noriginals of the faith, is to be set down to truth, as in accordance\nwith what the churches have received from the apostles, the apostles\nfrom Christ, and Christ from God.\"[153] But have the churches been\nfaithful in the transmission of this body of doctrine?  Suppose them\nall to have gone wrong, suppose the Holy Spirit to have been so\nnegligent--is it likely that so vast a number should have wandered away\ninto _one_ faith?  Again let Marcion and others show the history of\ntheir churches.  Let their doctrines be compared with the Apostolic,\nand their varieties and contradictions will show they are not\nApostolic.  If then Truth be adjudged to those who walk by the\n_Regula_, duly transmitted through the church, the Apostles and Christ\nfrom God, then heretics have no right of appeal to the Scriptures which\nare not theirs.  If they are heretics, they cannot be Christians; if\nthey are not Christians, they have no right (_ius_) to Christian\nliterature.  \"With what right (_iure_) Marcion, do you cut down my\nwood?  By what licence, Valentinus, do you divert my springs? ... This\nis my estate; I have long held it; I am first in occupation; I trace my\nsure descent from the founders to whom the thing belonged.  I am the\nheir of the Apostles.\"[154]\n\nIn this, as in most human arguments, there are strands of different\nvalue.  The legal analogy gave a name to the book--_praescriptio_ was\nthe barring of a claim--but it is not {340} the strongest line.  Law\nrarely is.  But Tertullian was not content to rule his opponents out of\ncourt.  He used legal methods and manners too freely, but he knew well\nenough that these settled nothing.  As a rule he had much stronger\ngrounds for his attack.  He wrote five books against Marcion to\nmaintain the unity of the Godhead and the identity of the Father of\nJesus, the God of the Old Testament and the God of Nature.  His book\nagainst the Valentinians has a large element of humour in it--perhaps\nthe best rejoinder to the framers of a cosmogony of so many aeons, none\ndemonstrable, all fanciful,--the thirty of them suggest to him the\nfamous Latin sow of the _AEneid_.[155]  Against Hermogenes he maintains\nthe doctrine of the creation of the world from nothing.  The hypothesis\nthat God used pre-existing matter, makes matter antecedent and more or\nless equal to God.  And then, in legal vein, he asks a question.  How\ndid God come to use matter?  \"These are the three ways in which\nanother's property may be taken,--by right, by benefit, by assault,\nthat is by title, by request, by violence.\"  Hermogenes denies God's\ntitle in this case; which then of the other means does he prefer?[156]\n\n[Sidenote: The incarnation of Christ]\n\nHis best work in the controversial field is in his treatises, _On the\nFlesh of Christ_, _On the Resurrection of the Flesh_, and _On the\nSoul_.  The first of these, above all, will appeal to any reader to\nwhom the historic Jesus is significant.  Much has changed in outlook\nand preconceptions since Tertullian wrote, but his language on the\nreality of Jesus, as an actual human being and no sidereal or celestial\nsemblance of a man, on the incarnation, and the love of God, still\nglows and still finds a response.  \"Away,\" he pictures Marcion saying,\n\"Away with those census-rolls of Caesar, always tiresome, away with the\ncramped inns, the soiled rags, the hard stall.  Let the angelic host\nlook to it!\"[157]  And then he rejoins, Do you think nativity\nimpossible--or unsuitable--for God?  Declaim as you like on the\nugliness of the circumstances; yet Christ _did_ love men (born, if you\nlike, just as you say); for man he descended, for man he preached, for\nman he lowered himself with every humiliation down to death, and the\ndeath of the cross.  Yes, {341} he loved him whom he redeemed at so\nhigh a price.  And with man he loved man's nativity, even his flesh.\nThe conversion of men to the worship of the true God, the rejection of\nerror, the discipline of justice, of purity, of pity, of patience, of\nall innocence--these are not folly, and they are bound up with the\ntruth of the Gospel.  Is it unworthy of God?  \"Spare the one hope of\nall the world, thou, who wouldst do away with the disgrace of faith.\nWhatever is unworthy of God is all to my good.\"[158]  The Son of God\nalso died--\"It is credible because it is foolish.  He was buried and\nrose again; it is certain because it is impossible.\"  And how could all\nthis be, if his body were not true?  \"You bisect Christ with a lie.\nThe _whole_ of him was Truth.\"[159]  The gospel narrative from\nbeginning to end implies that Christ's body was like ours--\"he hungered\nunder the devil, thirsted under the Samaritan woman, shed tears over\nLazarus, was troubled[160] at death (for, the flesh, he said, is weak),\nlast of all he shed his blood.\"  How could men have spat in a face\nradiant with \"celestial grandeur\"?  Wait!  Christ has not yet subdued\nhis enemies that he may triumph with his friends.\n\nJesus is to come again, as he was, as he is, sitting at the Father's\nright hand, God and man, flesh and blood, the same in essence and form\nas when he ascended; so he shall come.[161] And men will be raised in\nthe flesh to receive judgment.  A storm overhangs the world.[162]  What\nthe treasure-house of eternal fire will be, may be guessed from the\npetty vents men see in Etna and elsewhere.[163]  There will be white\nrobes for martyrs; for the timid a little portion in the lake of fire\nand sulphur.[164]  All that Gibbon thought would \"offend the reason and\nhumanity of the present age\" in the last chapter of the _de\nSpectacutis_ may recur to the reader.  But, continues Tertullian in\nthat passage, my gaze will be upon those who let loose their fury on\nthe Lord himself--\"'This,' I shall say, 'is he, the son of the\ncarpenter or the harlot, Sabbath-breaker, Samaritan, demoniac.  This is\nhe whom you bought from {342} Judas; this is he, whom you beat with the\nreed and the palms of your hands, whom you disfigured with your\nspittle, to whom you gave gall and vinegar.  This is he whom his\ndisciples stole away, that it might be said he had risen,--or the\ngardener took him away, that his lettuces might not be trodden by the\ncrowds that came.'\"  \"A long variety of affected and unfeeling\nwitticisms,\" is Gibbon's judgment.\n\nA mind less intent on polemic will judge otherwise of Tertullian and\nhis controversies.  There is, first of all, much more of the\nphilosophic temper than is commonly supposed.  He does not, like\nClement and other Greeks, revel in cosmological speculations as to the\nLogos, nor does he loosely adopt the abstract methods of later Greek\nphilosophy.  But in his treatment of the Soul, of moral order and\ndisorder, and of responsibility, he shows no mean powers of mind.  He\nargues from experience, and from the two sources, from which he could\nbest hope to learn most directly the mind of God, Nature and the\nScriptures.  The infallibility of the Scriptures is of course a\nlimitation to freedom of speculation, but it was an axiom of the early\nchurch, and a man of experience might accept it, bound up as it was\nwith sound results in the martyr-death and the changed life.\nTertullian will get back to the facts, if he can; and if he judges too\nswiftly of Nature and too swiftly accepts the literal truth of\nScripture,--while these are drawbacks to our acceptance of his\nconclusions, there is still to be seen in him more independence of mind\nthan in those Greek Fathers for whom Greek philosophy had spoken the\nlast word in metaphysics.  It is psychology that interests Tertullian\nmore, and moral questions, and these he handles more deeply than the\nStoics.  He stands in line with Augustine and Calvin, his spiritual\ndescendants.\n\nIf he speaks more of hell than certain Greeks do, it is not unnatural.\nThe man, who saw such deaths in the amphitheatre as he describes in the\n_Passion of Perpetua_, who remembered the expressions he had then seen\non the faces of the spectators, who knew too well the cruelty that went\nwith Roman lust, could hardly help believing in hell.  What was the\norigin of evil? asked philosopher and heretic.  What is its destiny?\nand what are you to do with it now? asked Tertullian; and, in all\nseriousness, the answer to the former {343} question is more likely to\nbe found when the answers of the latter are reached.  At any rate the\nlatter are more practical, and that adjective, with what it suggests of\ndrawback and of gain, belongs to Tertullian.\n\n[Sidenote: On conduct]\n\nHis application of the test of utility to belief is obviously open to\ncriticism.  \"It is expedient,\" said Varro, \"for men to be deceived in\nreligion.\"  No, Tertullian would have said, it is more expedient for\nthem to know the truth; and he backed his conviction by his appeal to\nNature, on the one hand, Nature, rational through and through, and ever\nloyal to law, to fixity of principle, and on the other hand by\nreference to the verification of his position yielded by\nexperience--once more the martyr-death and the transformed character.\nThese fundamental ideas he may have misused in particulars, if not in\nmatters more essential; but, if he is wrong from the beginning in\nholding them, human knowledge, progress and conduct become fortuitous\nand desultory at once.  Nature and verification from life are\nsubstantially all we have.  To these of course Tertullian added\nrevelation in a sense distinct.\n\nFrom the question of conduct we pass naturally to the great cleavage of\nTertullian with the church.  A change had come in church practice and\ngovernment since the days when the _Teaching of the Apostles_\nrepresented actual present fact,--perhaps even since the _Apology of\nAristides_.  The church had grown larger, it had developed its\norganization, and it was relying more on the practical men with a turn\nfor administration, who always appear when a movement, begun by\nidealists, seems to show signs of success.  The situation creates them,\nand they cannot be avoided.  They have their place, but they do not\ncare for ideas.  Thus in the church the ministry of the Spirit, the\nministry of gifts, was succeeded by the ministry of office, with its\nlower ideals of the practical and the expedient.  The numbers of the\nchurch swelled, and a theory began to spread, which Cyprian took up\nlater on, and which was almost inevitable on his principles, that the\nchurch was an ark, with beasts clean and beasts unclean within it.\nThis theory answered to the actual facts, hardly to the ideal, and\nTertullian rejected it.[165]  Conduct at once suggested the theory,\n{344} and responded to it.  Christians fell into adultery and apostasy,\nand while at first this meant \"delivery to Satan,\" restoration became\nprogressively easy.  The _Shepherd_ of Hermas extended second chances,\ntill Tertullian fiercely spoke of \"that apocryphal shepherd of\nadulterers.[166]\"\n\nFrom Phrygia came the suggestion of reformation.  Our evidence as to\nthe history of Montanism in its native land is derived from hostile\nsources, and the value of it must partly depend on the truth of the\nwitnesses and partly on their intelligence, and of neither have we any\nguarantee at all.  That they are clearly hostile is plain from the\nfragments in Eusebius.  That they understood the inner meaning of what\nthey condemned, we have no indication.  Montanus, however, asserted\nChrist's promise of the Paraclete--his enemies allege that he\nidentified himself with the Paraclete, a statement which might be used\nto show how quotation may lead to _suggestio falsi_.  But the coming of\nthe Paraclete was not in fact a synonym for fanaticism and the\ncollection of money, as the enemies of Montanus hinted.  It meant the\nbracing of Christian life and character, and the restoration of\nprophecy, new revelation of truth, power and progress.  It appealed to\nthe Christian world, and the movement spread--probably with\nmodifications as it spread.  The oracles of Montanus and of two women,\nPrisca and Maximilla, became widely known, and they inculcated a stern\ninsistence on conduct, which was really needed, while they showed how\nreformation was to be reached.  To use language of more modern times,\ninvolves risk of misconception; but if it may be done with caution, we\nmay roughly say that the Montanists stood for what the Friends call the\nInner Light, and for progressive revelation--or, at any rate, for\nsomething in this direction.  The indwelling of God was not consistent\nwith low living; and earnest souls, all over the world, were invested\nwith greater power and courage to battle with the growing lightness in\nthe church and to meet the never-ceasing hostility of the world--the\nlion and the cruel faces of the amphitheatre.\n\n[Sidenote: Ecstacy]\n\nYet Montanism failed for want of a clear conception of the real\ncharacter of primitive Christianity.  Aiming at morals, Montanists\nconceived of life and the human mind and God in a {345} way very far\nfrom that of Jesus.  They laid a stress, which is not his, on\nasceticism and on penance, and they cultivated ecstasy--in both regions\nrenouncing the essentially spiritual conception of religion, and\nturning to a non-Christian view of matter.  They thus aimed at\nobtaining or keeping the indwelling spirit of Jesus, known so well in\nthe early church, but by mechanical means; and this, though the later\nchurch in this particular followed them for generations, is not to be\ndone.  Still, whatever their methods and their expedients, they stood\nfor righteousness, and here lay the fascination of Montanism for\nTertullian.\n\nThroughout his later life Tertullian, then, was a Montanist, though the\nchange was not so great as might be expected.  Some of his works, such\nas that _On Monogamy_, bear the stamp of Montanism, for re-marriage was\ncondemned by the Montanists.  Elsewhere his citation of the oracles of\nPrisca suggests that a book belongs to the Montanist period; or we\ndeduce it from such a passage as that in the work _On the Soul_ where\nhe describes a vision.  The passage is short and it is suggestive.\n\n\"We have to-day among us a sister who has received gifts (_charismata_)\nof the nature of revelations, which she undergoes (_patitur_) in spirit\nin the church amid the rites of the Lord's day falling into ecstasy\n(_per ecstasin_).  She converses with angels, sometimes even with the\nLord, and sees and hears mysteries, and reads the hearts of certain\npersons, and brings healings to those who ask.  According to what\nScriptures are read, or psalms sung, or addresses made, or prayers\noffered up, the matter of her visions is supplied.  It happened that we\nhad spoken something of the soul, when this sister was in the spirit.\nWhen all was over, and the people had gone, she--for it is her practice\nto report what she has seen, and it is most carefully examined that it\nmay be proved--'amongst other things,' she said, 'a soul was shown to\nme in bodily form and it seemed to be a spirit, but not empty, nor a\nthing of vacuity; on the contrary, it seemed as if it might be touched,\nsoft, lucid, of the colour of air, and of human form in every\ndetail.\"[167]\n\nSuch a story explains itself.  The corporeity of the soul {346} was a\ntenet of Stoicism, essential to Tertullian, for without it he could not\nconceive of what was to follow the resurrection.  He spoke of it and we\ncan imagine how.  It would hardly take a vision to see anything of\nwhich he spoke.  The sister however was, what in modern phrase is\ncalled, psychopathic, and the vision occurred, controlled by the\nsuggestion that preceded it.\n\n[Sidenote: Conclusion]\n\nIt must be admitted that there is in some of his Montanist treatises,\nparticularly where he is handling matters of less importance, such as\nre-marriage, fasting, and the like, a bitterness of tone which is not\npleasant.  As long as his humour and his strong sense control his\nirony, it is no bad adjunct of his style, it is a great resource.  But\nit declines into sarcasm, and \"sarcasm,\" as Teufelsdroeckh put it, \"is\nthe language of the devil\"; and we find Tertullian, pleading for God\nand righteousness, in a tone and a temper little likely to win men.\nBut the main ideas that dominate him still prevail--conduct, obedience,\nGod's law in Nature and in the book, the value of the martyr-death.\n\nLittle is to be got by dwelling on his outbursts of ill temper; they\nhardly do more than illustrate what we knew already, his intensity, his\nsensibility, his passion.  They form the negative side of the great\npositive qualities.  Let me gather up a few scattered thoughts which\ncome from his heart and are better and truer illustrations of the man,\nand with them let chapter and book have an end.\n\nConduct is the test of creed (_de Praescr. Haer._ 43).  To lie about God\nis in a sense idolatry (_de Praescr._ 40).  Security in sin means love\nof it (_de Pudic._ 9).  Whatever darkness you pile above your deeds,\nGod is light (_de Paenit._ 6).  What we are forbidden to do, the soul\npictures to itself at its peril (_de Paenit._ 3).  Truth persuades by\nteaching, it does not teach by making things plausible (_adv. Valent._\n1).  Faith is patience with its lamp lit--_illuminata_ (_de Pat._ 6).\nPatience is the very nature of God.  The recognition of God understands\nwell enough the duty laid upon it.  Let wrong-doing be wearied by your\npatience (_de Pat._ 3, 4, 8).  There is no greater incitement to\ndespise money than that the Lord himself had no wealth (_de Pat._ 7).\nLove is 'the supreme mystery (_sacramentum_) of faith (_de Pat._ 12).\nFaith fears no famine {347} (_de Idol._ 12).  Prayer is the wall of\nfaith (_de Or._ 29).  Every day, every moment, prayer is necessary to\nmen....  Prayer comes from conscience.  If conscience blush, prayer\nblushes (_de exh. cast._ 10).  Good things scandalize none but the bad\nmind (_de virg. vel._ 3).  Give to Caesar what is Caesar's--his image on\nthe coin; give to God what is God's--his image in man, yourself (_de\nIdol._ 15).\n\nBut to this there is no end, and an end there must be.  By his\nexpression of Christian ideas in the natural language of Roman thought,\nby his insistence on the reality of the historic Jesus and on the\ninevitable consequences of human conduct, by his reference of all\nmatters of life and controversy to the will of God manifested in\nNature, in inspiration and in experience, Tertullian laid Western\nChristendom under a great debt, never very generously acknowledged.\nFor us it may be as profitable to go behind the writings till we find\nthe man, and to think of the manhood, with every power and every\nendowment, sensibility, imagination, energy, flung with passionate\nenthusiasm on the side of purity and righteousness, of God and Truth;\nto think of the silent self-sacrifice freely and generously made for a\ndespised cause, of a life-long readiness for martyrdom, of a spirit,\nunable to compromise, unable in its love of Christ to see His work\nundone by cowardice, indulgence and unfaith, and of a nature in all its\nfulness surrendered.  That the Gospel could capture such a man as\nTertullian, and, with all his faults of mind and temper, make of him\nwhat it did, was a measure of its power to transform the old world and\na prophecy of its power to hold the modern world, too, and to make more\nof it as the ideas of Jesus find fuller realization and verification in\nevery generation of Christian character and experience.\n\n\nChapter X Footnotes:\n\n[1] Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, c. 15 (vol. ii, p. 177, Milman-Smith);\nTertullian, _de Spectaculis_, 30.\n\n[2] Both of these in _de Pallio_, 1.  It may be noted that in allusions\nto Dido's story he prefers the non-Virgilian version, more honourable\nto the Queen; _Apol._ 50; _ad martyras_, 4.\n\n[3] _adv. Valentin._ 12.\n\n[4] References to his Greek treatises (all lost) may be found in _de\ncor. mil._ 6; _de bapt._ 15; _de virg. vel._ 1.\n\n[5] _De viris illustribus, sub nomine_.\n\n[6] _de anima_ 39.\n\n[7] _Ibid._ 41.\n\n[8] _Ibid._ 39.\n\n[9] _adv. Valent._ 3, _in infantia inter somni difficultates a\nnutricula audisse lamiae turres et pectines Solis; ibid._ 20, _puerilium\ndicibulorum in mari poma nasci et in arbore pisces_.\n\n[10] e.g. he alludes to a manual on flowers and garlands by Claudius\nSaturninus, and another on a similar subject, perhaps, by Leo AEgyptius;\n_de cor. mil._ 7, 12.  Apart from the Christian controversy on the use\nof flowers, we shall find later on that he had a keener interest in\nthem than some critics might suppose; _adv. Marc._ i, 13, 14.\n\n[11] _de juga_, 10.\n\n[12] _de anima_, 2; cf. _ibid._ 10, quotation of a great anatomist\nHerophilus who dissected \"six hundred\" subjects in order to find out\nNature's secrets; also _ibid._ 25, a discussion of childbirth to show\nthat the soul does not come into the child with its first breath;\n_ibid._ 43, a discussion of sleep.  _Scorpiace_, 5, surgery.\n\n[13] e.g. the end of _adv. Hermogenem_.\n\n[14] Puns, e.g., on _areae, ad Scap._ 3; on _strophae, de Spect._ 29; on\n_pleroma, adv. Val._ 12.  See his nonsense on the tears, salt, sweet,\nand bituminous, of Achamoth, a Valentinian figure, _adv. Val._ 15; on\n\"the Milesian tales of his AEons,\" _de Anima._ 23.\n\n[15] _adv. Valent._ 6.\n\n[16] _adv. Valent._ 1.\n\n[17] _de baptismo_, 4.\n\n[18] _de oratione,_ 15\n\n[19] _de anima,_ 3.\n\n[20] _de bapt._ 3 (end)\n\n[21] On _de pallio_ see Boissier, _La Fin da Paganisme_, bk. iii, ch. 1.\n\n[22] _ad Natt_, i, 7; the charges were incest, and child-murder for\npurposes of magic.\n\n[23] _de Praescriptione_, 44 (end).  Similarly of resurrection,\nvirgin-birth, etc..--_recogitavi_.\n\n[24] _de Patientia_, 1, _miserrimus ego semper aeger caloribus\nimpatientiae_.\n\n[25] Cf. his tone as to the _scortum_, unexampled, so far as I know, in\nLatin literature, and only approached in Greek perhaps by Dio\nChrysostom--the _publicae libidinis hostiae_ (_de Spect._ 17),\n_publicarum libidinum victimae_ (_de cult. fem._ ii, 12).  He alone of\nall who mention the strange annual scene on the stage, which Cato\nwithdrew to allow, has pity for the poor women.\n\n[26] _de Paenitentia_, 8.\n\n[27] _de corona_, 12.\n\n[28] I refer especially to such passages as _de Carne Christi_, 4-9,\n14; _de Resurr. Carnis_, 7, 12, etc.\n\n[29] _de Paenit._ 1, _hoc genus hominum quod et ipsi retro fuimus, caeci,\nsine domini lumine_.\n\n[30] _Apol._ 15, cf. _ad Natt._ i, 10, another draft of the same matter.\n\n[31] _de Spect._ 19, _eamus in amphitheatrum ... delectemur sanguine\nhumano_ (ironically).\n\n[32] _Apol._ 15.  The burning-iron was to see whether any life were\nleft in the fallen.\n\n[33] _de Spect._ 19 (end).\n\n[34] _de Spectaculis_, 17.\n\n[35] _de Paenit._ 4.\n\n[36] _de Paenit._ 12, _peccator omnium notarum, nec ulli rei nisi\npaenitentiae natus_.\n\n[37] _de anima_, 19 and 49.  Add his words on the wife taken away by\ndeath, _cui etiam religiosiorem reservas affectionem_, etc., _de exh.\ncast._ 11.\n\n[38] _de anima_, 20.  Cf. _ibid._ 17, on the moderation of the Stoics,\nas compared with Plato, in their treatment of the fidelity of the\nsenses.\n\n[39] _ad Scap._ 2.  _Tamen humani iuris et naturalis potestatis est\nunicuique quod putaverit colere_.\n\n[40] _adv. Marc._ i, 10, _major popularitas generis humani_.\n\n[41] _de testim. animae_, 5.\n\n[42] _de test. an._  6.\n\n[43] _de jejunio_, 6.\n\n[44] _de spectaculis_, 20.\n\n[45] _de cor. mil._ 5, _Naturae deus noster est_.\n\n[46] _adv. Marc._ i, 23.\n\n[47] _de anima_, 16.\n\n[48] _adv. Marc._ iii, 2; iv, 11.\n\n[49] _de cor. mil._ 6, _et legem naturalem suggerit et naturam legalem_.\n\n[50] Cf. _de carne Christi_, 4.\n\n[51] _de anima_, 27.\n\n[52] _de carne Christi_, 4, _ipsum mulieris enitentis pudorem vel pro\npericulo honorandum vel pro natura religiosum_.\n\n[53] _de Resurr. Carnis_, 7.\n\n[54] _Ibid._ 6.\n\n[55] _adv. Marcion._ i, 13, 14.  Compare the beautiful picture at the\nend of _de Oratione_, of the little birds flying up, \"spreading out the\ncross of their wings instead of hands, and saying something that seems\nto be prayer.\"\n\n[56] _adv. Marc._ ii, 4.\n\n[57] _de cor. mil._ 15.\n\n[58] _de praescr._ 40, _et si adhuc memini, Mithra signat_, etc.\n\n[59] Apol. 18.  _Haec et nos risimus aliquando_.  _De vestris sumus_.\n\n[60] _de test. animae_, 1.\n\n[61] So Arnobius (i, 58, 59) and Augustine felt.  Tertullian does not\ncomplain of the style himself, but it was a real hindrance to many.\n\n[62] _de Pallio_, 3, _Sed arcana ista nec omnium nosse_.\n\n[63] _ad Scap._ 3.\n\n[64] \"The devils entered into the swine.\"  Cf. p. 164.\n\n[65] Pliny to Trajan, 96, 3, _pertinaciam et inflexibilem\nobstinationem_.\n\n[66] Marcus Aurelius, xi, 3.  Cf. Aristides, _Or._ 46, who attributes\n_authadeia_, to _oi en te Palaistine dussebeis_.\n\n[67] _Hist. August. M. Anton._ 16, _Erat enim ipse tantae\ntranquillitatis ut vultum nunquam mutaverit maerore vel gaudio_.\n\n[68] _Apol._ 50, _Illa ipsa obstinatio quam exprobratis magistra est.\nQuis enim bib contemplatione eius concutitur ad requirendum quid intus\nin re sit? quis non ubi requisivit accedit? ubi accessit pati exoptat_,\netc.\n\n[69] _ad. Scap._ 5.  _Quisque enim tantam tolerantiam spectans, ut\naliquo scrupulo percussus, et inquirere accenditur, quid sit in causa,\net ubi cognoverit veritatem et ipse statim sequitur_.\n\n[70] _Scorpiace_, 8 (end).\n\n[71]  _de testim. animae_, 2.  Cf. _de cult. fem._ ii, 2, _Timor\nfundamentum salutis est_.\n\n[72] _de Paenitentia_, 3.\n\n[73] _de Paenit._ 40.  _Quid revolvis?  Deus praecipit_.\n\n[74] _ad Natt._ i, 1.\n\n[75] _de Idol._ 5.\n\n[76] _de cor mil._ 11, _non admittit status fidei necessitates_.\n\n[77] _de Idol._ 12.\n\n[78] _de virg. vel._ i, _Dominus noster Christus veritatem se non\nconsuetudinem cognominavit_.\n\n[79] _de Idol._ 10.\n\n[80] See the correspondence of Ausonius and Paulinus.\n\n[81] Dio Cassius, 67, 14; Suetonius, _Domit._ 15; Eusebius, _E.H._ iii,\n18.  See E. G. Hardy, _Studies in Roman History_, ch. v., pp. 66, 67.\n\n[82] To obtain evidence--legal in the case of slaves.\n\n[83] _de Idol._ 17.\n\n[84] Cf. _adv. Valentin._ 5.\n\n[85] _de cor. mil._ 13, _clavus latus in cruce ipsius_.  There is a\nsuggestion of a play upon words.\n\n[86] _ad Scap._ i, opening sentence of the tract.\n\n[87] _ad Nat._ ii, 1.\n\n[88] _Apol._ 7.  Cf. _Scorp._ 10, _synagogas Judaeorum fontes\npersecutionum_.\n\n[89] Cf. _de fuga_, 12; _ad Scap._ 5.\n\n[90] _Apol._ 7.\n\n[91] _de fuga_, 14, _sit tibi et in tribus ecclesia_.\n\n[92] _ad Scap._ 4.\n\n[93] _Passio Perpetuae_, 6.\n\n[94] _Scorpiace_, 1.\n\n[95] _Apol._ 30.\n\n[96] _Scorp._ 10.\n\n[97] _de anima_, 1.\n\n[98] _Apol._ 16; _ad Natt._ i, 14.\n\n[99] _Scorpiace_, 1; the reference is to Moses' bush, _nec tamen\nconsumebatur_.\n\n[100] _Apol._ 21.\n\n[101] _Scorpiace_, 4 (end).\n\n[102a] _de fuga_, 14 (both passages).\n\n[102b] _de fuga_, 14 (both passages).\n\n[103] _de pudicitia_, 22.\n\n[104] For this cry in various forms see _Apol._ 40; _de res. carn._ 22;\n_de exh. castit._ 12; _de spect._ 27, _conventus et caetus ... illic\nguotidiani in nos leones expostulantur_.\n\n[105] _Scorpiace_, 11, _ecce autem et odio habimur ab omnibus hominibus\nnominis causa; de anima_, 1, _non unius urbis sed universi orbis\niniquam sententiam sustinens pro nomine veritatis_.\n\n[106] Cf. _de anima_, 1, _de patibulo et vivicombirio per omne ingenium\ncrudelitatis exhauriat_.\n\n[107] _Apol._ 50, _semen est sanguis Christianorum_.\n\n[108] _de Bapt._ 8.\n\n[109] _Ibid._ 18.\n\n[110] Ironic chapter in _de pudicitia_, 1.  The edict is a technical\nterm of the state, and the Pontifex Maximus was the Emperor, till\nGratian refused the title in 375 A.D.\n\n[111] _Scorpiace_, 6; cf. _de Bapt._ 16.\n\n[112] _de Bapt._ 2.\n\n[113] _Ibid._ 20.\n\n[114] _Ibid._ 4.\n\n[115] _Ibid._ 4.\n\n[116] Cf. p. 102.\n\n[117] _de Bapt._ 5.\n\n[118] _de Spectac._ 4; _de cor. mil._ 3.\n\n[119] _de cor. mil._ 3, _ter mergitamur_.\n\n[120] _de Bapt._ 4.\n\n[121] _Ibid._ 6.\n\n[122] _de Bapt._ 8.  For other minor details as to food and bathing see\n_de cor. mil._ 3.\n\n[123] _de Spectac._ 4.\n\n[124] _de Idol._ 6.\n\n[125] _de Idol._ 11.  Cf. Hermas, _Mandate_, 3, on lying in business.\n\n[126] _de Idol._ 9.\n\n[127] _Ibid._ 20.\n\n[128] _de cor. mil._ 8.\n\n[129] _Ibid._ 8.\n\n[130] _de Idol._ 24, _inter hos scopulos et sinus, inter haec vada et\nfreta idololatriae, velificata spiritu dei fides navigat_.\n\n[131] _de fuga_, 13.\n\n[132] _Apol._ 4.\n\n[133] _Apol._ 6.\n\n[134] Gwatkin, _The Knowledge of God_ (Gifford Lectures) ii, p. 163.\n\n[135] _ad Natt._ i, 5.\n\n[136] Cf. pp. 20-22.\n\n[137] _Apol._ 17, _ita eum vis magnitudinis et notum hominibus obicit\net ignotum_.\n\n[138] _Apol._ 21.\n\n[139] Chapters 22 to 24 give a good summary of his views on daemons.\n\n[140] Celsus refers to Christian discussion of this; Origen, _adv.\nCels._ iii 43.\n\n[141] Cf. _ad. Scap._ 2, with argument from end of world.\n\n[142] c. 39 _vide, inquiunt, ut invicem se diligant_.\n\n[143] Epictetus, _D._ iii, 23.\n\n[144] Clement, _Strom._ vi, 56, _philautia_.\n\n[145] _de anima_, 1.\n\n[146] Cf. _de anima_, 6, 17, 18, 23, etc.\n\n[147] _de Praescr._ 7.\n\n[148] _adv. Marc._ i, 2.\n\n[149] _de res. carnis_, 2.\n\n[150] _de Praescr._ 7.\n\n[151] _de Praescr._ 13.\n\n[152] _de Praescr._ 15.\n\n[153] _de Praescr._ 21.\n\n[154] _de Praescr._ 37, _Mea est possessio_.  Cf. definition which says\n_possessions appellantur agri ... qui non mancipatione sed usu\ntenebantur et ut quisque occupaverat possidebat_.  Tertullian improves\nthis title as he goes on.\n\n[155] This gibe is in _adv. Marc._ i, 5; there are plenty without it in\n_adv. Val_.\n\n[156] _adv. Hermog._ 9, _iure, beneficio, impetu, id est dominio\nprecario vi_.\n\n[157] _de carne Christi_, 2.\n\n[158] _de carne Christi_, 5, _Quodcunque deo indignum est mihi expedit_.\n\n[159] _de carne Christi_, 5, _prorsus credibile est quia ineptum est,\n... certum est quia impossibile....  Quid dimidias mendacio Christum?\nTotus veritas fuit_.\n\n[160] _de carne Christi_, 9, _trepidat_ perhaps represents the _agonia_\nof Luke.\n\n[161] _de res. carnis_, 51.\n\n[162] _de paenit._ 1.\n\n[163] _de paenit._ 12.\n\n[164] _Scorpiace_, 12\n\n[165] _de Idol._ 24 (end), _Viderimus enim si secundum arcae typum et\ncorvus et milvus et lupus et canis et serpens in ecclesia erit_.\n\n[166] _de Pud._ 20.\n\n[167] _de anima_, 9.\n\n\n\n\n{349}\n\n  INDEX\n\n\n  Absolute Being (of God), 93, 112, 133, 188, 231, 257, 288, 289,\n      290-292.\n  Actium, battle, 2.\n  AElian, 209.\n  AEsculapius (Asklepios), 22, 191, 209, 221-223, 255, 337.\n  Alexander of Abonoteichos, 211, 212.\n  Alexander Severus, 14.\n  Alexandria, 78, 79, 81; ch. ix., beginning.\n  Allegoric methods, 72, 126, 181, 184, 226, 278, 288.\n  Anaxagoras, 102.\n  Ancyra, monument, 5.\n  Angels, 15, 95, 279, 281, 329.\n  Antinous, 160, 172, 252.\n  Antoninus, M. Aurelius, Emperor, see Marcus.\n  Antony (M. Antonius, the Triumvir), 2, 9.\n  Anubis, 22, 209, 211, 236.\n  Apathy, 161, 232, 291, 292, 297, 302; see also Greek Index.\n  Apellas, M. Julius, 221, 222.\n  Apelles, the painter, 217.\n  Apis, 6.\n  Apollo, 5, 82, 94.\n  Apollonius of Tyana, 14.\n  Apuleius, see ch. vii. generally,\n    his origin and history, 228.\n    his studies, 228.\n    his mind and style, 227, 228, 234, 237, 337.\n    defence on charge of Magic, 228, 230.\n    the _Golden Ass_, 227, 233-237.\n    on philosophy, 230.\n    on gods, 231.\n    on mysteries, 230.\n    on human life, 231.\n    on religion, 230.\n  Aricia, 26.\n  Aristides, AElius, 222.\n  Artemidorus of Daldia, author of a book on the interpretation\n      of dreams, 88, 225-227.\n  Arval Brothers, 9.\n  _Ass_, book once attributed to Lucian, 20, 21, 227.\n  Astrology, 18, 35, 147, 329.\n  Astronomy, 27, 97, 219, 277, 281, 285.\n  _Ataraxia_, 216, 219.\n  Athens, 78, 80, 267.\n    students at Athens, 78, 80, 228.\n  Attalus, a Stoic, 41.\n  Attis, 21.\n  Augustine, St, 8, 12, 21, 166, 237, 307.\n  Augustus, 1, 2.\n    attempts to reform state, 3.\n    his monument at Ancyra, 5.\n    his superstitions, 6.\n    restoration of religion, 5-7, 9, 14, 32.\n    his system of government, 34.\n    effects of his system, 18, 33-37.\n\n\n\n  Baptisms, 109, 159, 327-329.\n  Barnabas, 151, 165, 180, 181, 192.\n  Blood, eating with, 15.\n  Brahmans, 270, 335.\n  Britannicus, 45.\n  British Isles, 26, 105.\n  Browning, R., quoted, 27, 144.\n  Buddha, 270.\n  Buddhism, 68.\n  Burrus, 44-46.\n  Carlyle, Thomas, 40, 41, 159, 311, 312, 313, 336, 346.\n  Carthage, 109, 307.\n  Catullus, 21.\n  Celsus, see ch. viii. generally.\n    who was he? 239, 240.\n    his date, 240.\n    his mind and style, 240, 241, 258-261.\n    on folly of Christians, 241-243, 245.\n    on vulgarity of Christians, 241, 242.\n    on \"only believe,\" 242, 250.\n    on Christian account of God, 242-244.\n      and God's descent, 246.\n    his own account of God, 244, 245, 246-248, 254.\n      and of daemons, 254-256.\n    Christian thinking anthropocentric, 243, 244.\n    on evil, 247.\n    on true religion, 248, 254, 259, 260.\n    on ancestral religion, 254.\n    on incarnation, 248, 249.\n    on the historic Jesus, 117, 172, 173, 249-252.\n    on persecution of Christians, 250, 275.\n    on the sects, 250, 253.\n    on miracles and magic, 251.\n    on evidence of oracles, 255, 258.\n    on Christian plagiarisms, 117, 252.\n    on immortality, 252, 253.\n    his plea for Roman Empire, 256, 257, 261.\n    misses centre of Christian movement, 259.\n    quoted ch. viii. _passim_, and pp. 95, 114, 116, 117, 193, 194.\n  Chaeronea, 79, 82, 86, 223.\n  Chaldaeans, 17, 207, 270.\n  Christ in prophecy, 183-193.\n  Christian community and early Church, see chs. v. and vi. generally.\n    name Christian, 151.\n    its variety, 141, 143-147.\n    its unity, 141, 143.\n    its universality, 143, 144.\n    the new life, 142, 152, 159-162, 164-166, 302, 303, 335.\n    its happiness, 142, 148, 165, 166.\n    conversion, 142, 150.\n    Jewish influence, 143, 144.\n    Greek influence, 144, 145, 168.\n    Roman influence, 146.\n    freedom from daemons, 146, 147, 283, 284.\n    daemons retaliate in persecution, 164, 319.\n    knowledge of God, 147, 300, 301.\n    the \"Holy Spirit,\" 142, 149-151, 174.\n    Jesus the centre, 141, 151, 152, 157, 194, 259.\n    Jesus the example, 264, 265, 272.\n    theories as to Jesus, 154-157, 275, 289-298, 340, 341.\n    the \"ecclesia of God,\" 158, 257.\n    organization of Christian society, 157-159, 263, 339.\n    its sacraments, 158, 159.\n    propagation, 159-162, 196, 241.\n    women, 163, 180, 316.\n    marriage, 302, 303, 314.\n    immortality, 163.\n    belief in second coming of Christ, 164, 341.\n    persecution, 164, 165, 250, 275, 319, 323-326.\n    martyrs, 146, 165, 319-321.\n    controversy with Judaism, 167-169 ff., 175.\n    effect of this, 194, 195.\n    admission of Gentiles, 168.\n    sects, 250, 253.\n    the \"great church,\" 253.\n    spiritual religion, 179, 181, 182.\n    its progress, 196, 262, 263 f.\n    daily reading of Scriptures, 287.\n    question of philosophy, 134, 145, 156, 157, 263, 274-276, 336-338.\n    tenacity of historic facts of Gospel, 113-115, 119, 145, 152, 271.\n    the _regula_, 338, 339.\n    the \"ark\" theory, 343.\n    Christian feeling toward the Empire, 240, 257, 303, 322, 334, 335.\n  Chrysippus, 71, 73, 96, 209, 247.\n  Cicero, M. Tullius, 1, 7, 8.\n    his wife and daughter, 10.\n    on divination, 16, 17.\n  Claudia Acte, 45.\n  Claudius, Emperor, 43, 44.\n  Cleanthes, 39, 71, 247.\n  Clement of Alexandria, see ch. ix. generally.\n    his writings, 267, 279, 282.\n    his history, 266, 267.\n    his education, 267-274.\n    the mysteries, 269.\n    his conversion, 271.\n    his mind and style, 267, 273, 282, 293.\n    his literary interests, 267, 273, 277.\n    his use of Scripture, 287, 288, 291.\n    on philosophy, 268, 273, 275-282.\n    his references to Plato, 273, 279, 281, 285, 286, 296.\n    to Euripides, 281, 284.\n    his use of Philo, 289.\n    on knowledge, 272, 300, 301.\n    unity of knowledge, 275.\n    on faith, 242, 280, 300.\n    on Absolute God (see also Monad below), 290-292.\n    on the Monad, 286, 290.\n    the love of God and Abba Father, 285, 286, 293, 297.\n    on the Logos, 283, 287, 289-298,\n    on incarnation, 297, 298.\n    on Jesus, 283, 293, 298-300.\n    on the cross, 300, 302.\n    on Christian life, 272, 287, 302, 303.\n    on manners, 264-266.\n    on sin, 300.\n    on \"deification,\" 301, 302.\n    on marriage, 302, 303.\n    on Christian tradition, 271,\n    on virgin-birth, 299.\n    Christocentric, 272, 273, 274.\n    the _Protrepticus_, 282-287, 296.\n    Clement quoted, ch. ix. _passim_, and on pp. 149, 166, 242, 243,\n        244, 247, 248, 251, 257, 258, 259, 260.\n  Cleopatra, 2.\n  Consensus of mankind as evidence, 68, 91, 210, 315.\n      _Cf._ Tertullian (_testimonium animae_).\n  Cooks, schools of, 302, 331.\n  Cornutus, 41, 55.\n  Critias, verses of, 4, 5.\n  Crocodiles worshipped, 108, 111, 265.\n  _Cupid and Psyche_, 234.\n  Cybele, 5, 20, 21, 103.\n  Cyprian, 147, 158, 343.\n\n\n\n  Daemons, 14, 39, 59, 94-102, 103, 152-154, 254-256.\n    not gods, 94, 232.\n    intermediaries between gods and men, 96, 97, 98, 229, 232.\n    subject to change, 96.\n    guardian-daemons (_genius_), 15, 59, 99, 100, 233, 308.\n    may be seen by the physical eye, 99, 100, 207, 208, 232, 255.\n    communicate with souls directly, 101, 102.\n    authors of pagan cults, 107, 232, 254.\n    relations with oracles, magic, etc., 102, 108, 229, 253.\n    resent neglect, 164, 233, 255.\n    their tyranny, 19, 107, 146, 147, 284.\n    some usurp names of gods, 107, 108, 232.\n    daemon-possession, 100, 153.\n    \"glossolaly,\" 150.\n    dangers from daemons, 256.\n    the name of Jesus and daemons, 147.\n    daemons the fallen angels, 95, 281.\n    daemon-theory and Emperor-worship, 154.\n    daemons misled Jews as to law, 181.\n    forestalled Christian sacraments, 159.\n    and facts of Christian teaching, 191.\n    facts behind daemon-theory, 100, 150, 153, 222, 231.\n  Dancing, secular and sacred, 76, 79, 80.\n  _Dea dia_, 9, 19.\n  Delphi, 82, 92, 102, 107, 108.\n  Dio Cassius, 48, 322.\n  Dio Chrysostom, 80, 312.\n  Diodorus Siculus, 5.\n  Diogenes Laertius, 39.\n  Diogenes of Oinoanda, 217-220.\n  Dionysus, 98, 108, 191, 250.\n  Divination, 16, 17, 229.\n  Docetism, 146, 154, 157, 299.\n  Domitian, 49, 81, 322.\n  Dreams studied, 6, 225-227.\n  Druids, 270.\n\n\n\n  Ecstasy, 101, 102, 153, 345.\n  Egyptian religion, 21, 25, 56, 211, 265, 270;\n      see Isis, Osiris, Serapis.\n  Emperor-worship, 163.\n  Ennius, 3.\n  Epictetus, see ch. ii. generally.\n    his history, 49-50.\n    his solitude, 50-52.\n    his habits, 52.\n    his celebrity, 53.\n    on cleanliness, 52.\n    a relic of Epictetus, 53,\n    his teaching, 50, 53.\n    quoted throughout ch. ii.\n  Epicurus, 16, 17, 218-220, 281, 282, 285.\n  Epidauros, 221, 222.\n  Euclid, 80, 275.\n  Euhemerus, 5, 106.\n  Euripides, 243, 270, 281, 284, 285, 287.\n\n\n\n  Fauns, 12, 13.\n  Flavius Clemens, 322.\n  Francis, St, 40, 49.\n  Fravashi, 15.\n  Freedmen, 33, 35.\n\n\n\n  Gadarenes, 123, 203.\n  Gaius, Emperor, 34.\n  Galen, 160.\n  Garlands, use of, 230, 265.\n  Gellius, Aulus, 53, 80, 87, 213.\n  _Genius_, see Daemons.\n  Germans, 36, 200, 211, 270.\n  Giants, 208.\n  Gibbon, 305.\n  Gladiatorial shows, 36, 312, 313.\n    Stoic criticism, 63.\n    Christian criticism, 162.\n  Glossolaly, see Tongues.\n  Gnosticism and Gnostics, 263, see Marcion and Valentinus.\n  God, see Absolute Being.\n  Golden Age, 7, 33, 36, 171.\n  Gospels, 113-115.\n    credibility, 114, 115.\n  Greece, depopulated, 78.\n  Guardian, see Daemons.\n  Gyges, myth of, 34.\n\n\n\n  Hades, value of the belief in it, 5.\n    described by those who have seen it, 105, 208.\n    the gospel preached in Hades by Christ and apostles, 101, 280.\n  Hadrian, 88, 200, 252, 262.\n  Heraclitus, 219, 247, 252, 253.\n  Herakles, 62, 98, 173, 191, 250.\n  Hermas, 48, 166, 280, 329, 344.\n  Herodotus, 34, 255.\n  Hesiod, 98.\n  Hierodules, 22, 172.\n  \"Holy,\" 11, 13, 19.\n  Holy Spirit, see Christian community.\n  Horace, 9, 13, 30, 78.\n    Odes on the Augustan reformation, 6, 7.\n    his own feelings on religion, 10, 28.\n    on superstition, 17.\n    his \"conversion,\" 18.\n  Human sacrifices, 26, 107.\n  \"Hymn of the Soul,\" Gnostic, 15.\n\n\n\n  Idols, meat offered to, 16.\n  Ignatius, 146, 158, 159, 161, 163, 174.\n  Immortality, 31, 68-70, 104, 105, 163, 164, 252, 253.\n  Incubation, 22, 23, 99, 221.\n  Indians, 270.\n  Inspiration, 103, 169, 174, 287, 333, 342.\n  Irenaeus, 323.\n  Isis, 22-24, 98, 99, 106, 107, 110, 111, 235-237.\n\n\n\n  Jesus, see chapters iv. and v. generally; see Christ.\n    \"Life\" of Jesus hardly possible, 115.\n    dates available, 115.\n    his character can be known, 115, 116.\n    his personality centre of Christian movement, 116, 139, 141, 151,\n        152, 157, 194, 257.\n    repeated in personality of his followers, 139, 140.\n    his style, criticized by Celsus, 117.\n    his conversation, 117-120.\n    humour or playfulness in his talk, 118, 119, 127.\n    his manner, 119.\n    his fixed gaze, 123.\n    his parables as reminiscences, 120.\n    his childhood and youth, 120, 121.\n    his mother and father, 120, 121.\n    _Abba_, 121, 137, 148, 149, 150, 257, 260, 286.\n    _Amen_, 125.\n    on children, 121, 122.\n    on being \"born again,\" 122.\n    outdoor life, 122, 123.\n    on wild nature, 123; _cf._ 265.\n    his reality, 123-127.\n    anger, 123.\n    on self-deception, 124.\n    on vulgar vices, 124.\n    on poverty and hunger, 124, 125; _cf._ 264, 346.\n    energy of character, 125.\n    on traditional beliefs, 125.\n    his use of Scripture, 126.\n    his temptations, 126-130.\n    his \"weakness,\" 127, 340.\n    the agony in the garden, 128, 129.\n    his betrayal, 128, 129.\n    his experience of men, 128, 130.\n    his \"disposition for private friendships,\" 129.\n    his belief in common men, 130\n    happiness in God centre of his Gospel, 130, 134, 150, 165, 166.\n    on holiness, 131-133.\n    on rituals and taboos, 133.\n    on relation with God, 130, 133-138.\n    his intuition, 134.\n    on Fatherhood of God, 134-135.\n    on likeness to God, 135.\n    on instinct, 135, 136.\n    on Last Judgment, 136.\n    on Kingdom of God, 137.\n    on Messiahship, 128, 138.\n    his cross, 138, 139, 153, 163, 250, 251, 300, 302.\n    the crown of thorns, 265.\n    the \"spirit of Jesus,\" 139, 150, 168.\n    Christian teaching of resurrection, 146, 163, 173, 340.\n    Jesus in early Church, 151.\n    theories as to Jesus, 154-157, 340.\n    second coming, 164, 341.\n    connexion with Judaism, 167\n    Jewish slanders on Jesus, 172, 173.\n    attack of Celsus, 172, 173, 249-252.\n    better known than the Logos, 338.\n  Jews, see Judaism.\n    exiled from Palestine, 180.\n    set mobs against Christians, 169, 323, 324.\n  John the Baptist, 115.\n  Judaism, see ch. vi. generally.\n    among Greeks and Romans, 11, 70, 103.\n    its history, 169-172.\n    its Messianic future, 143, 170-172.\n    its morality, 143.\n    its casuistry, 131.\n    its tribal character, 132, 144.\n    its taboos, 131, 132, 178.\n    its monotheism, 143, 146, 169, 172, 173.\n    its teaching on sin, 144.\n    its Scriptures, 144, 174.\n    influence on Greek readers, 176.\n    prophecy of Christ in Scriptures, 183-193.\n    Judaism and Jesus, 167.\n    Judaism and Paul, 167-169.\n    resistance to Christianity, 169-174, 180.\n    circumcision, 171, 177, 179, 180.\n    Sabbath, 11, 132, 171, 177-181.\n    anti-Christian propaganda, 172, 173, 324.\n    Christian arguments against Judaism, 176-193.\n    Jewish law temporary, 181, 182.\n  Julian, 23, 162, 260.\n  Julius Caesar, C., 1, 78, 307.\n  _Julius Caesar_ (Shakespeare's), 139.\n  _Juno_ (guardian), 59.\n  Jupiter Capitolinus, 19.\n  Justin Martyr, 72, 148, 165, 176-193, 318, 323;\n      see ch. vi. generally.\n  Juvenal, 21, 23, 24, 55, 132, 202.\n\n\n\n  King, term applied to Roman Emperor, 34, 256.\n  _Kyphi_, 103.\n\n\n\n  Lactantius, 183, 237.\n  Lares, 5, 11, 14, 233.\n  Larvae, 16.\n  Lemures, 16, 233.\n  Linen, in religious ritual, 22, 211, 224, 230, 236, 330.\n  Livy, 8, 17.\n  Logos spermaticos (Stoic), see Greek Index.\n  Logos (Christian), 138, 156, 157, 189; see also under Clement.\n  Lucian, see ch. vii.\n    his origin and history, 201, 202.\n    his Dialogues, 202 f.\n    his mind and style, 203, 204, 215.\n    on philosophy, 205, 206, 209.\n    on the \"Celestial City,\" 205.\n    on the gods, 209-211.\n    on human life, 213-215.\n    on superstition, 206-208.\n    _Philopseudes_, 206-208.\n    on life after death, 214, 215.\n    on Christians, 162, 212.\n    quoted, pp. 53, 162, 163.\n  Lucretius, 12, 16, 20, 30, 71.\n    on religion, 25, 26, 27.\n    on Nature, 25.\n  Lupercal, 5.\n  Lupercalia, 9.\n\n\n\n  Magians, 13, 98, 105, 270.\n  Magic, 18, 207, 229, 230, 233, 251, 256, 335.\n  Mantic (see Oracles and Daemons), 101.\n  Marcion, 114, 193, 315, 317, 337-340.\n  Marcus Aurelius, Emperor, 63, 130, 196-201, 211, 225, 251, 319.\n    criticism of Christians, 198, 200, 244, 274.\n  Marriage, 160, 229, 299, 302, 303.\n  Martyrs, 146, 165, 319-326.\n  Maximilla, 163, 344.\n  Maximin Daza, 162, 260.\n  Menander, 99, 266, 267.\n  Messalina, 43, 44.\n  Messiah, 138, 156, 170, 173.\n  Metempsychosis, 42, 164, 252.\n  Mithras, 105, 191, 210, 256, 260, 317, 318.\n  Monarchy, 34.\n  Monasticism, 24.\n  Monotheism, 19, 94, 143, 146, 148.\n  Montanism, 327, 343, 346.\n  Moses before Greek literature, 176, 281.\n    man before Moses, 315.\n    a magician, 230.\n  Mother of the gods, see Cybele.\n  Muhammad, 191.\n  Mystagogue, 78, 99, 253, 269\n  Mysteries, 6, 76, 92, 145, 158, 230, 269, 284, 287.\n\n\n\n  Napoleon, 44.\n  Nature, in philosophy, 36, 39, 57, 58, 66, 314-317.\n  Necromancy, 99, 105.\n  Neo-Platonism, 111.\n  Nero, 44-47.\n  Nicopolis, 49.\n  Numa, King--\n    inventor of religion, 8.\n    and the nymph, Egeria, 100.\n  Nursery tales, 308.\n\n\n\n  Octavian, see Augustus.\n  Oinoanda, 217.\n  Oracles, 223, 255.\n    their numbers, 78.\n    their evidence as to gods, 92, 255.\n    as to immortality, 104.\n    daemons and oracles, 101, 102, 255; see Daemons.\n    oracle of Trophonius, 224, 255.\n  Origen, 114.\n    his book against Celsus; see ch. viii. _passim_.\n  Orpheus, 14, 98, 173, 281, 283.\n  Osiris, 98, 111, 233, 237, 330.\n  Ovid, 3, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 59.\n\n\n\n  Pan and Pans, 12, 13.\n  Pantaenus, 266, 271.\n  Pantheism, 29, 38, 58.\n  Paul, 148-150, 154-156, 167-169, 174, 177.\n  Pausanias, the traveller, 222-225, 268, 270.\n  Penates, 8, 14.\n  Peregrinus Proteus, 212, 213.\n  Perpetua, the martyr, 88, 229, 308, 324.\n  Persius, 41, 55, 56, 67, 68.\n  Philo, 125, 153, 156, 194, 289, 290.\n  Photagogue, 269.\n  Piso's conspiracy, 47.\n  Plagiarism, 117, 252, 281.\n  Plato, 34, 50, 72, 96, 97, 102, 117, 118, 135, 149, 229-232, 244,\n      245, 252, 270, 285, 288, 289, 293, 336, 337.\n  Pliny, the Elder, 13, 18, 26.\n  Pliny, the Younger, 82, 208, 331.\n  Plotinus, 99, 100.\n  Plutarch, see ch. iii. generally.\n    his history, 78-88.\n    his city, 79, 82.\n    his family, 79-80.\n    his friends, 80, 81.\n    his wife and children, 85, 86.\n    his slaves, 86-88.\n    his travels, 81.\n    his poor Latin, 81.\n    his studies, 83.\n    his writings, 83-85.\n    his character, 83-85, 89, 105.\n    his \"philosophy,\" 89-91, 105, 110.\n    defect in his thinking, 83, 85, 110, 111.\n    value of his work, 90, 110, 111.\n    \"the ancient faith of our fathers,\" 76, 89.\n    on the knowledge of the divine, 91-93.\n    on Absolute Being and transcendence of God, 93, 94, 97, 105.\n    Providence and the government of the universe, 93-96.\n    on deputy gods and daemons (_q.v._), 94-102.\n    the guardian, 99.\n    on \"Mantic\" (oracles, divination, etc.), 100-103.\n    on superstition, 103.\n    on pleasures of faith, 76, 104.\n    on immortality, 104, 105.\n    on evil, 105.\n    his apocalypses, 105.\n    on defence of tradition, 76, 106-108, 111.\n    on purification of legends, 106-108.\n    on questionable rituals, 107, 108.\n    on the Stoics, 64, 66, 68, 72, 73, 82, 94, 95, 97, 99.\n    quoted, ch. iii. _passim_; also pp. 42, 56, 60, 66, 68, 72, 73, 136.\n  Polybius, on Roman religion, 3-4.\n  Polycarp, 165.\n  Pontifex Maximus, 6, 327.\n  Porphyry, 99.\n  Prisca, 163, 344.\n  Propertius, 8.\n  Prudentius, 7, 11.\n  Psychomanteion, 99.\n  Punic language, etc., 229, 308, 319.\n  Pythagoras, 42, 55, 96, 173.\n\n\n\n  Quintilian, 9, 43, 48.\n\n\n\n  Religion--\n    nature of, 19.\n    development of, 24.\n    Oriental, 24.\n    polytheism knows no false gods, 25.\n    how to judge religions, 40.\n    city cults, 56.\n    Gospels, 56.\n    and philosophy, 132.\n    See also Jesus, Christian community, and Plutarch.\n  Rhetoric, 37, 41, 43, 82, 85, 202, 226, 228, 231, 267, 268, 310.\n  Rome--\n    her empire gift of gods, 7, 82, 334.\n    government of empire, 1, 2, 33, 141.\n    rise of superstition, 18.\n    under the Emperors, 33-37.\n    influence of Stoics, 39.\n    women of Rome, 41, 51-52.\n    its crowds of people, 47, 48.\n    as a school for virtue, 49.\n    Plutarch at Rome, 81.\n    art collections, 145.\n\n\n\n  Sabbath, 11, 132, 171.\n  Sacrifice, human, 26, 107.\n  Salvation, 54, 67, 151.\n  Satyrs, 12, 13.\n  Scepticism, 216, 217.\n  Scillitan martyrs, 319.\n  Scriptures source of Greek philosophy, 176, 281, 285.\n  Sealskin, as protection against thunder, 6.\n  Self-examination, 54, 55.\n  Seneca, see ch. ii. generally.\n    his history, 41-47.\n    his parents, 41, 43.\n    his teachers, 41-43.\n    his style, 43.\n    exile, 43-44.\n    minister, 44-46.\n    his end, 47.\n    his character, 47-49.\n    his books, 45, 46.\n    his letters, 48.\n    his teaching, 49.\n    on popular gods and superstition, 17, 49.\n    self-examination, 54.\n    quoted, ch. ii. _passim_; also pp. 15, 31, 91.\n  Serapis, 21-24.\n  Servius, commentator on Virgil, 8, 15.\n  Servius Sulpicius, 10.\n  Servius Tullius, 14.\n  Sextus Empiricus, 4, 216, 217.\n  Slavery, 36, 52.\n  Socrates, 38, 72, 73, 117, 148, 233.\n  _Solomon, Psalms of_, 170.\n  Sotion, a Pythagorean, 42.\n  Spermaticos Logos, see Greek Index.\n  Sterculus, 334.\n  Stoicism, see chap. ii. generally; see Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,\n      and Seneca; see Greek Index for Spermaticos Logos and\n      other technical terms.\n    unity of existence, 37, 56, 57, 58, 97, 314.\n    man a \"fragment of God,\" 38, 58, 60.\n    the soul, 38.\n    God, 58.\n    polytheism and personality of gods, 70, 73, 76, 95.\n    worship of God, 57.\n    \"God within,\" 61, 148.\n    \"Holy Spirit,\" 61, 65.\n    Providence, 38, 59-61, 71.\n    harmony with Nature, 39, 66.\n    argument from consensus, 68, 91.\n    divination, 16, 17, 92.\n    daemons, 59, 70.\n    the guardian, 58, 59.\n    the example, 72, 73.\n    fatalism, 60.\n    prayer, 66, 199, 200.\n    endurance, 60.\n    duty, 61.\n    the \"hymn to Zeus,\" 61, 165.\n    mankind, 63.\n    failure of Stoicism, 63 f., 67, 75.\n    on pity, 65.\n    the will, 65-68.\n    the feelings, 66.\n    sin, 67, 68\n    immortality, 68-70, 164.\n    the final conflagration, 69, 72, 164.\n    criticism of Stoicism among the ancients, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68,\n        70, 71-73, 82, 95, 97, 99, 164, 205, 206, 216, 285, 288, 291.\n  Strabo, the Geographer, 26, 223.\n  Superstition, see chs. i. and vii.\n    no refuge in sleep from it, 17, 109.\n    practices, 109, 230.\n    beliefs, 206-208.\n  Syriac, 201.\n  Syrians, 56, 103, 207.\n\n\n\n  Taboos, 131, 132.\n  Tacitus, 33, 37.\n  Tatian, 145-147, 148, 164, 271, 318.\n  Taurobolium, 67, 70.\n  Tertullian, see ch. x. generally.\n    conventional accounts of him, 305, 306, 313.\n    his work, 306.\n    his history, 307-322.\n    his education, 308-310.\n    his rhetoric, 309-311.\n    his mind and style, 311, 312, 325, 330, 346.\n    his literary interests, 309, 321.\n    his interest in medicine, 309.\n    his interest in law, 309, 330, 331, 332, 339, 340.\n    his Stoicism, 314.\n    on \"Nature,\" 314-317.\n    Nature's beauty, 317.\n    as to asceticism, 316, 345.\n    on man, 316.\n    his conversion, 318-321.\n    _testimonium animae_, 315, 320, 333.\n    on God, 315-317, 328.\n    on sin, 327.\n    on forgiveness, 327.\n    on baptism, 327-329.\n    on the Scriptures, 315, 332, 333.\n    on prophecies of Christ in Old Testament, 178-180, 184, 188,\n        189, 193.\n    on philosophy and philosophers, 336-338.\n    on heresy and heretics, 338-341.\n    on idolatry, 321, 322, 329.\n    on war, 312.\n    on theatre, 313.\n    on amphitheatre, 312, 313, 324.\n    on marriage and child-birth, 314, 316, 345.\n    on Christian life, 335.\n    on trade, 329.\n    on persecution, 318-320, 323-326.\n    on martyrdom, 319-321, 324-327.\n    his _Apology_, 330-336.\n    on the Church, 343 f.\n    on Montanism, 344 f.\n    on ecstasy, 345.\n    on the Paraclete, 344.\n    on pagan gods, 7.\n    Tertullian quoted, chs. vi. and x. _passim_; also pp. 17, 18, 71,\n        73, 93, 103, 108, 111, 137, 142, 143, 148, 160, 161, 165, 166,\n        197, 212, 240, 243, 248, 249, 250, 251, 254, 256.\n  Theophilus, 148, 318.\n  Thoreau, 326.\n  Thrasea Paetus, 40, 45, 151.\n  Tiberius, 33, 34.\n  Tibullus, 11.\n  Tongues, speaking with, 142, 149, 153, 174.\n  Tragedies, 37.\n  Trajan, 35, 331.\n  Trees, holy, 13, 230.\n  Trophonius, oracle of, 224, 255.\n  \"Trypho,\" ch. vi. _passim._\n\n\n\n  Valentinus and his school, 299, 308, 340.\n  Varro--\n    on national value of deceit in religion, 5, 343.\n    his books on the gods, 8, 9, 309.\n    counted an \"enemy of religion,\" 8, 10\n  Vegetarianism, 24, 42, 108.\n  Virgil, see ch. i., 28-32.\n    his history, 28.\n    the civil wars, 1, 28.\n    Italy, 28.\n    on Nature, 29.\n    on Man, 31.\n    on religion, 31, 32.\n  Virgin-births, 100, 189-192, 299, 334\n\n\n\n  Wells, holy, 13.\n  Witches, 97, 233.\n  Wordsworth, 2, 30, 64, 77, 86.\n\n\n\n  Xenophanes, 16, 111, 292.\n\n\n\n  Zeno, 39, 72, 333.\n  Zoology, ancient, 181, 229.\n  Zoroaster, 98, 105, 230.\n\n\n\n\n{359}\n\n  GREEK INDEX\n\n  _apatheia_, 66, 302.\n  _apathes_, 291, 292, 297, 299.\n  _aporroia_, 153, 304,\n  _apospasma tou theou_, 38.\n  _autarkes_, 31.\n\n  _genesis_, 23, 61, 98.\n  _gignestha_, 70.\n\n  _daimon_, 39; see Daemons.\n  _dogmata_, 65, 199.\n\n  _entheos_, 92, 153; _cf._ 174.\n  _enthousiodes_, 102.\n  _ennoia_, 56, 244, 281, 295.\n  _epekeina_, 245.\n\n  _theomachein_, 65, 109.\n  _theotokos_, 21.\n  _theophortos_, 21.\n\n  _kosmios_, 38, 64.\n  _krasis_, 102.\n\n  _logos_, see _spermatikos logos_.\n\n  _hola, ta_, 59, 290, 291.\n\n  _pathetos_, 155, 189, 297.\n  _pathos_, 66, 103.\n  _pneuma_, 101, 102, 295.\n  _pneuma diapuron_, 38.\n  _pneuma enthousiastikon_, 102.\n  _politeia tou kosmou_, 39.\n  _proairesis_, 65, 279.\n\n  _spermatikos logos_, 37, 56, 64, 71, 77, 148, 156.\n\n  _ta epi soi_, 39, 65, 66.\n\n  _phantasiai_, 39, 51, 101, 216.\n  _phantastikon, to_, 103.\n\n\n\n\nPRINTED BY\n\nTURNBULL AND SPEARS,\n\nEDINBURGH","title":"The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":146909}