God (says St Chrysostom again) has placed man in the world as in a royal palace gleaming with gold and precious stones; but the wonderful thing about this palace is, that it is not made of stone, but of far costlier material; he has not lighted up a golden candelabra, but given lights their fixed course in the roof of the palace, where they are not only useful to us, but an object of great delight.[[13]]
The Roman secular writers of the first Christian centuries had not this depth of thought and sadness; but from them too we have notable descriptions of Nature in which personal pleasure and sympathy are evident motives as well as religious feeling.
In the little Octavius of Minucius Felix, a writing full of genuine human feeling of the time of Commodus, the mixture of the heathen culture and opinions of antiquity with the Christian way of thinking has a very modern ring. The scenery is finely sketched.
The heats of summer being over, autumn began to be temperate ... we (two friends, a heathen and a Christian) agreed to go to the delightful city of Ostia.... As, at break of day, we were proceeding along the banks of the Tiber towards the sea, that the soft breeze might invigorate our limbs, and that we might enjoy the pleasure of feeling the beach gently subside under our footsteps, Cæcilius observed an image of Serapis, and having raised his hands to his lips, after the wont of the superstitious vulgar, he kissed it.... Then Octavius said: 'It is not the part of a good man, brother Marcus, thus to leave an intimate companion and friend amidst blind popular ignorance, and to suffer him, in such open daylight, to stumble against stones,' etc.... Discoursing after this sort, we traversed the space between Ostia and the sea, and arrived at the open coast. There the gentle surges had smoothed the outermost sands like a pleasure walk, and as the sea, although the winds blow not, is ever unquiet, it came forward to the shore, not hoary and foaming, but with waves gently swelling and curled. On this occasion we were agreeably amused by the varieties of its appearance, for, as we stood on the margin and dipped the soles of our feet in the water, the wave alternately struck at us, and then receding, and sliding away, seemed to swallow up itself. We saw some boys eagerly engaged in the game of throwing shells in the sea.... Cæcilius said: 'All things ebb into the fountain from which they spring, and return back to their original without contriver, author, or supreme arbiter ... showers fall, winds blow, thunder bellows, and lightnings flash ... but they have no aim.' Octavius answers: 'Behold the heaven itself, how wide it is stretched out, and with what rapidity its revolutions are performed, whether in the night when studded with stars, or in the daytime when the sun ranges over it, and then you will learn with what a wonderful and divine hand the balance is held by the Supreme Moderator of all things; see how the circuit made by the sun produces the year, and how the moon, in her increase, wanes and changes, drives the months around.... Observe the sea, it is bound by a law that the shore imposes; the variety of trees, how each of them is enlivened from the bowels of the earth! Behold the ocean, it ebbs and flows alternately. Look at the springs, they trickle with a perpetual flow; at rivers, they hold on their course in quick and continued motion. Why should I speak of the ridges of mountains, aptly disposed? of the gentle slope of hills, or of plains widely extended?... In this mansion of the world, when you fully consider the heaven and the earth, and that providence, order, and government visible in them, assure yourself that there is indeed a Lord and Parent of the whole ... do not enquire for the name of God--God is his name.... If I should call Him Father, you would imagine Him earthly; if King, carnal; and if Lord, mortal. Remove all epithets, and then you will be sensible of His glory....'
How like Faust's confession of faith to Gretchen:
Him who dare name
And yet proclaim,
Yes! I believe...
The All-embracer,
All-sustainer,