I. Negative Preparation,—in the history of the heathen world.
This showed (1) the true nature of sin, and the depth of spiritual ignorance and of moral depravity to which the race, left to itself, must fall; and (2) the powerlessness of human nature to preserve or regain an adequate knowledge of God, or to deliver itself from sin by philosophy or art.
Why could not Eve have been the mother of the chosen seed, as she doubtless at the first supposed that she was? (Gen. 4:1—“and she conceived, and bare Cain [i. e., “gotten”, or “acquired”], and said, I have gotten a man, even Jehovah”). Why was not the cross set up at the gates of Eden? Scripture intimates that a preparation was needful (Gal 4:4—“but when the fulness of the time came, God hath sent forth his Son”). Of the two agencies made use of, we have called heathenism the negative preparation. But it was not wholly negative; it was partly positive also. Justin Martyr spoke of a Λόγος σπερματικός among the heathen. Clement of Alexandria called Plato a Μωσῆς ἀττικίζων—a Greek-speaking Moses. Notice the priestly attitude of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Pindar, Sophocles. The Bible recognizes Job, Balaam, Melchisedek, as instances of priesthood, or divine communication, outside the bounds of the chosen people. Heathen religions either were not religions, or God had a part in them. Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, were at least reformers, raised up in God's providence. Gal 4:3 classes Judaism with the “rudiments of the world,” and Rom. 5:20 tells us that “the law came in beside,” as a force coöperating with other human factors, primitive revelation, sin, etc.
The positive preparation in heathenism receives greater attention when we conceive of Christ as the immanent God, revealing himself in conscience and in history. This was the real meaning of Justin Martyr, Apol. 1:46; 2:10, 13—“The whole race of men partook of the Logos, and those who lived according to reason (λόγου), were Christians, even though they were accounted atheists. Such among the Greeks were Socrates and Heracleitus, and those who resembled them.... Christ was known in part even to Socrates.... The teachings of Plato are not alien to those of Christ, though not in all respects similar. For all the writers of antiquity were able to have a dim vision of realities by means of the indwelling seed of the implanted Word (λόγου).” Justin Martyr claimed inspiration for Socrates. Tertullian spoke of Socrates as “pæne noster”—“almost [pg 666]one of us.” Paul speaks of the Cretans as having: “a prophet of their own”(Tit. 1:12)—probably Epimenides (596 B. C.) whom Plato calls a θεῖος ἀνήρ—“a man of God,” and whom Cicero couples with Bacis and the Erythræan Sibyl. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 1:19; 6:5—“The same God who furnished both the covenants was the giver of the Greek philosophy to the Greeks, by which the Almighty is glorified among the Greeks.” Augustine: “Plato made me know the true God; Jesus Christ showed me the way to him.”
Bruce, Apologetics, 207—“God gave to the Gentiles at least the starlight of religious knowledge. The Jews were elected for the sake of the Gentiles. There was some light even for pagans, though heathenism on the whole was a failure. But its very failure was a preparation for receiving the true religion.” Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 133, 238—“Neo-Platonism, that splendid vision of incomparable and irrecoverable cloudland in which the sun of Greek philosophy set.... On its ethical side Christianity had large elements in common with reformed Stoicism; on its theological side it moved in harmony with the new movements of Platonism.” E. G. Robinson: “The idea that all religions but the Christian are the direct work of the devil is a Jewish idea, and is now abandoned. On the contrary, God has revealed himself to the race just so far as they have been capable of knowing him.... Any religion is better than none, for all religion implies restraint.”
John 1:9—“There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world”—has its Old Testament equivalent in Ps. 94:10—“He that chastiseth the nations, shall not he correct, Even he that teacheth man knowledge?” Christ is the great educator of the race. The preincarnate Word exerted an influence upon the consciences of the heathen. He alone makes it true that “anima naturaliter Christiana est.” Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 138-140—“Religion is union between God and the soul. That experience was first perfectly realized in Christ. Here are the ideal fact and the historical fact united and blended. Origen's and Tertullian's rationalism and orthodoxy each has its truth. The religious consciousness of Christ is the fountain head from which Christianity has flowed. He was a beginning of life to men. He had the spirit of sonship—God in man, and man in God. ‘Quid interius Deo?’ He showed us insistence on the moral ideal, yet the preaching of mercy to the sinner. The gospel was the acorn, and Christianity is the oak that has sprung from it. In the acorn, as in the tree, are some Hebraic elements that are temporary. Paganism is the materializing of religion; Judaism is the legalizing of religion. ‘In me,’ says Charles Secretan, ‘lives some one greater than I.’ ”
But the positive element in heathenism was slight. Her altars and sacrifices, her philosophy and art, roused cravings which she was powerless to satisfy. Her religious systems became sources of deeper corruption. There was no hope, and no progress. “The Sphynx's moveless calm symbolizes the monotony of Egyptian civilization.”Classical nations became more despairing, as they became more cultivated. To the best minds, truth seemed impossible of attainment, and all hope of general well-being seemed a dream. The Jews were the only forward-looking people; and all our modern confidence in destiny and development comes from them. They, in their turn, drew their hopefulness solely from prophecy. Not their “genius for religion,” but special revelation from God, made them what they were.
Although God was in heathen history, yet so exceptional were the advantages of the Jews, that we can almost assent to the doctrine of the New Englander, Sept. 1883:576—“The Bible does not recognize other revelations. It speaks of the ‘face of the covering that covereth all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations’ (Is. 25:7); Acts 14:16, 17—‘who in the generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways. And yet he left not himself without witness’ = not an internal revelation in the hearts of sages, but an external revelation in nature, ‘in that he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.’ The convictions of heathen reformers with regard to divine inspiration were dim and intangible, compared with the consciousness of prophets and apostles that God was speaking through them to his people.”
On heathenism as a preparation for Christ, see Tholuck, Nature and Moral Influence of Heathenism, in Bib. Repos., 1832:80, 246, 441; Döllinger, Gentile and Jew; Pressensé, Religions before Christ; Max Müller, Science of Religion, 1-128; Cocker, Christianity and Greek Philosophy; Ackerman, Christian Element in Plato; Farrar, Seekers after God; Renan, on Rome and Christianity, in Hibbert Lectures for 1880.