[Footnote 851: ][ (return) ] Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," p. 202.
Thus the determinations which, through Redemption, fall to the lot of history, as Nitzsch justly remarks, obey the emancipating law of gradual progress. [852] Christianity was preceded by ages of preparation, in which we have a gradual development of religious phrases and ideas, of forms of social life and intellectual culture, and of national and political institutions most favorable to its advent and its promulgation; and "in the fullness of time"--the maturity and fitness of the age--"God sent his own Son into the world."
[Footnote 852: ][ (return) ] "System of Doctrine," p. 73.
This work of preparation was not confined alone to Judaism. The divine plan of redemption comprehended all the race; its provisions are made in view of the wants of all the race; and we must therefore believe that the entire history of the race, previous to the coming of the Redeemer, was under a divine supervision, and directed towards the grand centre of our world's history. Greek philosophy and Grecian civilization must therefore have a place in the divine plan of history, and they must stand in an important relation to Christianity. He who "determined the time of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries of their habitation in order that they may seek the Lord," can not have been unmindful of the Greek nation, and of its grandest age of philosophy. "The Father of the spirits of all flesh" could not be unconcerned in the moral and spiritual welfare of any of his children. He was as deeply interested in the Athenian as in the Hebrew. He is the God of the Gentile as well as the Jew. His tender mercies are over all his works. If the Hebrew race was selected to be the agent of his providence in one special field, and if the Jewish theocracy was one grand instrument of preparatory discipline, it was simply because, through these, God designed to bless all the nations of the earth. And surely no one will presume to say that a civilization and an intellectual culture which was second only to the Hebrew, and, in some of its aspects, even in advance of the Hebrew, was not determined and supervised by Divine Providence, and made subservient to the education and development of the whole race. The grand results of Hebrew civilization were appropriated and assimilated by Christianity, and remain to this day. And no one can deny that the same is true of Greek civilization. Through a kind of historic preparation the heathen world was made ready for Christ, as a soil is prepared to receive the seed, and some precious fruits of knowledge, of truth, and of righteousness, even, were largely matured, which have been reaped, and appropriated, and vitalized by the heaven-descended life of Christianity.
The chief points of excellence in the civilization of the Greeks are strikingly obvious, and may be readily presented. High perfection of the intellect and the imagination displaying itself in the various forms of art, poetry, literature, and philosophy. A wonderful freedom and activity of body and of mind, developed in trade, and colonization, in military achievement, and in subtile dialectics. A striking love of the beautiful, revealing itself in their sculpture and architecture, in the free music of prosaic numbers, and the graceful movement and measure of their poetry. A quickness of perception, a dignity of demeanor, a refinement of taste, a delicacy of moral sense, and a high degree of reverence for the divine in nature and humanity. And, in general, a ripe and all-pervading culture, which has made Athens a synonym for all that is greatest and best in the genius of man; so that literature, in its most flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at her altars, and art has looked back to the age of Pericles for her purest models. [853] All these enter into the very idea of Greek civilization. We can not resist the conviction that, by a Divine Providence, it was made subservient to the purpose of Redemption; it prepared the way for, and contributed to, the spread of the Gospel.
[Footnote 853: ][ (return) ] In Lord Brougham's celebrated letter to the father of the historian Macaulay in regard to the education of the latter, we read: "If he would be a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head, and be familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes.... I know from experience that nothing is half so successful in these times (bad though they be) as what has been formed on the Greek models. I use poor illustrations in giving my own experience, but I do assure you that both in courts and Parliament, and even to mobs, I have never made so much play (to use a very modern phrase) as when I was almost translating from the Greek. I composed the peroration of my speech for the Queen, in the Lords, after reading and repeating Demosthenes for three or four weeks."
Its subserviency to this grand purpose is seen in the Greek tendency to trade and colonization. Their mental activity was accompanied by great physical freedom of movement. They displayed an inherent disposition to extensive emigration. "Without aiming at universal conquest, they developed (if we may use the word) a remarkable catholicity of character, and a singular power of adaptation to those whom they called Barbarians. In this respect they were strongly contrasted with the Egyptians, whose immemorial civilization was confined to the long valley which extended from the cataracts to the mouth of the Nile. The Hellenic tribes, on the other hand, though they despised the foreigners, were never unwilling to visit them and to cultivate their acquaintance. At the earliest period at which history enables us to discover them, we see them moving about in their ships on the shores and among the islands of their native seas; and, three or four centuries before the Christian era, Asia Minor, beyond which the Persians had not been permitted to advance, was bordered by a fringe of Greek colonies; and lower Italy, when the Roman Republic was just becoming conscious of its strength, had received the name of Greece itself. To all these places they carried their arts and literature, their philosophy, their mythology, and their amusements.... They were gradually taking the place of the Phœnicians in the empire of the Mediterranean. They were, indeed, less exclusively mercantile than those old discoverers. Their voyages were not so long. But their influence on general civilization was greater and more permanent. The earliest ideas of scientific navigation and geography are due to the Greeks. The later Greek travellers, Pausanias and Strabo, are our best sources of information on the topography of St. Paul's journeys.
"With this view of the Hellenic character before us, we are prepared to appreciate the vast results of Alexander's conquests. He took the meshes of the net of Greek civilization which were lying in disorder on the edge of the Asiatic shore, and spread them over all the countries he traversed in his wonderful campaigns. The East and the West were suddenly brought together. Separate tribes were united under a common government. New cities were built as the centres of political life. New lines of communication were opened as the channels of commercial activity. The new culture penetrated the mountain ranges of Pisidia and Lycaonia. The Tigris and Euphrates became Greek rivers. The language of Athens was heard among the Jewish colonies of Babylonia, and a Grecian Babylon was built by the conqueror in Egypt, and called by his name.
"The empire of Alexander was divided, but the effects of his campaigns and policy did not cease. The influence of these fresh elements of social life was rather increased by being brought into independent action within the sphere of distinct kingdoms. Our attention is particularly directed to two of the monarchical lines which descended from Alexander's generals--the Ptolemies, or the Greek kings of Egypt, and the Seleucidæ, or the Greek kings of Syria. Their respective capitals, Alexandria and Antioch, became the metropolitan centres of commercial and civilized life in the East." [854] Antioch was for ages the home of science and philosophy. Here the religious opinions of the East and the West were blended and mutually modified. Here it was discovered by the heathen mind that a new religion had appeared, and a new revelation had been given. [855] In Alexandria all nations were invited to exchange their commodities and, with equal freedom, their opinions. The representatives of all religions met here. "Beside the Temple of Jupiter there rose the white marble Temple of Serapis, and close at hand stood the synagogue of the Jews." The Alexandrian library contained all the treasures of ancient culture, and even a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures.
[Footnote 854: ][ (return) ] Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i. pp. 8-10.