If we would personify Christianity and Philosophy as they met each other at the close of the first century of our era, we may designate the one as the young man, who, though poor in this world’s goods, is strong in hope, in faith, in himself and in his cause. His superb physique, his capital digestion, make him ready for any enterprise, any sacrifice that shall promise success. Any field in which he may display his splendid energies is welcome to him, for he lives not in the past, but in the future. The other is the old man who has, in the main, lived a useful and honorable life, who has performed some noble deeds, and whose chief anxiety is to give the rising generation the benefit of the wisdom that has come to him in a life of study and observation. But, as is usually the case with the aged, his advice has become commonplace and the rising generation passes him by almost unheeded. Few have now any confidence in his teachings, while many of his former disciples have deserted him. It is his sad fate, to see himself jostled at first and finally thrust aside by the passing stream of humanity.
The principal works used in the study of Plutarch here placed before the reader are the following:
Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia. Edidit Daniel Wyttenbach. 8 voll. Oxonii, 1795-1821.
R. Volkmann. Leben und Schriften des Plutarch von Chaeronea. Berlin, 1869.
O. Grèard. De la Morale de Plutarque. Cinquiéme edition. Paris, 1892.
Plutarch’s Werke übersetzt von Klaiber, Bähr, u. A. Stuttgart, 1837-57.
Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia. Recognovit Gregorius N. Bernardakis. Lipsiae, 1888-96. 7 voll.
The last named contains a revised text only; from it my translation of the De Sera was made. The German translation of Bähr, the well-known Heidelberg professor, in the collection above cited, follows the original very closely and has been of much service to me by its interpretation of obscure passages.
A complete catalogue of Plutarch’s Moralia is given in the appendix. The list is borrowed from the edition of Bernardakis and the question of authenticity is not taken into account.