Having turned from the worship of Jehovah to the worship of man, then bird, and beast, and reptile, we find associated with worship the grossest forms of licentiousness. This is stated by Paul in the first chapter of Romans. The thought which must be borne in mind is that man turns from God and worships himself. He can conceive of no power higher than his own mind, no form more lofty than his own. His first idol is the human form, male or female. He endows this with human passions, for he knows no heart but his own. By beholding he becomes changed into the same passionate creature; a beast becomes the personification of his deity, and the sacred bull his god. Everything about the worship is gross, and birds, crocodiles, and all sorts of reptiles become objects of worship. This is Egypt. This, in fact, pictures the final worship in any country which turns from Christ and places faith in man.
There are a variety of forms in worship, as there are a variety of complexions in the men of different countries; but it is one and the same plan throughout, resting upon one system of education, producing the same results, whether traced in the proud Babylonish court, the loathsome filth of Egypt, Greece with its intellectual pride and culture, in Roman law, or in the more modern European countries. Paganism is the green-eyed monster, crouching on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, whose body follows the course of the Nile, whose paws reach both east and west, and whose breath has poisoned the atmosphere of all Europe. Into those eyes men have gazed expecting to find wisdom. It was but the glare of the demon, as the tiger’s gaze at night.
Egyptian religion and education
For Egypt itself, it blotted out all individual rights, placing the masses as a common herd writhing in superstition under the hands of a tyrannical king and a scheming priesthood. It was indeed “an iron furnace,” as God had called it, and as Israel had found by sad experience. It was tyranny in government; it was still more bitter tyranny in education and religion. As well might one strive to move the pyramids, or get words from the silent sphinx, as to hope to change the life in Egypt by means of anything presented in Egypt.
Cultivation of the senses
Of Egyptian education, Jahn says: The “priests were a separate tribe, ... and they performed not only the services of religion but the duties of all civil offices to which learning was necessary. They therefore devoted themselves in a peculiar manner to the cultivation of the sciences.... They studied natural philosophy, natural history, medicine, mathematics (particularly astronomy and geometry), history, civil polity, and jurisprudence.” Place this course of study by the side of Jewish education, and you notice in the latter the Bible and such subjects as tended to develop spirituality, those things which faith alone could grasp; while the education of the Egyptian had an entirely intellectual basis, and dealt with those subjects which appeal to the senses and to human reason.
When this system as a system is traced in other countries, especially in Greece, this characteristic becomes startling in the extreme; and if reference is made to it often in contrast to the Jewish system, it is because herein lies the pivot upon which the history of nations revolves. It is either faith or reason to-day, as it has been faith opposed to reason throughout the ages. In place of reason use the word philosophy, for that was a favorite expression among the pagans.
Pagan philosophy folly
The gospel has stood opposed to the philosophy of the world since the beginning; hence we read, “For the reason of the Cross is certainly folly to the reprobate, but to us, the saved, it is a divine power; for it is written, ‘I will destroy the philosophy of the philosophers, and upset the cleverness of the clever.’ Where is the philosopher? where is the scholar? where is the investigator of this age? Has not God made the philosophy of this world folly? For when in the divine philosophy the world did not perceive God through the philosophy, it pleased God to save the faithful by means of the folly of preaching. As, however, Jews demand a sign, and Greeks seek after philosophy, we now proclaim a crucified Christ, a certain offense to the Jews, and joke to the heathen, but to the called, whether Jews or Greeks,—Christ a divine power and a divine philosophy.... For observe your calling, brothers, that there are not many fashionable philosophers, nor many powerful men, nor many of high birth.”[35]