[130] M. Aurel. To himself xi 3.
[131] Renan, M.-A. p. 329.
[132] ‘quia ratione congredi non queunt, violentia premunt; incognita causa tanquam nocentissimos damnant’ Lact. Inst. Epit. 47 (52), 4.
[133] ‘vidi ego in Bithynia praesidem gaudio mirabiliter elatum tanquam barbarorum gentem aliquam subegisset, quod unus qui per biennium magna virtute restiterat, postremo cedere visus esset’ Div. inst. v 11, 15.
[134] ‘nam cum videat vulgus dilacerari homines et invictam tenere patientiam, existimant nec perseverantiam morientium vanam esse nec ipsam patientiam sine deo cruciatus tantos posse superare ... dicit Horatius: “iustum ac tenacem ...” quo nihil verius dici potest, si ad eos referatur qui nullos cruciatus nullam mortem recusant’ ib. 13, 11 to 17.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE STOIC STRAIN IN CHRISTIANITY.
Neighbours, but strangers.
455. During the first century and a half of the Christian era Stoicism maintained an active and successful propaganda, without becoming conscious that meanwhile a new force was spreading in the Hellenic world which was soon to challenge its own supremacy. There is no evidence to show that any of the Stoic teachers with whom we have been concerned knew anything of Christianity beyond the bare name, until the two systems came into conflict in the time of Marcus Aurelius; and it is in the highest degree improbable that any of them were influenced in their opinions, directly or indirectly, by the preaching of Christianity[1]. On the other hand the apostles of the newer faith, as often as they entered any of the chief cities of the Roman empire, met at once not only with the professed adherents of Stoicism, but also with a still wider world of educated men and women which was penetrated by Stoic conceptions. From the first it was incumbent on Christian teachers to define their attitude towards this philosophy; and it is our purpose in this chapter to sketch shortly the manner in which they did so. This task belongs primarily to the historian of Christianity, but the present work would be incomplete without some adumbration of this important field of study. From the middle of the second century the relations between the two systems alter in character: there then sets in a steady stream of conversion by which the younger Stoics are drawn away from the older creed, and carry over to its rival not only their personal allegiance but also their intellectual equipment.