485. In the ages that have since followed mythology and philosophy have been at work side by side within the Christian church. At no time had Christians of philosophic temperament entirely thrown off the belief in marvels, and this in increasing degree infected the whole Hellenistic world from the second century onwards. But this spirit of concession proved no sure protection to men who, after all, were guilty of thinking. It was substantially on this ground that the first persecutions began within the church. Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria (circ. 230 A.D.), excommunicated Origen, and obtained the support of the great majority of the Christian churches for his action; still Origen steadily held his ground, and has found advocates in all ages of Christian history[155]. Throughout the ‘dark ages’ philosophical thought lay almost extinguished, and a childish credulity attained such monstrous dimensions as to threaten the very existence of social life. In the ecclesiastical chronicles of the middle ages miracles are so frequent that the orderly course of nature seems the exception; angels and devils are so many that men are almost forgotten. To these hallucinations and fictions of the monastery, so deservedly ridiculed in the Ingoldsby Legends[156], the practical experience of daily life must always have supplied some corrective; the swollen claim of ‘faith’ to say yes to every absurdity had to be met by the reassertion of criticism, the right to say ‘no.’ The Reformation, at the cost of infinite effort and sacrifice, swept away the miracles of the saints; modern criticism has spared none of the marvels of the Old Testament, and is beginning to lay its axe to the root of those of the New. Every day the conviction that ‘miracles do not happen’ gains ground amongst intelligent communities; that is (in philosophic language) the dualism of God and Nature is being absorbed in the wider monism according to which God and Nature are one.
Christian philosophy.
486. As the credit of Christian mythology diminishes, the philosophic content of the new religion is regaining its authority. The doctrine of the ‘spiritual life’ has not yet lost its freshness or its power; but the more closely it is examined, the more clearly will it be seen that it is rooted in the fundamental Stoic conceptions of providence and duty, and that, in the history of the Christian church, it is specially bound up with the life and writings of the apostle Paul. It is not suggested that the sketch of Christian teaching contained in this chapter is in any way a complete or even a well-proportioned view of the Christian faith; for we have necessarily thrown into the background those elements of the new religion which are drawn from Judaism[157] or from the personality of the Founder. Nor have we found in Paul a Stoic philosopher: it remains for a more direct and profound study to determine which of the forces which stirred his complex intellect most exactly represents his true and final convictions. No man at any rate ever admitted more frankly the conflict both of moral and of intellectual cravings within himself; no man ever cautioned his followers more carefully against accepting all his words as final. With these reservations we may perhaps venture to join in the hopes of a recent writer who was endowed with no small prophetic insight:
‘The doctrine of Paul will arise out of the tomb where for centuries it has lain buried. It will edify the church of the future; it will have the consent of happier generations, the applause of less superstitious ages. All will be too little to pay the debt which the church of God owes to this “least of the apostles, who was not fit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the church of God[158].”’
Stoicism in the present.
487. When that day comes, it will be recognised that Stoicism is something more than what the Church Fathers meant when they described it as part of the ‘preparation of the gospel’; that it may rather be regarded as forming an integral part of the Christian message, or (as it has been recently called) a ‘root of Christianity[159].’ If this view is correct, Stoicism is not dead nor will it die; whether it is correct or not, the study of Stoicism is essential to the full understanding of the Christian religion, as also to that of many other fundamental conceptions of our modern life. Still the Christian churches celebrate yearly in quick succession the twin festivals of Pentecost and Trinity, in which the groundwork of the Stoic physics is set forth for acceptance by the faithful in its Christian garb; whilst the scientific world has lately in hot haste abandoned the atomic theory as a final explanation of the universe, and is busy in re-establishing in all its essentials the Stoic doctrine of an all-pervading aether. In the practical problems of statesmanship and private life we are at present too often drifting like a ship without a rudder, guided only by the mirages of convention, childishly alarmed at the least investigation of first principles; till the most numerous classes are in open revolt against a civilisation which makes no appeal to their reason, and a whole sex is fretting against a subordination which seems to subserve no clearly defined purpose. In this part of philosophy we may at least say that Stoicism has stated clearly the chief problems, and has begun to pave a road towards their solution. But that solution will not be found in the refinements of logical discussion: of supreme importance is the force of character which can at the right moment say ‘yes’ or say ‘no.’ In this sense also (and not by any more mechanical interpretation) we understand the words of the Founder of Christianity: ‘let your language be “Yes, yes” or “No, no”; anything in excess of this comes from the Evil one[160].’ To the simple and the straightforward, who trust themselves because they trust a power higher than themselves, the future belongs.
FOOTNOTES
[1] As to supposed instances to the contrary see Winckler, Stoicismus, pp. 5 to 14.
[2] For material of this kind see Winckler’s dissertation just quoted, and Lightfoot’s Philippians, pp. 278-290.
[3] ‘For we are also his offspring’ Acts xvii 28.