If a man realizes this, instead of bemoaning the difficulties of life, he will not only ask God to send them, but thank Him for them. This is the Stoical theodicy. The life and teaching of Epictetus are for the most part a commentary upon it.
“Look at the powers you have; and when you have looked at them, say, ‘Bring me, O God, what difficulty Thou wilt; for I have the equipment which Thou hast given me, and the means for making all things that happen contribute to my adornment.’ Nay, but that is not what you do: you sit sometimes shuddering at the thought of what may happen, sometimes bewailing and grieving and groaning over what does happen. Then you find fault with the gods! For what but impiety is the consequence of such degeneracy? And yet God has not merely given you these powers by which we may bear whatever happens without being lowered or crushed by it, but also, like the good King and true Father that He is, has given to this part of you the capacity of not being thwarted, or forced, or hindered, and has made it absolutely your own, not even reserving to Himself the power of thwarting or hindering it.”[412]
“What words are sufficient to praise or worthily describe the gifts of Providence to us? If we were really wise, what should we have been doing in public or in private but sing hymns to God, and bless Him and recount His gifts (τὰς χάριτας)? Digging or ploughing or eating, ought we not to be singing this hymn to God, ‘Great is God for having given us these tools for tilling the ground; great is God for having given us hands to work with and throat to swallow with, for that we grow unconsciously and breathe while we sleep’? This ought to be our hymn for everything: but the chiefest and divinest hymn should be for His having given us the power of understanding and of dealing rationally with ideas. Nay—since most of you are utterly blind to this—ought there not to be some one to make this his special function, and to sing the hymn to God for all the rest? What else can a lame old man like me do but sing hymns to God? If I were a nightingale, I should do the work of a nightingale; if a swan, the work of a swan; but being as I am a rational being, I must sing hymns to God. This is my work: this I do: this rank—as far as I can—I will not leave; and I invite you to join with me in this same song.”[413]
B. The Christian Idea.
In primitive Christianity we find ourselves in another sphere of ideas: we seem to be breathing the air of Syria, with Syrian forms moving round us, and speaking a language which is not familiar to us. For the Greek city, with its orderly government, we have to substitute the picture of an Eastern sheyk, at once the paymaster of his dependents and their judge. Two conceptions are dominant, that of wages for work done, and that of positive law.
1. The idea of moral conduct as work done for a master who will in due time pay wages for it, was a natural growth on Semitic soil. It grew up among the fellahin, to whom the day’s work brought the day’s wages, and whose work was scrutinized before the wages were paid. It is found in many passages of the New Testament, and not least of all in the discourses of our Lord. The ethical problems which had vexed the souls of the writers of Job and the Psalms, are solved by the teaching that the wages are not all paid now, but that some of them are in the keeping of the Father in heaven. The persecuted are consoled by the thought, “Great are your wages in heaven.”[414] Those who do their alms before men receive their wages in present reputation, and have no wages stored up for them in heaven.[415] The smallest act of casual charity, the giving of a cup of cold water, will not go without its wages.[416] The payment will be made at the return of the Son of Man, whose “wages are with him to give to every man according as his work is.”[417] So fundamental is the conception that “he that cometh to God must believe,” not only “that He is,” but also that He “pays their due to them that seek after Him.”[418] So also in the early Christian literature which moved still within the sphere of Syrian ideas. In the “Two Ways,” what is given in charity should be given without murmuring, for God will repay it:[419] in the Epistle of Barnabas, the conception of the paymaster is blended with that of the judge.[420] “The Lord judges without respect of persons: every one shall receive according as he has done: if he be good, his righteousness shall go before him: if he be wicked, the wages of his wickedness are before his face.”
2. God is at once the Lawgiver and the Judge. The underlying conception is that of an Oriental sovereign who issues definite commands, who is gratified by obedience and made angry by disobedience, who gives presents to those who please him and punishes those with whom he is angry. The punishments which he inflicts are vindictive and not remedial. They are the manifestation of his vengeance against unrighteousness. They are external to the offender. They follow on the offence by the sentence of the judge, and not by a self-acting law. He sends men into punishment.
The introduction into this primitive Christianity of the ethical conceptions of Greek philosophy, raised difficulties which were long in being solved, if indeed they can be said to have been solved even now. The chief of these difficulties were, (i.) the relation of the idea of forgiveness to that of law; (ii.) the relation of the conception of a Moral Governor to that of free-will.