In the Schools after the year 150 B. C. there appear many notable names—notable not because they contributed to the theoretic advance of philosophy, but for some other reason. In the Stoic School were Panætius, Posidonius, and Boëthus; and later Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Among the Academicians are Philo of Larissa and Antiochus; among the Peripatetics of the same century is Andronicus; and among the eclectic Platonists Plutarch is especially to be named; these were all eclectics. The only one in this group of eclectics whom we shall have time for a passing examination of is Cicero.
M. Tullius Cicero (106–43 B. C.) listened to Greek philosophy in all the Schools in Athens and Rhodes. He read a good deal of Greek literature, so that he had much philosophical material at his command. He did not show much discretion in his selection of his material, but he displayed a good deal of tact in using what the Roman people would receive. The Greek mind spoke to the Roman through Cicero’s voice almost as though the Roman were speaking for himself. It must be admitted that Cicero’s acquaintance with Greek philosophy was on the whole superficial, yet he was able to express certain aspects of Greek philosophy with clearness for contemporary Latin readers and for many generations succeeding them. He prided himself in his ability to discuss both sides of a question without himself arriving at a decision—after the manner of the Middle Academy, of which he inscribed himself as a member. His books appeared in rather rapid succession.
Cicero does not therefore owe his prominence as a philosopher so much to his own profound independence of thought as to his skill in translating Greek thought to the Roman people. His metaphysics is an eclecticism that is at bottom a skepticism. In view of the existing philosophical warfare, he despaired of metaphysical or absolutely complete knowledge. Yet upon ethical and religious questions he spoke in no undecided manner, for in these realms he felt that we have more than merely probable evidence. Since he was unable to refute Skepticism in a scientific way, he took refuge in the immediate certainty of consciousness in all matters that pertain to morals and religion. There are certain ideas common to all men. These have not so much been taught to all men by nature as they are inborn in all. They are convictions implanted in us; there is a common human consciousness from which they are derived, and they are confirmed by universal opinion. Ethical and religious consciousness thus rests on immediate certainty. Man has the innate ideas of duty, immortality, and God. Our belief in God’s existence is supported by the teleological argument for Providence and divine government. The high dignity of man rests upon this innate conviction of freedom and immortality. Cicero shows his eclecticism by moderating the Stoic doctrine of virtue: virtue in itself is vita beata, but virtue plus happiness is vita beatissima. Unoriginal and eclectic as Cicero’s philosophical position may be, it is of great importance to the student of Roman history.
CHAPTER XIII
THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD (100 B. C.–476 A. D.)
The Two Causes of the Rise of Religious Feeling. There were two causes for the turn of the time from its interest in individual practical ethics to religion. The first was an inner cause within the nature of the ethical philosophy of the Schools. The rise of the religious and the supernatural was the culmination of the undercurrent of skepticism in the validity of reason, which we found growing rapidly in the Ethical Period. The more the Schools grew alike in their teaching, the less were they able to assure their disciples of any certain insight into virtue and happiness. The Ethical Period ended in eclecticism, and this was the impeachment of the authority of each School. The Schools examined their dogmatic assumptions. The fundamental inner conviction grew stronger that the intellect of man is self-inconsistent: so inconsistent as to be undependable; so inconsistent as not to vouchsafe man the virtue and happiness which the Schools had promised. As Skepticism became more strongly intrenched, the imperturbable self-certainty of the Wise Man became shaken, the Ethical Period disappeared, and the Religious Period was born. Belief in the authority of the supernatural superseded belief in the authority of the reason.
The second cause may be called external, and was the introduction of many eastern religions into the empire. It has been common to exaggerate the vices of theRomans of the first Christian centuries, and to point to the corruption of the times as the cause of the great rise of religions.[42] No doubt, in the city of Rome and other large cities the populations were very licentious and corrupt. But this was not the case with the people in the small municipalities and the country. The people were united in peace under one government. There was great commercial prosperity and widespread travel. Education prospered. The religion of the Romans, however, long since decadent, had become an object of derision. All faith in it had been lost, and magicians and romancers had a large patronage. The inner life of man demanded some external spiritual authority to satisfy it, and, finding it could not be satisfied in the realm of sense, turned to the supersensuous. It was an age of universal superstitions, reported miracles, and the multiplying of myths. In the realm of the religious emotions everything was in flux. Even the Greek philosophies—the Stoic, the Platonic, the Cynic, and the neo-Pythagorean—show it in their emphasis upon renunciation in practical life. In place of the Grecian love for earthly existence, a longing for the mysterious was growing into a feverish desire for strange and mysterious cults. A great religious movement possessed the nations of the empire, and into Roman civilization of the first century A. D. there streamed many new religions. From the Orient came the Mithra, Magna Mater, Star Worship, Isis and Osiris, and many others. These mingled with the western religions, and their rivalry was energetic for the possession of men’s spirits. The Roman people were hospitable to all religions, and Rome became a religious battleground. With the interestturned from earthly to heavenly things, salvation from trouble seemed to lie in the supernatural.
The Need of Spiritual Authority. Thus the complacent Ethical Period gave way to the cry for some authority in morals and science. Man was no longer confident that he could attain present happiness or his soul’s salvation by his own strength. He turned for help both to the religious tradition of the past and to the revelation that might come to him in the present. The authority in either was practically the same; for the past was only the crystallization of an ever-present divine spirit. Yet present and past revelations differ in their credentials: the present revelation is an immediate illumination of the spirit; the past is presented in historic records. The Alexandrian school accepted both forms of revelation as the highest source of knowledge.
The demand for supernatural authority found expression in many curious ways. It is notorious that at this time the writings and oral traditions of the past were greatly interpolated. The philosophers of the first century thought that they themselves could get a hearing only by inserting their own doctrines into the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and other heroes of the past. Thus the neo-Pythagoreans invented a halo of wisdom for Pythagoras in order to give their own sect its credentials. The demand for authority culminated in the attempt to trace the entire civilization of the time to some religious source. Philo on the one side, and the Gnostics on the other, found that Greek and Hebrew history have a common religious origin. Greek thought was found in the Oriental writings. The Greek sages were placed by the side of the Old Testament heroes. The canon of the Christians is full ofcross-references—the Old Testament giving historical authority to the New Testament, the New Testament giving to the Old Testament the support of immediate revelation. There came into vogue what was called “allegorical interpretation,” according to which an historical document could be given two interpretations (or more)—a literal interpretation and a spiritual interpretation. The documents were supposed to have a body and a soul. The literal interpretation was of the body of the documents and suitable for the people; the spiritual interpretation was the more liberal interpretation of the soul of the document and suitable for philosophers.
At the same time a vast number of writings appeared as historical revelations. It was necessary to separate the true from the false, but this could not be done by the individual without injuring the very principle upon which revelation was supposed to rest. Consequently all knowledge was generally regarded as revelation. For example, Plutarch and the Stoics divided revelation into three classes: poetry, law, and philosophy. Although Plutarch disclaimed open superstitions, he nevertheless accepted as true all sorts of miracles and prophecies. The later neo-Platonists are also examples of the great body of those who made no discrimination as to what revelation is true. The Christian church may be said to have been alone in making a criticism of the records, and in setting up as criteria tradition and historically accredited authority. As a result of its criticism the Christian canon was finally decided upon, and the Old and New Testaments were accepted as alone inspired. The rivals of the church—the Alexandrian philosophies, especially neo-Platonism—had no organization that could decide upon a canon. Theywere consequently at a disadvantage, but they felt no need of an infallible historical authority or of historical criticism. Revelation to them was any immediate illumination of the individual. The individual man who comes in contact with the Deity has possession of the divine truth. Although only few attain the truth, and these only at rare moments, there is nevertheless no way of determining what is fictitious and what is true. This difference in the conception of inspiration between the neo-Platonists and the Christians is important to note, for it marks an important difference in the two greatest intellectual movements of the next thousand years. The church fixed revelation on the basis of historical authority, and this revelation became the source of the scholasticism of the Middle Ages; neo-Platonism left the individual man free to get revelation from any source through his own personal contact with the divine, and this was the basis of the mysticism of the Middle Ages.