[Sidenote: The Stoical philosophy.]
If any form of ancient philosophy could have renovated society, it was the Stoical school, which Zeno had founded. It commended itself, in a corrupt age, to many noble and powerful minds, because it raised them above the corruption around them, and proclaimed an ideal standard of morality. The Romans cared very little for mere speculations on God or the universe; but they did revere that which proposed a practical aim. The Stoics despised prevailing baseness, and set examples of a severe morality. Marcus Aurelius, one of the loftiest followers of this school, was a model of every virtue, and he looked upon his philosophy as a means of salvation to a crumbling empire. But the Stoics, with all their morality, were the Pharisees of pagan antiquity. They held themselves superior to all other classes of men. They gloried in their proud isolation. And with all the loftiness of Stoicism, it did not teach of a God who governed the world in mercy and love, but according to the iron decrees of necessity. It attacked error with a stern severity, but had no toleration for human weakness. It confounded the idea of God with that of the universe, and therefore destroyed his personality, making the Deity himself an influence, or a development. The Stoic despised the age, and despised every influence to elevate it which did not come from himself. He treated the most wholesome truths so partially as to be led into the greatest absurdities of doctrine and inconsistencies with their general principle. Epictetus, indeed, infused a new life into the Stoical philosophy. He taught the doctrine of passive endurance so forcibly that the Christians claimed him for their own. But there was nothing which appealed to the people in Stoicism. It was too stern and cold. It had no humanity. Hence they stood aloof, as they did from all the systems of Grecian philosophy. It was not for them, but for the learned and the cultivated. It was a system of thought; it was not a religion—a speculation and not a life. Like Platonism, the Stoical philosophy was esoteric, and only appealed to a few elevated minds, who had affected indifference to the evils of life, and had learned to conquer natural affections. The Stoical doctrines of Epictetus had a more practical end in view than those of Zeno, since they were applied to Roman thought and life. We cannot deny the purity and beauty of his aphorisms, but he was like Noah preaching before the flood. He had his disciples and admirers, but they made a feeble barrier against corruptions. It was the protest of a man before a mob of excited and angry persecutors resolved on his death. It was no more heard than the dying speech of Stephen. It was lost utterly on a people abandoned to inglorious pleasure.
[Sidenote: The Epicurean philosophy.]
The only form of philosophy which was popular with the Romans, and which was appreciated, was the Epicurean. The disciples of this school were, of course, the luxurious, the fashionable, the worldly, and it exercised upon them but a feeble restraining influence. It denied the providence of God; it maintained that the world was governed by chance; it denied the existence of moral goodness; it affirmed that the soul was mortal, and that pleasure was the only good. If the more contemplative and the least passionate rebuked gross vices, they still advocated a tranquil indifference to outward events that showed neither loftiness nor fear of judgment. Their system was openly based upon atheism. Self-love was the foundation of all action, and self-indulgence was the ultimate good. The Epicureans were the patrons of the circus, and the theatre, and the banquet, and, indeed, of all those vanities and follies which disgraced the latter days of Rome. Their influence tended to enervate and corrupt. Their philosophy, instead of preserving old forms of life, old customs, old institutions, old traditions and associations, made a mockery of them all, and was as efficient in producing decay as was the philosophy of the eighteenth century in France in paving the way for the revolution. The purest type of Epicureanism may have refined a few of the better sort, but the prevailing influence, doubtless, undermined society. The god of the reason was allied with the god of the sense, and the maniac soul of the lying prophet entered the schools. Education, as directed by them, served only to make youth worldly and frivolous. Teachers sought to amuse and not to instruct, to make royal roads to knowledge, to exalt the omnipotence of money, to set a high value on what passes away. They limited man to himself, and acknowledged no other object of human exertion than is to be found within the compass of the fleeting phenomena of the present life. They had no wish beyond the present hour, and only aimed to console man in the corruption and misery which he saw around him. They had no high aims; nor did they seek to produce profound impressions. They adapted themselves to what was, rather than what ought to be. They were easy and gracious, but utterly without earnestness. The Peripatetic inquired, sneeringly, "What is truth?" The Epicurean languidly said, "What is truth to me. There is no truth nor virtue, nor is there a God, nor a place of rewards and punishments. This world is my theatre. Let me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die. I will abstain from inordinate self- indulgence, for it will shorten my life, or produce satiety, ennui, disgust—not because it is wrong. I will make the most of earth and of my faculties for pleasure. Wealth is the greatest blessing, poverty the greatest calamity. Friends are of no account, unless they amuse me or help me. The sentiment of friendship is impossible, and would be unsatisfactory." The true Epicurean quarreled with no person and with no opinions. Nothing was of consequence but ease, prosperity, self- forgetfulness. The soul of man could aspire to nothing beyond this life; and when death came, it was a release, a thing neither to be regretted nor rejoiced in, but an irresistible fate. What could be expected from such a system? What renovation in such a cold, barren, negative faith, without hope, without God in the world? The most prevalent of all the systems of philosophy, so far from doing good, did evil. How could it save when its ends were destructive of all those sentiments on which true greatness rests? What could be expected of a philosophy which only served to amuse the great, to throw contempt on the people, to undermine religious aspirations, to vitiate the moral sense, to ignore God and duty and a life to come?
Thus every influence at Rome, whether proceeding from art, or literature, or philosophy, or government, instead of saving, tended to destroy. All these things came from man, and could not elevate him beyond himself. Even religion was a compound of superstitions, ritual observances, and puerilities. It did not come from God. It was neither lofty nor pure. What good there was soon became perverted, and the evil was reproduced more rapidly than good. Only error seemed to have vitality. The false lights which sin had kindled shed only a delusive gleam. The soul occasionally asserted the dignity which God had given it, and great men swept and garnished houses, but devils reentered, and the normal condition of humanity was what the Bible declares it to be since Adam was expelled from Paradise. Genius, energy, ambition, were allowed to win their victories, and they shed a glorious light, and for a time exalted the reason of man, but alas, were soon followed by shame and degradation.
[Sidenote: All forms of civilization fail to be conservative.]
And what is the logical inference—the deduction which we are compelled to draw from this mournful history of the failure of all those grand trophies of the civilization which man has made? Can it be other than this: that man cannot save himself; that nothing which comes from him, whether of genius or will, proves to be a conservative force from generation to generation; that it will be perverted, however true, or beautiful, or glorious, because "men love darkness rather than light." All that is truly conservative, all that grows brighter and brighter with the progress of ages, all that is indestructible and of permanent beauty, must come from a power higher than that of man, whether supernatural or not—must be a revelation to man from Heaven, assisted by divine grace. It must be divine truth in conjunction with divine love. It must be a light from Him who made us, and which alone baffles the power of evil.
He did send Christianity, when every thing else had signally failed, as it will forever fail. And this is the seed of the woman which shall bruise the serpent's head.
We have now to show why this great renovating and life-giving influence did not prevent the destruction of the empire; and we may be convinced that if this great end could not be accomplished in accordance with the plans of Providence, and in accordance with the laws by which He rules the world, Christianity was in no sense a failure, as man's devices were; but, through the mouths and writings of great bishops, saints, and doctors, projected its saving truths far into the shadows of barbaric Europe, and laid the foundation for a new and more glorious civilization—a civilization not destined to perish, so far as it is in harmony with divine revelation.