[16] Politik und Philosophie in ihrem Verhältniss, &c., by H. W. J. Thiersch (Marburg, 1853).—Damals stand Plutarch, dem bereits Trajan consularische Ehren bewilligt hatte, auf der höchsten Stufe des Ansehens. (For M. Gréard’s destruction of this Legend see his first chapter.—Légende de Plutarque.)
[17] The Essays of Plutarch, by W. J. Brodribb. Fortnightly Review, vol. 20, p. 629.
[18] “He cared not for the name of any sect or leader, but pleaded the cause of moral beauty in the interests of truth only.”—Merivale’s “Romans under the Empire,” cap. 60, where there is an excellent, but unfortunately too brief, account of our author.
[19] Œuvres Morales de Plutarque, traduites du grec par Dominic Ricard (1783-1795).—“Rapprochée un texte, la version de Ricard est, dans sa teneur générale, d’une élégance superficielle et d’une fidélité peu approfondie.”—Gréard. Trench also severely condemns some of the translations in the edition issued in Dryden’s name.
[20] Plutarch’s Morals, translated from the Greek by several hands, corrected and revised by W. W. Goodwin, Ph.D. (London, 1870).—“It may have been a fortunate thing for some of our translators that Bentley was too much occupied with the wise heads of Christ Church to notice the blunders of men who could write notes saying that the Parthenon is a ‘Promontory shooting into the Black Sea, where stood a chappel dedicated to some virgin godhead, and famous for some Victory thereabout obtain’d.’”—Editor’s Preface.
[21] Plutarch’s Morals. Theosophical Essays. Translated by the late C. W. King, M.A. (London, 1889). Ethical Essays translated by A. R. Shilleto, M.A. (London, 1888).
[22] Tertullian: De Carne Christi, 5.—“Crucifixus est Dei filius; non pudet, quia pudendum est. Et mortuus est Dei filius; prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est. Et sepultus resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile est.”
[23] St. Augustine: Confessiones, vi. 5.—“Ex hoc tamen quoque jam præponens doctrinam Catholicam, modestius ibi minimeque fallaciter sentiebam juberi ut crederetur quod non demonstrabatur (sive esset quid demonstrandum, sed cui forte non esset, sive nec quid esset), quam illic temeraria pollicitatione scientiæ credulitatem irrideri; et postea tam multa fabulosissima et absurdissima, quia demonstrari non poterant, credenda imperari.”—The principle inherent in the five italicized words is identical with that which the writer exposes as an example of the absurd credulity of the Manichæans. The difference is merely one of degree.
[24] Attempts have, of course, been made at various times to rationalize a Religion whose cardinal principle is Faith. Paley and Butler are conspicuous examples in the history of Anglican Christianity but neither the one nor the other supplied any widespread inspiration to the religious life of the day. Butler, “who had made it his business, ever since he thought himself capable of such sort of reasoning, to prove to himself the being and attributes of God,” who “found it impossible to dissociate philosophy from religion in his own mind,” and “would have agreed with South that what is nonsense upon a principle of Reason will never be sense upon a principle of Religion,” was yet compelled to admit that “it was too late for him to try to support a falling Church;” and it is a matter of national history that Wesley, with his direct appeal to the principle of “justification by faith,” did more to reinvigorate the religious life of England than all the cultured rationalists who adorned the English Church in those days. And in these later days Butler has not escaped the charge of “having furnished, with a design directly contrary, one of the most terrible of the persuasives to Atheism that has ever been produced.” (Butler, by the Rev. W. Lucas Collins, M.A.) Paley likewise thought it a just opinion “that whatever renders religion more rational renders it more credible,” and devoted his genius to the task of making religion more rational, but has done little more than furnish a school text-book for theological students. Further, what Christian, in his heart of hearts, and at those moments which he would regard as his best, does not respond more readily to the sublime sentiment of Tertullian than to the ratiocinations of the Analogy or the Evidences?
[25] M. Constant Martha’s Études morales sur l’Antiquité, from which we have taken this just and striking phrase of Bossuet, gives an interesting account of the passionate and anguished manner in which the calm precepts of the famous “Golden Verses of Pythagoras” were applied by Christianity:—“Le philosophe, si sévère qu’il fût, se traitait toujours en ami; ... le chrétien au contraire, ... passe souvent par des inquiétudes inconnues à la sereine antiquité.” (L’Examen de Conscience chez les Anciens.)