[Footnote 1: Paradise Regained.]
Yet, in spite of this, such men were as the salt of the earth in a corrupt age; and as we find, throughout the more modern pages of history, great preachers denouncing wickedness in high places,—Bourdaloue and Massillon pouring their eloquence into the heedless ears of Louis XIV, and his courtiers—Sherlock and Tillotson declaiming from the pulpit in such stirring accents that "even the indolent Charles roused himself to listen, and the fastidious Buckingham forgot to sneer"[1]—so, too, do we find these "monks of heathendom", as the Stoics have been not unfairly called, protesting in their day against that selfish profligacy which was fast sapping all morality in the Roman empire. No doubt (as Mr. Lecky takes care to tell us), their high principles were not always consistent with their practice (alas! whose are?); Cato may have ill-used his slaves, Sallust may have been rapacious, and Seneca wanting in personal courage. Yet it was surely something to have set up a noble ideal, though they might not attain to it themselves, and in "that hideous carnival of vice" to have kept themselves, so far as they might, unspotted from the world. Certain it is that no other ancient sect ever came so near the light of revelation. Passages from Seneca, from Epictetus, from Marcus Aurelius, sound even now like fragments of the inspired writings. The Unknown God, whom they ignorantly worshipped as the Soul or Reason of the World, is—in spite of Milton's strictures—the beginning and the end of their philosophy. Let us listen for a moment to their language. "Prayer should be only for the good". "Men should act according to the spirit, and not according to the letter of their faith". "Wouldest thou propitiate the gods? Be good: he has worshipped them sufficiently who has imitated them". It was from a Stoic poet, Aratus, that St. Paul quoted the great truth which was the rational argument against idolatry—"For we are also His offspring, and" (so the original passage concludes) "we alone possess a voice, which is the image of reason". It is in another poet of the same school that we find what are perhaps the noblest lines in all Latin poetry. Persius concludes his Satire on the common hypocrisy of those prayers and offerings to the gods which were but a service of the lips and hands, in words of which an English rendering may give the sense but not the beauty: "Nay, then, let us offer to the gods that which the debauched sons of great Messala can never bring on their broad chargers,—a soul wherein the laws of God and man are blended,—a heart pure to its inmost depths,—a breast ingrained with a noble sense of honour. Let me but bring these with me to the altar, and I care not though my offering be a handful of corn". With these grand words, fit precursors of a purer creed to come, we may take our leave of the Stoics, remarking how thoroughly, even in their majestic egotism, they represented the moral force of the nation among whom they flourished; a nation, says a modern preacher, "whose legendary and historic heroes could thrust their hand into the flame, and see it consumed without a nerve shrinking; or come from captivity on parole, advise their countrymen against a peace, and then go back to torture and certain death; or devote themselves by solemn self-sacrifice like the Decii. The world must bow before such men; for, unconsciously, here was a form of the spirit of the Cross-self-surrender, unconquerable fidelity to duty, sacrifice for others".[2]
[Footnote 1: Macaulay.]
[Footnote 2: F.W. Robertson, Sermons, i. 218.]
Portions of three treatises by Cicero upon Political Philosophy have come down to us: 1. I De Republica'; a dialogue on Government, founded chiefly on the 'Republic' of Plato: 2. 'De Legibus'; a discussion on Law in the abstract, and on national systems of legislation 3. 'De Jure Civili'; of which last only a few fragments exist. His historical works have all perished.
CHAPTER XII.
CICERO'S RELIGION.
It is difficult to separate Cicero's religion from his philosophy. In both he was a sceptic, but in the better sense of the word. His search after truth was in no sneering or incredulous spirit, but in that of a reverent inquirer. We must remember, in justice to him, that an earnest-minded man in his day could hardly take higher ground than that of the sceptic. The old polytheism was dying out in everything but in name, and there was nothing to take its place.
His religious belief, so far as we can gather it, was rather negative than positive. In the speculative treatise which he has left us, 'On the Nature of the Gods', he examines all the current creeds of the day, but leaves his own quite undefined.
The treatise takes the form, like the rest, of an imaginary conversation. This is supposed to have taken place at the house of Aurelius Cotta, then Pontifex Maximus—an office which answered nearly to that of Minister of religion. The other speakers are Balbus, Velleius, and Cicero himself,—who acts, however, rather in the character of moderator than of disputant. The debate is still, as in the more strictly philosophical dialogues, between the different schools. Velleius first sets forth the doctrine of his master Epicurus; speaking about the gods, says one of his opponents, with as much apparent intimate knowledge "as if he had just come straight down from heaven". All the speculations of previous philosophers—which he reviews one after the other—are, he assures the company, palpable errors. The popular mythology is a mere collection of fables. Plato and the Stoics, with their Soul of the world and their pervading Providence, are entirely wrong; the disciples of Epicurus alone are right. There are gods; that much, the universal belief of mankind in all ages sufficiently establishes. But that they should be the laborious beings which the common systems of theology would make them,—that they should employ themselves in the manufacture of worlds,—is manifestly absurd. Some of this argument is ingenious. "What should induce the Deity to perform the functions of an Aedile, to light up and decorate the world? If it was to supply better accommodation for himself, then he must have dwelt of choice, up to that time, in the darkness of a dungeon. If such improvements gave him pleasure, why should he have chosen to be without them so long?"