which was offered in a spirit of purity and truth'. As to men's relations towards each other, we have seen the change from the old narrowing and dividing principle 'thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy,' to the recognition of the brotherhood which unites together all nations and all conditions of men, all alike sharing in one common humanity and being members of that great body of which God Himself is the head and which includes within it all rational existences whatsoever, whether human, angelic or divine". We have seen too how the human consciousness was deepened and elevated as well as widened by philosophy. Instead of the old superficial conception of truth as that which is commonly believed, the investigation of the grounds of belief led many to doubt altogether of the possibility of the attainment of truth, and convinced all of their need of further light to dispel the shadows which obscured the subjects of highest and deepest interest. Happiness was no longer the simple indulgence of the natural impulses. The schools which began with the loudest profession of eudaemonism ended by acknowledging that the misfortune of the wise was better than the prosperity of the fool, that if happiness was to be attained by man, it could only be through imperturbability and self-mastery, which would enable him to conquer pain and force pleasure out of whatever circumstances; while we find 1 Cic. N. D. II. 71 cultus autem deorum est optimus idemque castissimus atque sanctissimus plenissimusque pietatis, ut eos semper pura integra incorrupta et mente et voce veneremur. 2 See above, p. 159 and compare Cic. Fin. III. 64. * Diog. L. Χ. 135 κρεῖττον εὐλογίστως ἀτυχεῖν ἢ ἀλογίστως εὐτυχεῖν. writers of other schools maintaining that happiness is merely the accompaniment of virtuous energy, and can never be regarded as in itself constituting the end of action, or repudiating it altogether as something unworthy of our attention and likely to distract us from the one thing needful, or in fine despairing of its attainment in a world like this. Thus the life beyond the grave, that shadowy realm to which the Homeric Achilles preferred the meanest lot on earth, became to Plato and his followers the only real existence; death was the enfranchisement from the prison of the body', the harbour of rest from the storms of life, the re-union of long-parted friends3, the admission into the society of the wise and good of former ages, the attainment of that perfect goodness and wisdom and beauty, which had been the yearning of the embodied spirit during the weary years of its mortal pilgrimage. So also in regard to virtue. This was no longer limited to the performing well the duties of a citizen, obeying the laws of the State and fighting its battles. It was the inner righteousness of the soul, the fixed habit of subordinating the individual 1 Cic. Tusc. I. 118 'if we are called to depart from this life,' laeti et agentes gratias pareamus emittique nos e custodia et levari vinclis arbitremur, ut in aeternam et plane in nostram domum remigremus; Somn. Scip. 14, 25. 2 Tusc. I. 118 profecto fuit quaedam vis quae generi consuleret humano, nec id gigneret aut aleret, quod, cum exanclavisset omnes labores, tum incideret in mortis malum sempiternum: portum potius paratum nobis et perfugium putemus. 3 Cic. Cato 84 O praeclarum diem cum in illud divinum animorum concilium proficiscar, foll., Plato Phaedo 63. 4 Plat. Phaed. 67 πολλὴ ἂν ἀλογία εἴη, εἰ μὴ ἀσμένοι ἐκεῖσε ἴοιεν, οἱ ἀφικομένοις ἐλπίς ἐστιν οὗ διὰ βίου ἤρων τυχεῖν. will to the Divine will, of acting not for private interest but for the good of all. And just as deeper thoughts about the nature of knowledge forced on men the conviction of their own ignorance, so deeper thoughts about virtue made men conscious of their own deficiency in virtue, and produced in them the new conviction of sin. The one conviction taught them their need of a revelation, the other conviction taught them their need of a purifying and sanctifying power'. And one step more philosophy could take it chose out for its ideal of humanity, the Zeus-sprung son of Alcmena, whose life was spent in labours for the good of others, and who, after a death of agony on the burning pyre, was received up into heaven, thenceforth to be worshipped with divine honours by the gratitude of mankind. 1 See above, p. 160 foll. The prevalence of this feeling of guilt and need of atonement is shown by the rapid growth of Jewish proselytism about the time of Augustus, by the new forms of ablution and sacrifice introduced in connexion with the worship of strange deities such as Isis, Serapis, Cybele, Bellona, especially the bloodbath, taurobolium, which came into vogue in the 2nd century A. D. Virgil in his Messianic eclogue makes the power of cleansing from sin one of the attributes of the new-born King. 2 Cicero and the Stoics continually appeal to the example of Hercules, see Off. III. 25 'It is more in accordance with nature to undergo the greatest labours and pains in order to save or help mankind, as Hercules did, whom the gratitude of men has placed among the company of the immortals, than to live alone in the highest enjoyment,' also Fin. II. 118, III. 66, Tusc. I, 32 'That man is of the noblest character who believes himself born for the assistance, the preservation, the salvation, of his fellows. Hercules would never have ranked among the Gods, if he had not paved his own way to heaven, while still on earth,' Hor. Od. III. 3, 9, IV. 5, 35, 8, 29, Epist. II. I, 10. Here, Thus far the light of nature had carried men. when it had reached its climax, in the fulness of time, as we believe, the light of revelation was vouchsafed, to confirm its hesitating utterances, to answer its questions, to supply its deficiencies, to manifest before the eyes of men the power of a new life in the Word made flesh. In Christianity we reach the true goal of the ethical and religious philosophy of the Ancients. Christ fulfilled the hopes and longings of the Stoic and the Platonist, as He fulfilled the law of Moses and the prophecies of Isaiah. Here therefore, it seems to me, is the natural place to pause in our sketch of the development of ancient thought and see what was the highest attainment of the human mind, uninfluenced by Christianity. It is true there is one phase of that development, the mysticism of the Neo-Pythagorean and the Neo-Platonist schools, which we shall have to exclude, as it lies still in the future which we forbid ourselves to enter. But NeoPlatonism can, no more than Christianity, be regarded as a simple development of Hellenic or Western thought; it is a hybrid between East and West. Among its chief precursors we find the Alexandrian Jew Philo, born shortly after the death of Cicero, the object of whose teaching was to harmonize Judaism and Platonism, and Plutarch of Chaeronea, born about 50 A. D., who believed that a divine revelation was contained in the mysterious rites of Egypt no less than in the oracles of Delphi. The mixture of Orientalism is even more marked in the marvellous history of the Neo-Pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana, born about the time of the Christian era, which was afterwards utilized by the opponents of Christianity as a rival to the Gospel history. If then we are to admit these into a history of Western philosophy, on what principle are we to exclude genuine Greeks and Romans who added to a training in the old systems of philosophy, ideas borrowed, not from Judaism or Zoroastrianism or the religion of Egypt, but from Christianity? For instance, on what grounds are we to exclude Justin Martyr, himself a philosopher by profession, who tells us that he had tried every sect; and at last found in Christianity what he had been vainly seeking in them? or Pantaenus the Stoic, or his pupil Clement of Alexandria, who saw in Christianity the perfect wisdom which united all the broken lights which had been divided in the several schools of the earlier philosophy? Why admit Apuleius, and exclude his fellow-countrymen Tertullian and Augustine, men not only of far greater natural ability, but of keener philosophical interest, and probably even better acquainted with the past history of philosophy? Why admit Plotinus and exclude his fellow-disciple Origen? The difficulty is increased when we remember the mutual influence of the Pagan and Christian philosophy. While some of the Pagan philosophers, such as Julian and Porphyry, owe their significance mainly to the fact that they endeavoured to remodel the old paganism into something which might hold its own against the rising religion; on the other hand many of the heresies were attempts to perpetuate some special doctrine of pagan philosophy within the pale of the Christian Church. Or we may state the question in another way, as follows up to the date of the Christian era the history of philosophy has been the history of thought in its most general sense, whether materialistic or |