Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 47

If, then, language is the creation of thought, the sensible vesture with which it clothes itself, and becomes, as it were, incarnate--if the perfection and efficiency of language depends on the maturity and clearness of thought, we conclude that the wonderful adequacy and fitness of the Greek language to be the vehicle of the Divine thought, the medium of the most perfect revelation of G.o.d to men, can only be explained on the a.s.sumption that the ages of philosophic thought which, in Greece, preceded the advent of Christianity, were under the immediate supervision of a providence, and, in some degree, illuminated by the Spirit of G.o.d.

Greek philosophy must therefore have fulfilled a propaedeutic office for Christianity. "As it had been intrusted to the Hebrews to preserve and transmit the heaven-derived element of the Monotheistic religion, so it was ordained that, among the Greeks, all seeds of human culture should unfold themselves in beautiful harmony, and then Christianity, taking up the opposition between the divine and human, was to unite both in one, and show how it was necessary that both should co-operate to prepare for the appearance of itself and the unfolding of what it contains."[859]

During the period of Greek philosophy which preceded the coming of Christ, human reason, unfolding itself from beneath, had aspired after that knowledge of divine things which is from above. It had felt within itself the deep-seated consciousness of G.o.d--the sporadic revelation of Him "who is not far from any one of us"--the immanent thought of that Being "in whom we live and move and are," and it had striven by a.n.a.lysis and definition to attain a more distinct and logical apprehension. The heart of man had been stirred with "the feeling after G.o.d"--the longing for a clearer sense of the divine, and had struggled to attain, by abstraction or by ecstasy, a more immediate communion with G.o.d. Man had been conscious of an imperative obligation to conform to the will of the great Supreme, and he sought to interpret more clearly the utterances of conscience as to what duty was. He had felt the sense of sin and guilt, and had endeavored to appease his conscience by expiatory offerings, and to deliver himself from the power of sin by intellectual culture and moral discipline. And surely no one, at all familiar with the history of that interesting epoch in the development of humanity, will have the hardihood to a.s.sert that no steps were taken in the right direction, and no progress made towards the distant goal of human desire and hope. The language, the philosophy, the ideals of moral beauty and excellence, the n.o.ble lives and n.o.bler utterances of the men who stand forth in history as the representatives of Greek civilization, all attest that their n.o.ble aspiration and effort did not end in ignominious failure and utter defeat. It is true they fell greatly beneath the realization of even their own moral ideals, and they became painfully conscious of their moral weakness, as men do even in Christian times. They learned that, neither by intellectual abstraction, nor by ecstasy of feeling, could they lift themselves to a living, conscious fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d. The sense of guilt was unrelieved by expiations, penances, and prayers. And whilst some cultivated a proud indifference, a Stoical apathy, and others sank down to Epicurean ease and pleasure, there was a n.o.ble few who longed and hoped with increasing ardor for a living Redeemer, a personal Mediator, who should "stand between G.o.d and man and lay his hand on both." Christ became in some dim consciousness "the Desire of Nations," and the Moral Law became even to the Greek as well as the Jew "a school-master to lead them to Him."

[Footnote 859: Neander's "Church History," vol. i. p. 4.]

The arrival of Paul at Athens, in the close of this brilliant period of Greek philosophy, now a.s.sumes an aspect of deeper interest and profounder significance. It was a grand climacteric in the life of humanity--an epoch in the moral and religious history of the world. It marked the consummation of a periodic dispensation, and it opened a new era in that wonderful progression through which an overruling Providence is carrying the human race. As the coming of the Son of G.o.d to Judea in the ripeness of events--"the fullness of time"--was the consummation of the Jewish dispensation, and the event for which the Jewish age had been a preparatory discipline, so the coming of a Christian teacher to Athens, in the person of "the Apostle of the Gentiles," was the _terminus ad quem_ towards which all the phases in the past history of philosophic thought had looked, and for which they had prepared.

Christianity was brought to Athens--brought into contact with Grecian philosophy at the moment of its exhaustion--at the moment when, after ages of unwearied effort, it had become conscious of its weakness, and its comparative failure, and had abandoned many questions in despair.

Greek philosophy had therefore its place in the plan of Divine Providence. It had a mission to the world; that mission was now fulfilled. If it had laid any foundation in the Athenian mind on which the Christian system could plant its higher truths--if it had raised up into the clearer light of consciousness any of those _ideas_ imbedded in the human reason which are germane to Christian truth--if it had revealed more fully the wants and instincts of the human heart, or if it had attained the least knowledge of eternal truth and immutable right, upon this Christianity placed its _imprimatur_. And at those points where human reason had been made conscious of its own inefficiency, and compelled to own its weakness and its failure, Christianity shed an effulgent and convincing light.

Therefore the preparatory office of Greek religion and Greek philosophy is fully recognized by Paul in his address to the Athenians. He begins by saying that the observations he had made enabled him to bear witness that the Athenians were indeed, in every respect, "a G.o.d-fearing people;"--that the G.o.d whom they knew so imperfectly as to designate Him "the Unknown," but whom "they wors.h.i.+pped," was the G.o.d he wors.h.i.+pped, and would now more fully declare to them. He a.s.sures them that their past history, and their present geographical position, had been the object of Divine foreknowledge and determination. "He hath determined beforehand the times of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries of their habitation," all with this specific design, that they might "seek after," "feel after," and "find the Lord,"

who had never been far from any one of them. He admits that their poet-philosophers had risen to a lofty apprehension of "the Fatherhood of G.o.d," for they had taught that "we are all his offspring;" and he seems to have felt that in a.s.serting the common brotherhood of our race, he would strike a chord of sympathy in the loftiest school of Gentile philosophy. He thus "recognized the Spirit of G.o.d brooding over the face of heathenism, and fructifying the spiritual element in the heart even of the natural man. He feels that in these human principles there were some faint adumbrations of the divine, and he looked for their firmer delineation to the figure of that gracious Master, higher and holier than man, whom he contemplated in his own imagination, and whom he was about to present to them."[860]

[Footnote 860: Merivale's "Conversion of the Roman Empire," p. 78.]

This function of ancient philosophy is distinctly recognized by many of the greatest of the Fathers, as Justin, Clement, Origen, Augustine, and Theodoret. Justin Martyr believed that a ray of the Divine Logos shone on the mind of the heathen, and that the human soul instinctively turned towards G.o.d as the plant turns towards the sun. "Every race of men partic.i.p.ated in the Word. And they who lived with the Word were Christians, even if they were held to be G.o.dless; as, for example, among the Greeks, Socrates and Herac.l.i.tus, and those like them."[861] Clement taught that "philosophy, before the coming of the Lord, was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness; and now it proved useful for G.o.dliness, being a sort of preliminary discipline for those who reap the fruits of faith through demonstration.... Perhaps we may say that it was given to the Greeks with this special object, for it brought the Greek nation to Christ as the Law brought the Hebrews."[862] "Philosophy was given as a peculiar testament to the Greeks, as forming the basis of the Christian philosophy."[863] Referring to the words of Paul, Origen says, the truths which philosophers taught were from G.o.d, for "G.o.d manifested these to them, and all things that have been n.o.bly said."[864] And Augustine, whilst deprecating the extravagant claims made for the great Gentile teachers, allows "that some of them made great discoveries, so far as they received help from heaven; whilst they erred as far as they were hindered by human frailty."[865] They had, as he elsewhere observes, "a distant vision of the truth, and learnt, from the teaching of nature, what prophets learnt from the spirit."[866] In addressing the Greeks, Theodoret says, "Obey your own philosophers; let them be your initiators; for they announced beforehand our doctrines." He held that "in the depths of human nature there are characters inscribed by the hand of G.o.d." And that "if the race of Abraham received the divine law, and the gift of prophecy, the G.o.d of the universe led other nations to piety by natural revelation, and the spectacle of nature."[867]

[Footnote 861: "First Apology," ch. xlvi.]

[Footnote 862: "Stromata," bk. i. ch. v.]

[Footnote 863: "Stromata," bk. vi. ch. viii.]

[Footnote 864: "Contra Celsum," bk. vi. ch. iii.]

[Footnote 865: "De Civitate Dei," bk. ii. ch. vii.]

[Footnote 866: Sermon lxviii. 3.]

[Footnote 867: See Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article "Philosophy;"

Pressense, "Religions before Christ," p. II; Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 28-40.]

In attempting to account for this partial harmony between Philosophy and Revelation, we find the Patristic writers adopting different theories.

They are generally agreed in maintaining some original connection, but they differ as to its immediate source. Some of them maintained that the ancient philosophers derived their purest light from the fountain of Divine Revelation. The doctrines of the Old Testament Scriptures were traditionally diffused throughout the West before the rise of philosophic speculation. If the theistic conceptions of Plato are superior to those of Homer it is accounted for by his (hypothetical) tour of inquiry among the Hebrew nation, as well as his Egyptian investigations. Others maintained that the similarity of views on the character of the Supreme Being and the ultimate destination of humanity which is found in the writings of Plato and the teachings of the Bible is the consequence of _immediate_ inspiration. Origen, Jerome, Eusebius, Clement, do not hesitate to affirm that Christ himself revealed his own high prerogatives to the gifted Grecian. From this hypothesis, however, the facts of the case compel them to make some abatements. In the mid-current of this divine revelation are found many acknowledged errors, which it is impossible to ascribe to the celestial illuminator.

Plato, then, was _partially_ inspired, and clouded the heavenly beam with the remaining grossnesses of the natural sense.[868] Whilst a third, and more reasonable, hypothesis was maintained by others. They regarded man as "the offspring and image of the Deity," and maintained there must be a correlation of the human and divine reason, and, consequently, of all discovered truth to G.o.d. Therefore they expected to find some traces of connection and correspondence between Divine and human thought, and some kindred ideas in Philosophy and Revelation.

"Ideas," says St. Augustine, "are the primordial forms, as it were, the immutable reason of things; they are not created, they are eternal, and always the same: they are contained in the Divine intelligence and without being subject to birth and death, they are _types_ according to which is formed every thing that is born and dies." The copies of these archetypes are seen in nature, and are partic.i.p.ated in by the reason of man; and there may therefore be some community of idea between man and G.o.d, and some relation between Philosophy and Christianity.

[Footnote 868: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.

41.]

The various attempts which have been made to trace the elevated theism and morality of Socrates and Plato to Jewish sources have signally failed. Justin Martyr and Tertullian claim that the ancient philosophers "borrowed from the Jewish prophets." Pythagoras and Plato are supposed to have travelled in the East in quest of knowledge.[869] The latter is imagined to have had access to an existing Greek version of the Old Testament in Egypt, and a strange oversight in chronology brings him into personal intercourse with the prophet Jeremiah. A sober and enlightened criticism is compelled to p.r.o.nounce all these statements as mere exaggerations of later times.[870] They are obviously mere suppositions by which over-zealous Christians sought to maintain the supremacy and authority of Scripture. The travels of Pythagoras are altogether mythical, the mere invention of Alexandrian writers, who believed that all wisdom flowed from the East.[871] That Plato visited Egypt at all, rests on the single authority of Strabo, who lived at least four centuries after Plato; there is no trace in his own works of Egyptian research. His pretended travels in Phnicia, where he gained from the Jews a knowledge of the true G.o.d, are more unreliable still.

Plato lived in the fourth century before Christ (born B.C. 430), and there is no good evidence of the existence of a Greek version of the Old Testament before that of "the Seventy" (Septuagint), made by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 270. Jeremiah, the prophet of Israel, lived two centuries before Plato; consequently any personal intercourse between the two was simply impossible. Greek philosophy was unquestionably a development of Reason alone.[872]

[Footnote 869: Mr. Watson adopts this hypothesis to account for the theistic opinions of the ancient philosophers of Greece. See "Inst.i.tutes of Theology," vol. i. pp. 26-34.]

[Footnote 870: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.

147.]

[Footnote 871: Max Muller, "Science of Language," p. 94.]

[Footnote 872: See on this subject, Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 147, 148; Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Plato," vol. xvii. p. 787; Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article "Philosophy;" and Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 326.]

Some of the ablest Christian scholars and divines of modern times, as Cudworth, Neander, Trench, Pressense, Merivale, Schaff, after the most careful and conscientious investigation, have come to this conclusion, that Greek philosophy fulfilled a preparatory mission for Christianity.

The general conclusions they reached are forcibly presented in the words of Pressense:

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Greek philosophy when viewed as a preparation to Christianity. Disinterested pursuit of truth is always a great and n.o.ble task. The imperishable want of the human mind to go back to first principles, suffices to prove that this principle is divine. We may abuse speculation; we may turn it into one of the most powerful dissolvents of moral truths; and the defenders of positive creeds, alarmed by the att.i.tude too often a.s.sumed by speculation in the presence of religion, have condemned it as mischievous in itself, confounding in their unjust prejudice its use and its abuse. But, for all serious thinkers, philosophy is one of the highest t.i.tles of n.o.bility that humanity possesses: and when we consider its mission previous to Christianity, we feel convinced that it had its place in the Divine plan. It was not religion in itself that philosophy, through its n.o.blest representatives, combated, but polytheism. It dethroned the false G.o.ds. Adopting what was best in paganism, philosophy employed it as an instrument to destroy paganism, and thus clear the way for definite religion. Above all, it effectually contributed to purify the idea of Divinity, though this purification was but an approximation.

If at times it caught glimpses of the highest spiritualism, yet it was unable to protect itself against the return and reaction of Oriental dualism. In spite of this imperfection, which in its way served the cause of Christianity by demonstrating the necessity of revelation, men like Socrates and Plato fulfilled amongst their people a really sublime mission.

They were to the heathen world the great prophets of the human conscience, which woke up at their call. And the awakening of the moral sense was at once the glory and ruin of philosophy; for conscience, once aroused, could only be satisfied by One greater than they, and must necessarily reject all systems which proved themselves insufficient to realize the moral idea they had evoked.

"But to perish thus, and for such a cause, is a high honor to a philosophy. It was this made the philosophy of Greece, like the Hebrew laws, though in an inferior sense, a schoolmaster that led to Jesus Christ, according to the expression of Clement of Alexandria. Viewed in this light, it was a true gift of G.o.d, and had, too, the shadow of good things to come, awakening the presentiment and desire of them, though it could not communicate them. Nor can we conceive a better way to prepare for the advent of Him who was to be 'the Desire of Nations' before becoming their Saviour."[873]

[Footnote 873: "Religions before Christ," pp. 101, 102.]

In previous chapters we have endeavored to sketch the history of the development of metaphysical thought, of moral feeling and idea, and of religious sentiment and want, which characterized Grecian civilization.

In now offering a brief _resume_ of the history of that development, with the design of more fully exhibiting the preparatory office it fulfilled for Christianity, we shall a.s.sume that the mind of the reader has already been furnished and disciplined by preparatory principles. He can scarce have failed to recognize that this development obeyed a _general law_, however modified by exterior and geographical conditions; the same law, in fact, which governs the development of all individual finite minds, and which law may be formulated thus:--_All finite mind develops itself, first, in instinctive determinations and spontaneous faiths; then in rising doubt, and earnest questioning, and ill-directed inquiry; and, finally, in systematic philosophic thought, and rational belief_. These different stages succeed each other in the individual mind. There is, first, the simplicity and trust of childhood; secondly, the undirected and unsettled force of youth; and, thirdly, the wisdom of mature age. And these different stages have also succeeded each other in the universal mind of humanity. There has been, 1st. _The era of spontaneous beliefs_--of popular and semi-conscious theism, morality, and religion, 2d. _The transitional age_--the age of doubt, of inquiry, and of ill-directed mental effort, ending in fruitless sophism, or in skepticism. 3d. _The philosophic or conscious age_--the age of reflective consciousness, in which, by the a.n.a.lysis of thought, the first principles of knowledge are attained, the necessary laws of thought are discovered, and man arrives at positive convictions, and rational beliefs. In the history of Grecian civilization, the first is the Homeric age; the second is the pre-Socratic age, ending with the Sophists; and the third is the grand Socratic period. History is thus the development of the fundamental elements of humanity, according to an established law, and under conditions which are ordained and supervised by the providence of G.o.d. "The unity of civilization is in the unity of human nature; its varieties, in the variety of the elements of humanity," which elements have been successively developed in the course of history. All that is fundamental in human nature pa.s.ses into the movement of civilization. "I say all that is fundamental; for it is the excellency of history to take out, and throw away all that is not necessary and essential. That which is individual s.h.i.+nes for a day, and is extinguished forever, or stops at biography." Nothing endures, except that which is fundamental and true--that which is vital, and organizes itself, develops itself, and arrives at an historical existence.

"Therefore as human nature is the matter and basis of history, history is, so to speak, the judge of human nature, and historical a.n.a.lysis is the counter-proof of psychological a.n.a.lysis."[874]

[Footnote 874: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.

p. 31.] Nature, individual mind, and collective humanity, all obey the law of progressive development; otherwise there could be no history, for history is only of that which has movement and progress. Now, all progress is from the indefinite to the definite, from the inorganic to the organic and vital, from the instinctive to the rational, from a dim, nebulous self-feeling to a high reflective consciousness, from sensuous images to abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. This progressive development of nature and humanity has not been a series of creations _de novo_, without any relation, in matter or form, to that which preceded. All of the present was contained in embryonic infoldment in the past, and the past has contributed its results to the present.[875]

The present, both in nature, and history, and civilization, is, so to speak, the aggregate and sum-total of the past. As the natural history of the earth may now be read in the successive strata and deposits which form its crust, so the history of humanity may be read in the successive deposits of thought and language, of philosophy and art, which register its gradual progression. As the paleontological remains imbedded in the rocks present a succession of organic types which gradually improve in form and function, from the first sea-weed to the palm-tree, and from the protozoa to the highest vertebrate, so the history of ancient philosophy presents a gradual progress in metaphysical, ethical, and theistic conceptions, from the unreflective consciousness of the Homeric age, to the high reflective consciousness of the Platonic period. And as all the successive forms of life in pre-Adamic ages were a preparation for and a prophecy of the coming of man, so the advancing forms of philosophic thought, during the grand ages of Grecian civilization, were a preparation and a prophecy of the coming of the Son of G.o.d.

[Footnote 875: The writer would not be understood as favoring the idea that this development is simply the result of "natural law." The connection between the past and the present is not a material, but a _mental_ connection. It is the bond of Creative Thought and Will giving to organic forces a foreseen direction towards the working out of a grand plan. See Aga.s.siz, "Contributions to Natural History," vol. i. pp.

9, 10; Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," ch. v.]

We shall now endeavor to trace this process of gradual preparation for Christianity in the Greek mind--

(i.) _In the field of_ THEISTIC _conceptions_.

(ii.) _In the department of_ ETHICAL _ideas and principles_.

(iii.) _In the region of_ RELIGIOUS _sentiment_.

In the field of theistic conception the propaedeutic office of Grecian philosophy is seen--

I. _In the release of the popular mind from Polytheistic notion, and the purifying and spiritualizing of the Theistic idea_.

The idea of a Supreme Power, a living Personality, energizing in nature, and presiding over the affairs of men, is not the product of philosophy.

It is the immanent, spontaneous thought of humanity. It has, therefore, existed in all ages, and revealed itself in all minds, even when it has not been presented to the understanding as a definite conception, and expressed by human language in a logical form. It is the thought which instinctively arises in the opening reason of childhood, as the dim and shadowy consciousness of a living mind behind all the movement and change of the universe. Then comes the period of doubt, of anxious questioning, and independent inquiry. The youth seeks to account to himself for this peculiar sentiment. He turns his earnest gaze towards nature, and through this living vesture of the infinite he seeks to catch some glimpses of the living Soul. In some fact appreciable to sense, in some phenomenon he can see, or hear, or touch, he would fain grasp the cause and reason of all that is. But in this field of inquiry and by this method he finds only a "receding G.o.d," who falls back as he approaches, and is ever still beyond; and he sinks down in exhaustion and feebleness, the victim of doubt, perhaps despair. Still the sentiment of the Divine remains, a living force, in the centre of his moral being. He turns his scrutinizing gaze within, and by self-reflection seeks for some rational ground for his instinctive faith. There he finds some convictions he can not doubt, some ideas he can not call in question, some thoughts he is compelled to think, some necessary and universal principles which in their natural and logical development ally him to an unseen world, and correlate and bind him fast to an invisible, but real G.o.d. The more his mind is disciplined by abstract thought, the clearer do these necessary and universal principles become, and the purer and more spiritual his ideas of G.o.d.

G.o.d is now for him the First Principle of all principles, the First Truth of all truths; the Eternal Reason, the Immutable Righteousness, the Supreme Good. The normal and healthy development of reason, the maturity of thought, conduct to the recognition of the true G.o.d.

And so it has been in the universal consciousness of our race as revealed in history. There was first a period of spontaneous and unreflective Theism, in which man felt the consciousness of G.o.d, but could not or did not attempt a rational explanation of his instinctive faith. He saw G.o.d in clouds and heard Him in the wind. His smile nourished the corn, and cheered the vine. The lightnings were the flashes of his vengeful ire, and the thunder was his angry voice. But the unity of G.o.d was feebly grasped, the rays of the Divinity seemed divided and scattered amidst the separate manifestations of power, and wisdom, and goodness, and retribution, which nature presented. Then plastic art, to aid and impress the imagination, created its symbols of these separate powers and principles, chiefly in human form, and G.o.ds were multiplied. But all this polytheism still rested on a dim monotheistic background, and all the G.o.ds were subordinated to Zeus--"the Father of G.o.ds and men." Humanity had still the sense of the dependence of all finite being on one great fountain-head of Intelligence and Power, and all the "generated G.o.ds" were the subjects and ministers of that One Supreme. This was the childhood of humanity so vividly represented in Homeric poetry.

Then came a period of incipient reflection, and speculative thought, in which the attention of man is drawn outward to the study of nature, of which he can yet only recognize himself as an integral part. He searches for some ????--some first principle, appreciable to sense, which in its evolution shall furnish an explanation of the problem of existence. He tries the hypothesis of "_water_" then of "_air_" then of "_fire_" as the primal element, which either is itself, or in some way infolds within itself an informing Soul, and out of which, by vital transformation, all things else are produced. But here he failed to find an adequate explanation; his reason was not satisfied. Then he sought his first principle in "_numbers_" as symbols, and, in some sense, as the embodiment of the rational conceptions of order, proportion, and harmony,--G.o.d is the original _????_--unity--One;--or else he sought it in purely abstract "_ideas_" as unity, infinity, ident.i.ty, and all things are the evolution of an eternal thought, one and identical, which is G.o.d. And here again he fails. Then he supposes an unlimited _??a_--a chaotic mixture of elements existing from eternity, which was separated, combined, and organized by the energy of a Supreme Mind, the _????_ of Anaxagoras. But he holds not firmly to this great principle; "he recurs again to air, and ether, and water, as _causes_ for the ordering of all things."[876] And after repeated attempts and failures, he is disappointed in his inquiry, and falls a prey to doubt and skepticism. This was the early youth of our humanity, the period that opens with Thales and ends with the Sophists.

[Footnote 876: Thus Socrates complains of Anaxagoras. See "Phaedo," -- 108.]

The problem of existence still waits for and demands a solution. The heart of man, also, still cries out for the living G.o.d. The Socratic maxim, "know thyself," introverts the mental gaze, and self-reflection now becomes the method of philosophy. The Platonic a.n.a.lysis of thought reveals elements of knowledge which are not derived from the outer world. There are universal and necessary principles revealed in consciousness which, in their natural and logical development, transcend consciousness, and furnish the cognition of a world of Real Being, beyond the world of sense. There are absolute truths which bridge the chasm between the seen and the unseen, the fleeting and the permanent, the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. There are necessary laws of thought which are also found to be laws of things, and which correlate man to a living, personal, righteous Lord and Lawgiver.

From absolute ideas Plato ascends to an _absolute Being_, the author of all finite existence. From absolute truths to an _absolute Reason_, the foundation and essence of all truth. From the principle of immutable right to an _absolutely righteous Being_. From the necessary idea of the good to a being of _absolute Goodness_--that is, to _G.o.d_. This is the maturity of humanity, the ripening manhood of our race which was attained in the Socratic age.