pagan world? and what were the ideas it strove to propagate? First, it
placed above God the study and worship of self. Christ is the “true light
that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” All men have, then,
at some time in life, light enough to lead them to truth, for the gospel
“reveals a divine anger from heaven upon all wickedness and iniquity of
men who _pervert the true into the false_; because the knowledge of God
is clear within themselves, God having revealed it to them; for from the
creation of the world His invisible attributes might be discovered from
the created facts,—that is, His unseen power and Godhead. Consequently,
they are inexcusable.”[33]
Men, therefore, who of necessity have light may reject that light, and
they then become pagan. Paul, in the first chapter of his Roman letter,
states a universal law in that when truth is rejected, error takes
its place. The quotation is again taken from Fenton’s translation,
because the wording, by differing slightly from the authorized version,
stimulates thought: “Because, knowing God, they did not honor Him as a
God, or rejoice, but trifled in their augmentations, and darkened their
senseless hearts; _professing to be philosophers, they_ played the fool,
and transformed the glory of the imperishable God into an image of
perishable man, and birds! and beasts! and reptiles! And, therefore, God
abandoned them in the lusts of their hearts to filthiness, to dishonor
their own bodies to themselves; they having changed the truth of God into
falsehood, by honoring and serving the creature contrary to the Creator,
who is truly blessed in all ages.”[34]
Having turned from the worship of Jehovah to the worship of man, then
bird, and beast, and reptile, we find associated with worship the
grossest forms of licentiousness. This is stated by Paul in the first
chapter of Romans. The thought which must be borne in mind is that man
turns from God and worships himself. He can conceive of no power higher
than his own mind, no form more lofty than his own. His first idol is the
human form, male or female. He endows this with human passions, for he
knows no heart but his own. By beholding he becomes changed into the same
passionate creature; a beast becomes the personification of his deity,
and the sacred bull his god. Everything about the worship is gross, and
birds, crocodiles, and all sorts of reptiles become objects of worship.
This is Egypt. This, in fact, pictures the final worship in any country
which turns from Christ and places faith in man.
There are a variety of forms in worship, as there are a variety of
complexions in the men of different countries; but it is one and the same
plan throughout, resting upon one system of education, producing the same
results, whether traced in the proud Babylonish court, the loathsome
filth of Egypt, Greece with its intellectual pride and culture, in Roman
law, or in the more modern European countries. Paganism is the green-eyed
monster, crouching on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, whose body
follows the course of the Nile, whose paws reach both east and west, and
whose breath has poisoned the atmosphere of all Europe. Into those eyes
men have gazed expecting to find wisdom. It was but the glare of the
demon, as the tiger’s gaze at night.
[Sidenote: Egyptian religion and education]
For Egypt itself, it blotted out all individual rights, placing the
masses as a common herd writhing in superstition under the hands
of a tyrannical king and a scheming priesthood. It was indeed “an
iron furnace,” as God had called it, and as Israel had found by sad
experience. It was tyranny in government; it was still more bitter
tyranny in education and religion. As well might one strive to move the
pyramids, or get words from the silent sphinx, as to hope to change the
life in Egypt by means of anything presented in Egypt.
[Sidenote: Cultivation of the senses]
Of Egyptian education, Jahn says: The “priests were a separate tribe,
... and they performed not only the services of religion but the duties
of all civil offices to which learning was necessary. They therefore
devoted themselves in a peculiar manner to the cultivation of _the
sciences_.... They studied natural philosophy, natural history, medicine,
mathematics (particularly astronomy and geometry), history, civil polity,
and jurisprudence.” Place this course of study by the side of Jewish
education, and you notice in the latter the Bible and such subjects as
tended to develop spirituality, those things which faith alone could
grasp; while the education of the Egyptian had an entirely intellectual
basis, and dealt with those subjects which appeal to the senses and to
human reason.
When this system as a system is traced in other countries, especially
in Greece, this characteristic becomes startling in the extreme; and if
reference is made to it often in contrast to the Jewish system, it is
because herein lies the pivot upon which the history of nations revolves.
It is either faith or reason to-day, as it has been faith opposed to
reason throughout the ages. In place of reason use the word _philosophy_,
for that was a favorite expression among the pagans.
[Sidenote: Pagan philosophy folly]
The gospel has stood opposed to the philosophy of the world since the
beginning; hence we read, “For the reason of the Cross is certainly folly
to the reprobate, but to us, the saved, it is a divine power; for it is
written, ‘I will destroy the philosophy of the philosophers, and upset
the cleverness of the clever.’ Where is the philosopher? where is the
scholar? where is the investigator of this age? Has not God made the
_philosophy_ of this world folly? For when in the _divine philosophy_ the
world did not perceive God through the philosophy, it pleased God to save
the faithful by means of the folly of preaching. As, however, Jews demand
a sign, and Greeks seek after philosophy, we now proclaim a crucified
Christ, a certain offense to the Jews, and joke to the heathen, but to
the called, whether Jews or Greeks,—Christ a divine power and a divine
philosophy.... For observe your calling, brothers, that there are not
many _fashionable philosophers_, nor many powerful men, nor many of high
birth.”[35]
It is this divine philosophy which the spiritually minded grasp, and
which is the sum and substance of their education. It is this human
philosophy, or natural philosophy, which in the sight of God is folly,
that Egypt and her followers adopted. Minds delving into human philosophy
never find God, nor do they approach the realms of divine philosophy.
There is a _divine philosophy_, and it is grasped by faith; and there is
a human philosophy, a creation of the human mind, a science formulated
from deductions which appeal to natural senses. But the man, wisest in
human learning alone, remains still a fool in the eyes of God, for the
inner man has not been reached.
[Sidenote: Egyptian wisdom]
Our study of pagan education is not, however, confined to the Nile
Valley. Indeed, some of the most interesting phases, some of the
strongest features of the system, were developed elsewhere. Egypt
was the cradle, but Greece and Rome were fields in which these ideas
gained strength. We read: “The ancients looked upon Egypt as a
school of wisdom. Greece sent thither illustrious philosophers and
lawgivers—Pythagoras and Plato, Lycurgus and Solon—to complete their
studies.” “_Hence, even the Greeks_ in ancient times were _accustomed to
borrow their politics and their learning_ from the Egyptians.”[36]
[Sidenote: Spartan education and Egypt]
Of the four men mentioned, we look upon Lycurgus as the founder of the
Spartan government, noted for the physical training it gave and the utter
subjection of the individual to the state. Every historian recognized
this as due to the _system of education_ introduced by Lycurgus, and
followed out by his people. The newborn babe was adjudged worthy of life
or death by a council of the state, the decision being based on the
physical condition of the infant. At the age of seven the child became
the property of the state, and so remained until sixty. It was more
exclusively a physical or purely secular education than that offered
elsewhere on earth.
[Sidenote: Athens and Egypt]
The prosperity of Athens, where was “wrought out the most perfect form
of heathen civilization,” dates from the time of Solon, who, as we have
already learned, _finished his education in Egypt_. In these two men
we see the leaning toward the physical side, made so prominent in pagan
education. “The course of study in the school of Pythagoras embraced
mathematics, physics, metaphysics, and medicine. Especial prominence was
given mathematics, which Pythagoras regarded as the noblest science.”
Here is revealed the inclination of the pagan education toward the purely
intellectual. Of Plato we shall read later.
[Sidenote: Egyptian education universal]
If Egypt offered ground for the germination of the seed of pagan
education, Greece brought the plant to its seed-producing state; and
Rome, acting as the wind with the thistle down, _scattered pagan
education broadcast_. Of Rome we read: “It gathered into its arms the
elements of Grecian and Oriental culture, and as its end drew nigh, it
scatters them freely over the rest of Europe. Rome has been the bearer of
culture to the modern world.”[37]
[Sidenote: Plato in education]
In order to understand the fertility of the seeds of pagan education,
it is necessary to regard with care the master mind of that system, and
this we find in Plato. Emerson, in his “Representative Men,” defines
his position and the position of his philosophy in the pagan and in the
so-called Christian world, making the teachings of this Greek, schooled
in Egypt, crowd out the Word of God itself. He says: “Out of Plato come
all things that are still written and debated among men of thought....
_The Bible_ of the learned for twenty-two hundred years, every brisk
young man, who says in succession fine things to each reluctant
generation ( ... Erasmus, Bruno, Locke, Rousseau, Coleridge) is some
reader of Plato.”
That is saying that for twenty-two hundred years Plato and his
educational system, known everywhere as Platonism, have taken the _place
of the Bible to the leading minds of the world_. “Plato is philosophy,
and philosophy, Plato,—at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since
neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add any idea to his categories,”
continues Emerson. “No wife, no children had he, and the _thinkers of all
civilized nations are his posterity_, and _are tinged_ with his mind. How
many great men nature is incessantly sending up out of night, to be _his
men,—Platonists_!”
Then he gives a list of illustrious names who have stood for learning in
the various ages of the world’s history, and continues: “Calvinism is in
his [Plato’s] _Phædo_: Christianity is in it.” How little this writer
knew of the power of the truth as given by Christ! Doubtless he formed
his judgment from professedly Christian teachers. But he continues:
“Mahometanism draws all its philosophy, in its handbook of morals, ...
from him [Plato]. Mysticism finds in Plato all its texts. This citizen
of a town in Greece is no villager nor patriot. An Englishman reads,
and says, ‘How English!’ a German, ‘How Teutonic!’ an Italian, ‘How
Roman and how Greek!’” And to show that the recognition of Plato is
not stopped by the Atlantic, our versatile New England writer says:
“Plato seems, to a reader in New England, an American genius.” Has the
reader any suspicion that our American educational institutions may have
recognized the universality of this master of philosophy, and adopted
into their curricula his system of reasoning? One traces, without the aid
of magnifiers, the thread of pagan philosophy throughout the American
schools.
“As our Jewish Bible has implanted itself in the table talk and household
life of every man and woman in the European and American nations, so the
writings of Plato have preoccupied _every school of learning, every lover
of thought, every church, every poet_,—making it impossible to think,
_on certain levels, except through him_. He stands between the truth and
every man’s mind, and has almost impressed language and the primary forms
of thought with his name and seal.... Here is the germ of that Europe
we know so well, in its long history of arts and arms; here are all its
traits, already discernible in the mind of Plato.... How Plato came thus
to be Europe, and philosophy, and almost literature, is the problem for
us to solve.”[38]
One ceases to wonder that, surrounded as was the Corinthian church by
_this philosophy_ and in daily touch with these ideas which have swayed
the world, Paul wrote to it against accepting the philosophy of men
in place of that divine philosophy which he and other apostles were
preaching through the cross of Christ. “When I came to you, brethren,”
writes the apostle, “I came not proclaiming the testimony of God with
_grand reasoning or philosophies_, for I decided to know nothing among
you except Jesus Christ, and He was crucified.... And my thought and my
statement was not clothed in captivating _philosophical reasons_; but, in
demonstrated spirit and power, so _that your trust might not be in human
philosophy_, but in Divine power.”[39] “Beware lest any man spoil you
_through philosophy_ and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after
the elements [margin] of the world, and not after Christ.”[40]
[Sidenote: Evolution the basis of Platonism.]
Seeing, then, that the Platonic system of education has exerted, and is
still exerting, such an influence over the minds of men, it behooves
us to ascertain the basic principles of his system. What did the man
believe, and what did he teach? Quotations have already been given
showing that he is the father of _modern philosophy_. Emerson defines
this philosophy. He says: “_Philosophy is the account which the human
mind gives to itself of the constitution of the world._” All attempts,
then, to account for the constitution of the world when a “thus saith
the Lord,” is refused, is philosophy. And philosophy is Plato.
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word
of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do
appear.”[41] But Platonism is the _mind_ trying to account to itself for
the constitution of the worlds. How, think you, did the author of this
philosophy go about to account for things which can be grasped by _faith
alone_? “To Plato belongs the honor of first subjecting education to a
scientific examination,” says Painter. Here began the laboratory studies
which have been continued by Huxley, Darwin, and others. And thus from
Plato Europe and America have gained their ideas of evolution. Plato
brought these ideas from Egypt and Babylon, and the schools of to-day
follow this man-made philosophy. Our men of intellect write text-books
which they place in the hands of youth, teaching them to account for the
constitution of the worlds according to the reasoning of men’s minds.
A few more thoughts concerning Plato, and we shall see what evolution is,
and where it is now found. Aristotle, the illustrious pupil of Plato,
“created the science of logic,” “the science of _exact_ reasoning,” as
Webster puts it. Says Emerson: “The balanced soul came.” “His daring
imagination gives him the more solid grasp of facts.... According to
the old sentence, ‘If Jove should descend to the earth, _he would speak
in the style of Plato_.’” This last, the Christian can readily believe;
but the Son of man used an entirely different speech, although Plato
antedates his birth over four hundred years, and was, at the time of the
advent of Christ, the ruler of the intellectual world.
[Sidenote: Platonism in modern schools]
“In reading logarithms, one is not more secure than following Plato
in his flights.” Plato himself is given credit for saying: “There is
a science of sciences—I call it Dialectic—_which is_ the _intellect
discriminating the false and the true_.” There is indeed a science of
sciences—the science of salvation. There is verily a way of judging
between the false and the true, for the Spirit of truth will guide you
into all truth. But the human brain can never do this. It was this same
logic, Plato’s “science of sciences,” which was given such prominence in
the papal schools and all medieval education. Here stand the two systems
side by side, the one guided by human reason, the other by the Spirit
of the living God. Remember that the world bows to Plato; and, raising
its hands in an attitude of worship, lays at his feet its tribute, its
dearest idol,—its educational system. Chambers’s Encyclopedia, art.
“Plato,” shows conclusively that this Greek philosopher holds still
his exalted position in literary circles and among educators. It says:
“Since the French Revolution particularly, the study of Plato has been
pursued with renewed vigor in Germany, France, and England; and many of
our distinguished authors, without expressly professing Platonism,—as
Coleridge, Wordsworth, Mrs. Browning, Ruskin, etc.,—have formed a strong
and growing party of adherents, who _could find no common banner under
which they could at once so conveniently and so honorably muster as that
of Plato_.”
Christians are to be gathered under the ensign of Christ;[42] but many
educators of to-day find “no common banner under which they could so
conveniently and so honorably muster as that of Plato.” Christianity or
paganism, which shall it be in the education of Protestant children
of to-day? How did it happen that the ideas of Plato were so generally
accepted throughout Europe? The article in Chambers’s Encyclopedia, from
which the foregoing quotation is made, tells in the following words how
the early Christian church became contaminated by the teachings of Plato:
“The works of Plato were extensively _studied by the Church Fathers_, one
of whom joyfully recognizes, in the great teacher of the academy, the
schoolmaster who, in the fullness of time, was destined to educate the
heathen for Christ, as Moses did the Jews.” If the early church adopted
the educational system of Plato, one does not wonder that by the Middle
Ages Europe was ready for Greek philosophy.
[Sidenote: Platonism in Europe and America]
In the year 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople, and “many Greek
scholars took refuge in Italy. The times were propitious for them.” Let
it be remembered that this was one of the mileposts in the history of the
Dark Ages. The Latin tongue had been the universal language during the
days of papal supremacy. There was an uprising against the tyranny of the
papacy over thought, and the modern tongues began to appear. In order
to stem the tide without losing ground, the papacy turned the attention
of men’s minds to Greek classics rather than to the Bible of Wyclif or
Erasmus, and a little later to the writings of Luther. Indeed, for the
papacy the “times were propitious.”
“Noble and wealthy patronage was not lacking, and under its fostering
care they (the Greeks) became for a time the teachers of Europe. _They
succeeded in kindling a remarkable enthusiasm for antiquity._ Manuscripts
were collected, translations were made, _academies were established_,
and libraries were founded. Several of the popes became generous patrons
of ancient learning.... Eager scholars from England, France, and Germany
sat at the feet of Italian masters, in order afterward to bear beyond
the Alps the precious seed of the new culture.”[43] Painter further
gives the effects of this spread of Greek classics: “In Italy it tended
strongly to _paganize_ its adherents. Ardor for antiquity became at last
intoxication. Infidelity prevailed in the highest ranks of the church;
Christianity was despised as a superstition; immorality abounded in the
most shameful forms. The heathenism of Athens was revived in Christian
Rome.” And scholars from England, France, and Germany sat at the feet of
these heathen teachers, drinking in their philosophy, and then hastening
across the Alps to propagate these ideas in the schools for the education
of the young. This was the influence against which the Reformation had to
fight. It is from Oxford, Cambridge, and the universities of Germany and
France that American colleges and universities have imbibed these same
pagan ideas.
[Sidenote: Nature of the classics]
The classics form the backbone of paganism, as _the Bible forms the basis
of Christian education_. The classics are enduring, because they are
the highest product of the human mind. The recent move in educational
circles, and on the part of some of our leading colleges against the
study of the “humanities” (the Greek and Latin classics), and in favor of
the study of “moderns” (that is, science, modern languages, and history),
can never reach a point of stability until the Bible is put in its
proper position as an educational factor, for to push out the classics
without putting in their place that which is equally as strong, _if not
stronger_, is useless. A reaction is inevitable, and the classics will
be returned to their old-time place of honor. Christian education in its
simplicity is the only alternative.
This does not mean the substitution of a class in Bible or sacred history
for the former classics. As the classic literature has been the basis
of all instruction in our schools since the Middle Ages, a reformation
necessitates a decided breaking down of the old system, and the adoption
of a new system built upon an entirely different foundation,—a system
in which the Word of God shall be the basis of all education, and the
text-book in every line of study.
[Sidenote: Paganism and our children]
Parents, reading this, may say that but a small proportion of the people
ever obtain a classical education. But if you send your child only to the
modern kindergarten, he is there told the story of Pluto; or of Ceres,
goddess of the golden grain; Mercury, the winged messenger god; the wood
nymphs; Æolus, who rules the winds and brings the storms; or Apollo,
who is driven across the heavens in a chariot of fire. Or, if the real
Greek names are dropped, _nature is personified_ in such a way as to
give the childish mind a distorted idea of things which leads to anything
but the pure and simple truth of God’s Word. He thus drinks in the myths
and fables of the Greeks from very infancy. One of his First Readers has
the story of Proserpina, who was stolen, and hidden under the earth for
a season. Nature-studies are often made attractive to youthful minds by
being associated with the ancient Greek gods and goddesses. But even in a
more subtle way the ideas of classic lore are taught in the evolutionary
theories of science and philosophy, through primary, grammar, and
high-school grades.
[Sidenote: Evolution]
“Philosophy,” as before quoted, is defined to be “the account which
the human mind gives to itself of the constitution of the world.” That
philosophy is now termed _evolution_, for evolution is man’s way of
accounting for the constitution of the world, and the creatures which
inhabit it. Take notice of these words from the pen of Henry Drummond.
In a paper prepared for the Parliament of Religions, entitled “Evolution
of Christianity,” he says: “Working in its own field, science made the
discovery of _how God made the world_.” “Through faith _we_ understand
that the worlds were framed by the word of God,” writes Paul to the
Hebrews.[44]