SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S DISCOURSES
“Matthew and Luke,” said Scaurus, “go even beyond Mark in the inculcation
of a doctrine, beautiful after a fashion, but unjust, and impracticable.
Mark says, ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself.’ Surely, that is as far as
reason can let us go. I should say it is farther. But Matthew and Luke
say, ‘Love your enemies.’ Now I can recall one passage where Epictetus
says that the Cynic must love the men that thrash him, but I am sure that
his general view is this, ‘The man that treats me thus behaves like a
beast, or like a mere scourge in the hand of Zeus, whose pleasure it is
thus to try me. How can I hate a beast? Or how can I hate a scourge?’”
Then, after reminding me how he had declared that Epictetus borrowed from
the Christians, he said, “This, I think, is an instance. The Christian
really loves the beast-like man because he believes the man to be made
in the image of God and degraded by Satan. The Christian really pities
him; he is troubled for the man’s sake. Christ says ‘Pray for him’;
and the Christian honestly prays, ‘This man is behaving like a beast.
God help him!’ The Epictetian does not recognise prayer or pity; he
recognises his own peace of mind as God’s supreme gift. ‘This man,’ he
says, ‘is behaving like a beast. But it is no evil to me. I must see that
it does not interfere with my peace of mind. I must beware of pitying
him.’ Elsewhere Epictetus says that when you are reviled you are to
make yourself a ‘stone,’ whereas Christ says, ‘Bless them that curse
you.’ This exceptional sentence, then, in which Epictetus speaks about
‘loving one’s cudgellers’ appears to me a case where our friend, while
cutting away the Christian foundation, has tried to keep the Christian
superstructure. Perhaps the view of Epictetus (at all events in word and
in appearance) is somewhat selfish. But certainly the Christian precept
is contrary to justice and common sense. One ought no more to love the
wicked than to admire the ugly.”
This seemed at first convincing, or, at all events, overpowering. But he
went on to connect it with the doctrine of forgiveness, which Matthew
and Luke included in the Lord’s Prayer. “This doctrine,” said Scaurus,
“I have mentioned above, as being in Mark, although he does not give
the Lord’s Prayer. It is, in fact, intended by Christ to be the very
basis of his community. Now of course, Silanus, you and I and all
reasonable people are agreed that we ought to be patient, and equable,
and to condone faults to our equals, and not to lose our temper with our
inferiors, if (as Epictetus says) a slave ‘brings us vinegar instead of
oil.’ And a magnanimous man will put up with much greater offences than
these, sometimes with injustice or fraud, sometimes even with insults,
if he feels that his honour is not touched by them, or that society does
not require a prosecution of the offence. But there is all the world of
difference between this—which any gentleman would do, philosopher or no
philosopher—and the extraordinary dishonesty—for I can call it by no
other name—reduced to a system by the Christians, of ‘letting people off’
in the hope that God may ‘let you off.’ I do not want to be ‘let off’ by
God. I should prefer to say (as Epictetus says to the tyrant) ‘If it seem
advisable, punish me’.”
As soon as Scaurus used this argument, I perceived that he confused the
remission of penalty with the forgiveness of sin, that power of “bearing
the burdens” of others, and of “restoring” others, which, as I have shewn
above, Paul recognised as a fact and which Paul made me recognise as a
fact, though a very mysterious fact. Hence, reasoning backward, I saw
that this faculty of discerning the image of God in the most sinful of
sinners, and of pitying the sinner, yes, and even of loving him, might
belong to God Himself, and to men in so far as they are like God. If so,
the existence of this power of loving one’s enemies was a reality, just
as the power of forgiving was a reality. “Scaurus himself,” I said, “has
and uses this power. He often sees good in people where most men would
fail to see it. He likes those in whom others see nothing to like. I can
conceive that a Son of God might not only possess but impart a power of
this kind, increased to such a degree that it might be justly called a
new power.”
“The curious thing,” said Scaurus, “about this doctrine of loving and
forgiving is this. Although it appears unpractical and paradoxical,
yet the ‘kingdom’ (to use the Christian word) based on this doctrine
is, I must confess, not unpractical at all, but on the contrary a very
solid and inconvenient fact in a great number of our largest cities and
among the poorest and most squalid of the populace. Note the difference
between the kingdom of the Christian and that of the Stoic. The Christian
missionary cries aloud like a herald, ‘Repent ye; the kingdom of God
is at hand,’ the Cynic says ‘_I am a king_,’ or—to quote Epictetus
exactly—‘Which of you, having seen me, does not recognise in me his
natural king and master?’ The former prays, and teaches his proselytes
to pray, looking up to a God in heaven, ‘Thy kingdom come’; the latter
neither prays nor enjoins prayer of any kind.
“I suppose no Greek or Roman philosopher would apply the title of king
to God quite as freely and naturally as Hebrew and Jewish writers do;
for when we Romans say ‘king,’ we think of ‘tyrant.’ But apart from that
(which is only a superficial difference of word) our philosophers have
little or none of that expectation which underlies the words ‘Thy kingdom
come.’ The Christians assert (supported by Matthew and Luke) that Christ
himself taught them to pray thus. They anticipate a new kingdom—new
family, if you prefer the term—where all the world will be brothers and
sisters doing the will of the Father. When they pray ‘Thy kingdom come,’
they mean ‘Thy will be done.’ Indeed Matthew has inserted ‘Thy will be
done’ in his version of the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps it was a paraphrase,
which Luke has rejected because it was not a part of the original. But
in any case, ‘Thy will be done’ is well adapted to make the meaning of
‘kingdom’ clear in the churches of the west. If a Christian philosopher
were to write a gospel, I should not wonder if he were to go still
further and drop the word ‘kingdom’ altogether, because it is calculated
to give a false impression to all that are unacquainted with the Hebrew
or Jewish method of speech.” Scaurus was nearly right here. When I came
to study the fourth gospel, I found that Jesus is represented as never
using the word except in explanations to Nicodemus and Pilate.
“Now,” said Scaurus, “I do not deny that there are advantages in this
scheme of a kingdom over the whole world, where the king is not a despot
but a beneficent ruler to whom all may feel heartily and permanently
loyal. _As compared with Christ_, such Epictetian ‘kings’ as Socrates,
Diogenes, and Zeno, pass before us like solitary champions, fighting, so
to speak, each for his own hand. Or we may liken them to torchbearers,
lighting up the darkness for a time but not succeeding in transmitting
the torch to a successor. They depart. There is a momentary wake of
light. It disappears. Then we have to wait for a new torchbearer, or a
new champion; and the fighting, or the torch-waving, has to begin all
over again. Take notice of my qualification—‘as compared with Christ.’
Even thus qualified, perhaps my remarks about Socrates are too strong.
For assuredly his light has not gone out. But to tell the truth, resuming
my study of these half-forgotten gospels in the light of Paul’s epistles,
I find myself sometimes admiring rather to excess that visionary
letter-writer and practical church-builder. Our philosophers do not
consolidate a kingdom. The Christians do. I am impressed by what Paul
calls somewhere their ‘solid phalanx.’ There is something about it that I
cannot quite fathom.”
I too was impressed by Scaurus’s confession that he had somewhat changed
his mind about the gospels in consequence of Paul’s epistles. It seemed
to me to explain some inconsistencies in his letters. Also I noted that
Paul’s phrase was “the solid phalanx _of your faith_,” and that perhaps
“_faith_” explained “_phalanx_.” Scaurus now passed to the doctrine of
New Birth. “I call it thus,” said he, “for brevity. Mark expresses it
ambiguously, saying that no man can enter into the kingdom unless he
receives it ‘as a little child.’ Now this might mean ‘as he receives a
little child.’ And this interpretation is rather favoured by the fact
that, somewhat earlier, Mark has a doctrine about ‘receiving one of such
little children.’ I suspect some mystical doctrine is concealed in Mark.
But Matthew has, ‘unless ye turn and become as little children.’ There
is no mistaking that. Now I say, in the first place, this is impossible;
in the second place, it is wrong. First, it is impossible. The Father of
heaven, says Horace, may send fair weather to-day and foul tomorrow. But
not even He—
‘⸺ diffinget infectumque reddet
Quod fugiens simul hora vexit.’
You must agree with me. Jupiter cannot cause what has been done to have
been not done. In the next place, it is wrong. A full-grown man has no
right to divest himself of full-grown faculties. How much better is the
doctrine of Epictetus, ‘My friend, you have fallen down. Get up. Try
again.’ This is possible. This is encouraging. But tell the same man,
‘Become a little child,’ ‘Be born again’! He will think you are playing
the fool with him.”
I wondered why Scaurus did not see that here again he was inconsistent.
He had forgotten the admissions he had made in view of Paul’s epistles.
In the cities of Asia and Greece, some of the vilest among the vile had
been told by Paul, “You must become new creatures in Christ,” “You must
die to sin and rise again to righteousness.” They did not “think he was
playing the fool.” They had (as Scaurus confessed) been morally “born
again.” Moreover Paul had met his objection as to “full-grown faculties”
by saying, “Be ye babes in respect of malice, but in understanding be
full-grown men.” Still I was sorry that the gospels had expressed this
obscurely. Neither of us had as yet read the fourth gospel. That makes
the doctrine quite clear by shewing that what is needed is not to be
“born over again”—for one might be “born over again” ten times worse than
one was before—but to be “born _from above_.” This was quite different
from “causing what has been done to have been not done.” It meant
“created anew,” or “reshaped,” so that the Spirit of Christ, within
the Christian, dominated the flesh. Both here and elsewhere, Scaurus’s
criticisms would have been very different, if he had known the fourth
gospel.
“The next point to be considered,” said Scaurus, “is the laws for the new
kingdom. Matthew has grouped together a collection of precepts as a code.
Some of these contrast what ‘has been said,’ or ‘has been said to men of
old,’ with what Christ now says. Apparently Matthew intended this code
of laws (uttered, he says, on a ‘mountain’) to correspond to the code
promulgated on Mount Sinai. But Luke (who by the way omits the ‘mountain’
and makes the scene ‘a place on the plain’) while giving many of these
precepts, scatters them about his gospel specifying various occasions on
which several of them were uttered; and he never inserts the contrasting
clause above-mentioned. The conclusion I draw is, that Christ promulgated
no law at all. Law deals almost exclusively with actions. Christ dealt
almost exclusively with motives, as the last of the Ten Commandments
does. When Christ inculcates actions, they are often metaphorical or
hyperbolical, as when he says, ‘If you are struck on one cheek, turn the
other to the striker,’ ‘Let not your right hand know what your left hand
does,’ ‘If a man takes your cloak, give him your coat too,’ and, ‘If
anyone wants to make you go a mile with him, go two miles,’—to which last
precept, by the way, Epictetus would say, No.”
I think Scaurus was referring to a passage where Epictetus said,
“Diogenes, if you seized any possession of his, would sooner give it
up to you than follow you on account of it.” Scaurus went on to say,
“Matthew’s habit of grouping sentences makes it difficult to distinguish
sayings uttered before the resurrection from those uttered after it. For
example, he speaks of a power of ‘binding and loosing’ given to Peter, in
connexion with a mention of the ‘church.’ On another occasion, a similar
power is given to the other disciples, again in connexion with the
‘church.’ Now this ‘binding and loosing’ is not mentioned by any other
evangelist. What does it mean? And when was this saying uttered?
“My rabbi tells me that ‘binding and loosing’ is regularly used by
the Jews to indicate that a rabbi ‘forbids’ or ‘sanctions’ a certain
action—for example, the eating of a particular food. Thus in the Acts of
the Apostles, the Lord would be said by the Jews to ‘loose’ the eating of
food that was before unclean, saying to Peter, ‘Arise, kill and eat.’ And
I can conceive that a gospel might describe Jesus as saying to Peter, ‘I
give thee this power of loosing unclean food, that thou and the rest of
my disciples may henceforth eat with the Gentiles, and in their houses,
asking no questions concerning the food.’ But I do not myself believe
that Christ used the phrase ‘bind and loose’ in this sense. I think he
connected it with that strange doctrine of forgiveness of sins on which
he laid so much stress, and that it was uttered after the resurrection,
when the term ‘church’ might be more naturally used.” Scaurus was so far
right in this that I afterwards found in the fourth gospel a doctrine,
not indeed about “binding and loosing,” but about “imprisoning and
loosing” or “arresting and loosing”; and this was connected with “sins,”
and Christ gave this power to the disciples after the resurrection.
Scaurus continued, “Look at Matthew’s words in one of these passages,
‘But if he refuse to hear the church, let him be unto thee as the heathen
and the publican,’ and then, at some interval, ‘Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.’ Then look
at the last words of Matthew’s gospel, uttered after the resurrection,
‘Behold I am with you always.’ Does not the saying, ‘I am there in the
midst of you when you are gathered together,’ come more appropriately
from Christ, appearing after the resurrection, than from Christ before
the resurrection? I think so. The context indicates a tradition of some
utterance made after the resurrection, conveyed through some apostle
in a Jewish form, promising Christ’s presence to the disciples. Paul
assumes such a presence, writing to the Corinthians ‘When ye are gathered
together, and my spirit, together with the power of the Lord Jesus
Christ, to deliver over such a one to Satan.’ These last words about
‘Satan’ I do not profess to comprehend fully; but they seem to me to
imply the opposite of ‘loosing’—some kind of’ ‘binding’ or ‘remanding to
prison.’ And it is to take place in the presence of Christ, with Paul’s
spirit, when the church of Corinth is ‘gathered together’.”
I thought Scaurus was probably right as to the date of this promise.
But I was much more impressed by what he said concerning the tradition,
in Luke, “_Eat those things that are served up to you_.” This, in Luke,
was almost meaningless to me, but it had been full of meaning in Paul’s
epistle to the Corinthians, where the apostle spoke about meat sold in
Gentile markets: “If an unbeliever invites you, and ye desire to accept,
_eat everything that is served up to you, asking no questions_.”
Scaurus said, “This tradition about ‘_eating what is served up_’ occurs
nowhere in the gospels except in Luke’s account of the sending of
the Seventy, beginning, ‘After these things the Lord appointed other
seventy.’ Now this word ‘_appoint_’ does not in the least necessitate the
conclusion that Christ appointed the Seventy before the resurrection.
Look at the ‘_appointment_’ of the thirteenth apostle in the place of
Judas. The Acts says ‘Lord, _appoint_ him whom thou hast chosen.’ Then
Matthias is ‘_appointed_.’ The Lord is supposed to ‘_appoint_’ him in
answer to the prayer. Concerning this, Luke might say, ‘_After these
things the Lord appointed Matthias_.’ If these words had been inserted
in the gospel, they would have given the false impression that Jesus,
while living, had appointed Matthias. Well, that is just the impression—a
false one—that Luke gives as to the ‘_appointment_’ of the Seventy. The
fact is that the Seventy (a number often used by the Jews to denote
all the nations or languages of the world) represent the missionaries
_‘appointed’ after the Lord’s death to go to the cities of the Gentiles
to prepare them for the Coming of the Lord from heaven_. These were
to go into the houses of Gentiles. Though Jews, they were to eat of
Gentile food—‘_everything that is served up_.’ Without this explanation,
the tradition has no meaning—or, if any, an unworthy one, ‘Do not be
fastidious. If you cannot have pleasant food, eat unpleasant food.’
This seems to me absurd. But with this explanation, the precept becomes
intelligible and necessary.”
This convinced me. Moreover Luke’s use of “the Lord,” for “Jesus”—since
“the Lord” would be more likely to be used than “Jesus” after the
resurrection—seemed slightly to favour Scaurus’s conclusion. He passed
next to a tradition of Matthew’s about abstinence from marriage “for
the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” On this he said, “Looking at Paul’s
advice to the Corinthians about celibacy and marriage, and at the
distinction he draws between ‘advice,’ and ‘allowance’ and ‘command,’
and ‘not I but the Lord,’ I am convinced that Paul spoke on his own
responsibility, except as to Christ’s insistence on the old tradition in
Genesis, ‘The two shall be one flesh.’ I mean that Christ upheld monogamy
against polygamy and against that modified form of polygamy which arose
from the husband’s unrestricted, or scarcely restricted, right of
divorce. Soon after the resurrection, in the midst of persecutions, when
the Christians expected that Christ might speedily return and carry them
up to heaven, it was natural that the Corinthians should apply for advice
to Paul, and other churches to other apostles.
“My belief is that Christ’s words extended to only the first half of
Matthew’s tradition. The disciples complain, in effect, ‘If a man cannot
divorce his wife when he dislikes her, it is best not to marry.’ To
this Christ replies, as I interpret him, ‘Not all grasp the mystery of
the true marriage contemplated from the beginning (namely, “the two
shall become one”) but only those to whom it is given.’ This seems to
me to have been explained in a wrong sense in the words that follow
about ‘eunuchs.’ At all events, Paul twice quotes the words quoted
by Christ (about the ‘two’ becoming ‘one’) as though they were the
basis of his doctrine about marriage and also a type of the mysterious
wedlock between Christ and the church. I do not think, however, that
any confident conclusion is deducible. Christ elsewhere indicates—when
dealing with an imaginary case where a woman has married seven brothers
consecutively—that the marriage tie does not extend to the next life. By
the Jews, marriage is, and was, regarded as honourable, and almost as a
duty. But a Jewish sect called the Essenes, or some of them, practised
celibacy; and you know how Epictetus inculcates celibacy on his Cynics
of the first class. These facts, and the pressure of hard times, and
Paul’s example, may not only have favoured abstinence from marriage among
Christians but also have favoured some tampering with tradition in order
to enjoin celibacy. A letter to Timothy speaks of certain heretics as
‘forbidding to marry.’ Perhaps the only safe conclusion about Matthew’s
tradition is that no conclusion can be deduced from it.”
Scaurus next discussed the question whether Christ inculcated poverty
on his disciples. He denied it. Not that he denied Luke to be more
correct verbally in saying “Blessed are _the poor_” than Matthew in
“Blessed are _the poor in spirit_.” But he asserted that Christ meant
“_poor in spirit_.” Similarly (said Scaurus) Christ meant “hungering
_after righteousness_,” as Matthew says, though Luke was right verbally
in omitting “after righteousness.” For, according to Scaurus, “Christ
hardly ever used such words as ‘bread,’ ‘leaven,’ ‘water,’ ‘hunger,’
‘thirst,’ ‘fire,’ ‘salt,’ ‘treasure,’ and so on, except metaphorically.”
Then he quoted the following instance out of Mark’s version of Christ’s
instructions to the twelve apostles, where, he said, Mark’s metaphors had
been misunderstood literally—and consequently altered—by Matthew and Luke.
“Mark,” said he, “has, ‘that they should take nothing for the journey,
_save a staff only_, no bread, no wallet, no money for the purse.’
Matthew and Luke have ‘_no staff_.’ Now turn to Genesis, where Jacob
thanks God for helping him on his journey, ‘I passed over Jordan with
_my staff_.’ He _means_, ‘with _my staff only_.’ Philo explains this
‘_staff_’ metaphorically, as ‘training,’ _i.e._ the instruction or
guidance given by God. David says to God, ‘Thy rod and _thy staff_ are
my help,’ or words to that effect—manifest metaphor. My rabbi shewed me
a Jewish paraphrase of Jacob’s words, ‘I had neither gold, nor silver,
nor herds, but _simply my staff_.’ He also told me that this ‘_staff_’
was supposed by the Jews to have been given by God to Adam from whom it
descended to the patriarchs in succession. This shews that Jews might
find no difficulty in Christ’s metaphor, ‘Go forth with _nothing but
a staff_,’ _i.e._ the staff of Jacob, the rod and staff of God. But
Greeks and Romans would naturally take the word literally as meaning
‘walking-stick.’ Then they would find a difficulty, asking, ‘Why should
Jesus say, _No bread, no wallet—only a walking-stick_?’ Hence many,
writing largely for Gentiles, might alter it into ‘_no walking-stick_.’
This is what Matthew and Luke have done. Similarly they altered Mark’s
metaphor ‘_but shod with sandals_,’ _i.e._ with light shoes fit for the
‘beautiful feet’ of the preachers of the gospel, into ‘_no boots_,’ or
words to that effect. The error is the same. Jewish metaphor has been in
each case taken literally by Matthew and Luke.”
Scaurus added a few remarks on Christ as a historical character, “dimly
traceable,” he said, “in the combined testimony of Mark, Matthew, and
Luke”—where I thought he might have added, “and in the epistles of
Paul.” His main thought was that, in spite of all the defects of these
three writers, it was possible to discern in Christ a successor of Moses
and Isaiah. “This man,” said Scaurus, “may be regarded in two aspects.
As a lawgiver, he took as the basis of his republic a re-enactment,
in a stronger form, of the two ancient laws that enjoined love of the
Father and love of the brethren. As a prophet, he saw a time when all
mankind—recognising in one another (man in man and nation in nation) some
glimpse of the divine image, and of the beauty of divine holiness—would
beat their swords into ploughshares, and go up to the City of peace,
righteousness, and truth, to worship the Father of the spirits of all
flesh. Isaiah had foreseen this. But this prophet was also possessed with
a belief, beyond Isaiah’s, in the unity of God and man. He was persuaded
that the true Son of man was the Son of God, higher than the heavens.
I think also that he trusted—but on what grounds I do not know, unless
it was an ingrained prophetic belief, found in all the great prophets,
carried to its highest point in this prophet—that, as light follows on
darkness, so does joy on sorrow, righteousness on sin, and life on death.
A Stoic would say that these things alternate and that all things go
round. But this Jewish prophet believed that all things in the end would
go up—up to heaven. That is how I read his expectation. Feeling himself
to be one with God, he placed no limits, except God’s will, to the mighty
works that God might do for him in his attempt to fulfil God’s purpose
of exalting men from darkness to light and from death to life.
“It is in some of these mysterious aspirations,” said Scaurus, “that I
cannot follow this prophet of the Jews. At times he seems to me to act
and speak (certainly Paul speaks thus) as though God had caused mankind
to take (if I may say so) one disease in order to get rid of another.
I am speaking of moral disease. God seems to Paul to have allowed
man to contract the disease of sin in order to rise to a health of
righteousness, higher than would have been possible if he had not sinned.
On these and other mystical notions this Jewish prophet may perhaps base
views of forgiveness, and of love, and of the efficacy of his own death
for his disciples, all of which perplex me. Sometimes I reject them
entirely. Sometimes I am in doubt.” These last words of Scaurus seemed
to me to explain many inconsistencies in his letters. But how could I be
surprised? Was I consistent myself? Was not my own mind at that instant
fluctuating like a very Euripus? I could understand his doubts only too
well.
He concluded by contrasting Christ with John the Baptist. “The one
point,” said Scaurus, “in which these two prophets or reformers agreed,
was that the Lord God would intervene for the people, if only the people
would return to Him. But in other respects they appear to me to have
altogether differed. John the Baptist seems to have desired to bring
about a remission of debts in accordance with the Law of Moses, as
insisted on by previous prophets. He also desired an equalisation of
property. That is what I gather from the gospels themselves, interpreted
in the light of the ancient Law of the Jews. Moreover Josephus told me
that Herod the tetrarch put John to death on political grounds, because
he seemed likely to stir up the people to sedition, nor did he ever
mention the influence of Herodias as contributing to the prophet’s
execution. Of course the story about the dancing and the oath may be
true, and yet the oath may have been a mere excuse for getting rid of an
inconvenient person. John was not unwilling (as I gather) to resort to
the sword of Gideon or the fire of Elijah if the word of the gospel did
not suffice to establish the new kingdom.
“Jesus, on the other hand, was absolutely averse to violence. Jesus was
penetrated with the belief in the power of ‘little ones’ and ‘babes’ and
‘sucklings.’ How far he anticipated the future in store for himself I
cannot say. Sometimes I am inclined to believe that he thought God would
intervene at the last moment and deliver him from the jaws of death.
Sometimes he seems to have deliberately faced death with the conviction
that he would be swallowed up by it for a short time, emerging from it to
victory.
“The Baptist certainly expected to be delivered by Jesus from the prison
in which he was being kept by Antipas, and to have been disappointed
by his friend’s inaction. It must have been a very bitter moment for
the latter when John sent to reproach him, as good as saying, ‘Are you,
too, a false Messiah? Will you leave me to perish in prison? Are you
really our Deliverer, or must we, the whole nation, turn from you as a
laggard, and wait for another?’ In my opinion, this was the very greatest
temptation to which Jesus was exposed. In that moment—as I judge when
I try to guess the eastern metaphor corresponding to western fact—Jews
would say that Satan said to Christ ‘Worship me, and I will give you the
empire of the world,’ or ‘Take the risk! Throw yourself down from the
pinnacle! See whether God will save you!’ In plain words, the temptation
was, ‘Appeal to the God of battles! Rouse the people to arms, first
against Antipas, and then against the Romans!’ For a perfectly unselfish
and noble nature, believing in divine interventions, this must indeed
have been a great, a very great temptation.”
Scaurus finished this part of his letter by quoting a passage that I had
long had in mind, but I had forgotten its context, “Do you remember,
Silanus, how the old Egyptian priest says in the Timaeus, ‘Solon, Solon,
you Greeks are always boys’? Then comes the reason, ‘_You have not in
your souls any ancient belief based on tradition from the days of old_.’
Well, we Romans are in the same position as the poor Greeks. So are the
Egyptians for the matter of that. For it is not antiquity alone, but
_divine_ antiquity, that counts. None of us have this divine antiquity
of ‘tradition from the days of old’ going back to such characters as
Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. I think we must put up with our
inferiority. These things we had better leave to others. We have, as
Virgil says, ‘arts’ of our own, the arts of war and empire. There, we
are men, full-grown men. But as compared with Moses, Isaiah, and above
all with this Jesus, or Christ, I must frankly confess I sometimes feel
myself a ‘boy,’ and never so much as now. My conclusion is, _I will keep
to the things in which I am not a ‘boy.’_ Do you the same.”