appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. Great is the combat,
divine is the work; it is for kingship, for freedom, for happiness, for
freedom from perturbation. Remember God, call on him as a helper and
protector, as men at sea call on the Dioscuri in a storm. For what is a
greater storm than that which comes from appearances which are violent
and drive away the reason?"
Epictetus, compared with Plato, is the warrior philosopher beside the
seeing philosopher. He is in closest grip with the foe, and his calm is
the calm of the victor holding down his enemy.
His apparent unconcern as to the hereafter is in keeping with his whole
attitude, which is that of cheerful acquiescence in the divine order,
whatever it be. "To be free, not hindered, not compelled, conforming
yourself to the administration of Zeus, obeying it, well satisfied with
this, blaming no one, charging no one with fault, able from your whole
soul to utter these verses:--
"Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, too, Destiny."
He vindicates Providence against injustice. "The unjust man has the
advantage,--in what? In money. But the just man has the advantage in
that he is faithful and modest."
"We ought to have these two principles in readiness, that except the will
nothing is good nor bad; and that we ought not to lead events, but to
follow them. My brother ought not to have behaved thus to me. No, but
he will see to that; and, however he may behave, I will conduct myself
toward him as I ought."
"As a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing the aim, so neither
does the nature of evil exist in the world."
That is, it is inconceivable that the universe is a blunder. This is one
of the fundamental ideas of Epictetus. The inference is, that man has
only to define his true end and pursue it, which is the right action of
the will, or as we should say, right character. Pursuing this, he never
finds himself thwarted or unfriended, never rebels or mistrusts the gods.
The substance of his message is: "On the occasion of every accident
(event) that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what
power you have for turning it to use."
"God has delivered yourself to your own care, and says, 'I had no fitter
one to intrust him to than yourself; keep him for me such as he is by
nature, modest, faithful, erect, unterrified, free from passion and
perturbation.'"
God, says Epictetus, has made me his witness to men. "For this purpose
he leads me at one time hither, at another time sends me thither; shows
me to men as poor, without authority and sick; sends me to Gyara, leads
me into prison, not because he hates me,--far from him be such a meaning,
for who hates the best of his servants? nor yet because he cares not for
me, for he does not neglect any, even of the smallest things; but he does
this for the purpose of exercising me and making use of me as a witness
to others. Being appointed to such a service, do I still care about the
place in which I am, or with whom I am, or what men say about me? and do
I not entirely direct my thoughts to God, and to his instructions and
commands?"
Thus he falls back on the life of the spirit,--simple, sure, victorious.
To place all good in character is the secret. From virtue grows piety.
It is desire set on externals, and so disappointed, that brings
discontent, repining, impiety.
Yet Epictetus has distinct and serious limitations. He assumes that to
avoid all perturbation is the aim of the wise man. This can be
accomplished only by the sacrifice of all objects of desire which lie
outside of the control of the will, and he advises this sacrifice. "If
you love an earthen vessel, say it is an earthen vessel which you love;
for when it has been broken you will not be disturbed. If you are
kissing your child or wife, say that it is a human being whom you are
kissing, for when the wife or child dies you will not be disturbed."
All joys but the purely moral are to be despised. In going to the
theatre one should be indifferent to who gains the prize. This attempted
indifference to all the great and little pleasures of life which have no
distinct moral character, if successful, makes an ascetic, and of most
men is liable to make prigs. It is the vice of Puritanism.
The modern world is riper and richer than the Roman world. We say now,
the ideal man is not "unperturbed." Perturbations are inevitable to the
man normally and highly developed, with sensibilities and sympathies
keenly alive. The true aim is to include composure, but not as sole and
supreme. This is a more complex development than the Stoic, less capable
perhaps of symmetrical completeness, but grander, as a Gothic church is
grander than a Greek temple.
Again, the assumption of Epictetus and of all the Stoics that the will is
wholly free, that man has only to choose and seek goodness and he can
perfectly achieve it, misses the familiar and bitter experience of
humanity, that too often man carries his prison and fetters within
himself. A Roman poet voiced it: _Meliora video proboque, deteriora
sequor_. Paul spoke it: "The good that I would, I do not; and the evil I
would not, that I do."
But Epictetus himself is one of the great souls who are not to be
described by the label of any creed. He has in himself the secret of
spiritual victory, and he has a peculiar power to impart it. The
limitations of Stoicism as a creed are more plainly seen in Marcus
Aurelius. His character, revealed in the "fierce light that beats upon a
throne," is of rare nobility and beauty. To a man's strength he unites a
woman's tenderness. Just because of that tenderness, and the deep heart
of which it is the flower, the philosophy he so bravely practices gives
him but a bleak and chill abiding-place. Through his Meditations--manly,
wise, and gracious--there runs a deep note of sadness. For this man's
nature cried out for love, and not even faithfulest duty can take the
place of love.
Stoicism was the most distinct embodiment of the virtues of the classic
world. Those virtues shone in many who did not profess themselves to be
of the Stoic school. Plutarch's gallery of portraits is a part of the
world's best possession. His heroes belong not to their own time alone.
They may be distinguished in some broad respects from the saints and
sages of other lands and times; some advance of type may be traced in the
highest products of the successive ages; but while one turns the pages of
Plutarch, he scarcely asks for better company.
Why, then, did Stoic philosophy fail of more wide or lasting success
among mankind? Because--we may perhaps answer--its chief weapon was the
reasoning intellect, in which only a few could be proficient. Because,
fixing its ideal in imperturbability, it denied sensibilities of
affection, joy, and hope, which are a large part of normal humanity.
Because, in its lack of natural science, and its revulsion from the
mythologic deities, it isolated man in the universe, claiming for the
individual will a sovereignty which ignored the ensphering play of
natural forces, and denying to the heart any outreach beyond the earthly
and finite. If we may venture to summarize the defects of ancient
philosophy in two words--it lacked womanliness and it lacked knowledge.
We are now to study the building up of another side of the ideal man.
Philosophy had essayed a religion of the intellect and the will; now from
Judaism sprang Christianity, a religion of the imagination and the heart.
The highest outcome of the classic civilization was the clear conception
and strenuous practice of right for its own sake. The outcome of Judaism
in Christianity was essentially the belief and feeling of an intimate
union between man and a higher power, with love and obedience on the one
side, love and providence on the other.
In the vast tract of Greek-Roman history, we have looked at only a few of
the highest mountain peaks--the noblest contributions. But since the
Christian church still treats the Old Testament as one of its charter
documents, we need to enlarge a little upon the general outline and color
of Jewish history, and we must recognize the shadows as well as the
lights.
The traditional interpretation of the Old Testament which is still
current is based on successive misconceptions, overlaying and blending
with each other like close-piled geologic strata. Pious intent of the
original writers, shaping their facts to suit their theories--later
assumptions of inspiration and infallibility in the records--theologic
systems quarried and built out of these materials--the supposed
dependence of the most precious faiths of mankind upon these misreadings
of history,--all these influences, with the lapse of time, have buried so
deeply the original facts, that the exhuming and revivifying of the true
story, or at least a tolerable similitude of its main lines, has imposed
a gigantic task upon modern scholarship. Of the results of this
scholarship, we may give here only a kind of shorthand memorandum.
The Old Testament as a whole, with precious exceptions, can only by a
great stretch of imagination be claimed as an integral part of "_the_
book of religion"--the title which Matthew Arnold asserts for the entire
Bible. The phrase can scarcely be applied to the Old Testament, unless
it be read through a medium surcharged with association and
prepossession. Much of its morality has been outgrown; many of its early
stories are revolting to us: much, of which the inner meaning is at one
with our deepest life, is disguised under phraseology wholly alien to our
modern thought and speech. As a manual of devotion, or as a textbook for
the young, the Old Testament can never again fill such a place as it
filled to our fathers. But we can still trace in it many of the upward
steps of the race, and there are portions which still hold a deep place
in the affections of the truly religious.
The mind at certain stages personifies the Deity with the greatest ease
and naturalness. The primitive man interprets the whole world about him
by the analogy of his own activity. He sees in all the phenomena of
nature the presence of personal beings,--beings who act and suffer and
enjoy and love and hate as he does himself. The sky, the sun, the wind,
the ocean, represent each a separate deity. Next, each clan, or city, or
nation, comes to regard itself as under the patronage of one of these
deities. The national god of the Israelites, at the earliest time we
know them, bore the name of Yahveh,--a name more familiar to us under the
form Jehovah. Originally he was probably the god of the sun and fire.
His acts were seen everywhere, his motives guessed. The heat and light
of the sun--now illumining, now fructifying, now blasting--were his
immediate manifestations.
Later, he was conceived to favor certain kinds of human action. He was
at first appeased under the influences of analogies from the lower side
of human nature,--Give him a present, something to eat, or to smell, or
to see. Then came the idea that he was the friend and favorer of the
righteous,--of the merciful and just. The turning-point in the history
of Judaism--the birth-hour of religion as it has come down to us--is
marked by that great dimly-seen personality, Moses, who taught that the
worship of Yahveh forbade murder, adultery, theft, false witness,
covetousness.
The Jews had neither science nor logic; they had no intelligent induction
as to nature,--hence they never got beyond the idea of supernatural
intervention.[3] Apparently they never challenged and sifted their
fundamental ideas,--never raised the question as to the actual existence
of Yahveh. They saw and felt the incongruities of the world as a moral
administration, and sometimes pressed the inquiry, as in Job, _Why_ does
Yahveh thus? But the denial of any ruling personal Will, as by
Lucretius, was impossible to them. They were imaginative, intense, and
their imagination got the saving ethical impress especially from the
prophets.
Judaism as a religion grew from "the Law and the Prophets." From almost
the earliest historic time there existed some brief code of
precepts,--probably an abbreviated form of what we know as the Ten
Commandments. Later came the impassioned preaching of the prophets.
Still later, there was formulated that elaborate statute-book for which
by a pious fiction was claimed the authority of Moses.
The prophets spoke out of an exaltation of which no other account was
given than it was the inspiration of Yahveh,--"Thus saith the Lord!"
They did not argue, they asserted--with a passion that bred conviction,
or at least fear and respect.
It is here that the distinction between the Greek and the Hebrew method
is most marked. Socrates, for example, called himself the midwife of
men's thoughts. His maxim was, "Know thyself." His cross-examination
was designed to make men see for themselves. That is, he taught by
reason. But the prophet's claim was, "Thus saith the Lord!" He spoke
out of his personal and passionate conviction, for which he believed he
had the highest supernatural sanction.
The heart of the typical prophetic message was that the Ruler of the
world is a righteous ruler, and that the service he desires is
righteousness. The early prophets--such as Micah, Hosea, Amos--speak
with scorn of the worship by sacrifices,--whether the fruits of the
earth, or slaughtered beasts, or the ghastly offering of human life.
Hosea cries: "I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of
God more than burnt offerings." So Micah speaks: "Shall I come before
him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Will the Lord be pleased
with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I
give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin
of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the
Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God?"
Further, the prophets assumed to know and declare Yahveh's will on public
affairs, especially on the government of the nation. They tried to
dictate the attitude of Judea toward other kingdoms--an attitude
generally of proud defiance. Often their counsel ignored the
actualities, and helped to precipitate Judah and Israel into hopeless
conflicts with their mighty neighbors. When in these conflicts they were
worsted, the prophets laid the disaster to the idolatry or other
wickedness of the people. Finally came utter defeat and dispersal, and
an exile for generations in a foreign land. Then the prophets rose to an
intenser faith,--purer, tenderer, more spiritual. Some time and somehow
the Lord would surely be gracious to his people!
But when the captives, or a part of them, were restored to their own
land,--with lowered fortunes and humbled pride, half dependent still on a
foreign master,--the prophetic enthusiasm no longer availed to give a
fresh message from the Lord. Instead, the leaders and founders of the
restoration--Ezra, Nehemiah, and their associates and followers--built up
a well-organized, well-enforced system of discipline. They reshaped the
old traditions, enlarged and codified them; they shaped the Pentateuch
and book of Joshua, as we know them now; they purified and beautified the
Temple service; they instituted synagogues in every town, where religious
teaching should be regular and constant; they developed a class of
"Scribes," or expositors of the Law; they multiplied ceremonial
observances; they rewrote the national history, and invested their laws
with the sacredness of divine oracles, under the august name of Moses;
they imposed deadly penalties and bitter hatred on all who deviated from
the established religion. All this was the work of centuries, and its
important result was that by a manifold and perpetual drill certain
religious ideas were stamped upon the minds of the people, until beliefs
and usages and sentiments ran in their very blood and were transmitted
from father to son.
As types of the Hebrew religion in its advancing stages we may note:
first, Jacob, winning his way by craft and subtlety, gaining the favor of
his god by a fidelity which expresses itself by vows and sacrifices and
scarcely at all by morality; and hardly attractive except in the
tenderness of his family relations. A mythical figure, he is a marvelous
embodiment of the persistent race-traits of the Jew--tenacity, craft,
devoutness--in the early phase. It is a very earthly phase, but with the
germs of a marvelous development. Later, we have David, the warrior
king. Still later comes Elijah, the prophet of a Deity who now stands
for chastity and justice against gods of sensuality and cruelty, and
defying wicked kings in the name of that God. Then in the line of
prophets we may pass to their greatest, Isaiah,--both first and second of
the name,--each of whom in the deepest adversity of the people is
inspired by a hope, vague in its expectation, but so deep, so fervid, so
sweet, that to this day it lends its language to hearts which in darkness
look for the morning. Next we may take Ezra, rebuilding the shattered
nationality, not on a political basis, but by a law of personal conduct
in which a genuine morality is mixed with a ceremonial code. And here
really belongs the legislation ascribed to Moses and given in the
Pentateuch; the law-giver having an original in some great, dim, historic
figure, long treasured in the popular imagination, but rehabilitated by
priestly art as the author of a great volume of minute legislation, to
which dignity is lent by the legends of a personality sublime yet meek.
We have then the flowering of the inner life, in the book of Psalms,--the
single name of the Psalmist covering the products of many minds and
successive generations. In the course of affairs, the hero's place
belongs next to Judas Maccabaeus, the patriot leader against the heathen
Greek; and we may take the books of the Maccabees and the book of Daniel
as giving the ideal thought of the period,--the matrix of belief and hope
from which was to spring the crowning flower of Judaism.
It will suffice for our purpose if from this series we touch upon David,
the Psalms, the book of Job, Isaiah, and the literature of the Maccabean
time.
The real place of David is that of the warrior-king who gave
independence, unity, and victory to the people of Israel. It was he who
broke the yoke of the Philistines which Saul had weakened, and slew in
fight their gigantic champion. He conquered and subjected the
neighboring tribes; he put down the rebellions headed by his own sons; he
made and kept Israel for a brief term a proud and victorious military
monarchy. Within a single generation after his death it was divided into
two hostile fragments, and both of these gradually fell under foreign
conquerors. Very short was the period of Israel's warlike glory, and for
a thousand years afterward the national heart turned in love and
reverence to the hero of that time. As the Saxons remembered Alfred, as
Americans remember Washington, so the Israelites remembered David. It
was in his image and under his name that they pictured a future which
should outshine their past. Israel throughout the period when she is
most distinctly before us was a subject people. It was largely the
presence of a foreign oppressor which gave to the national voice that
tone of intense entreaty toward a divine friend and deliverer which runs
its pathos through psalm and history and prophecy. There had been a
better day for Israel, before Assyrian and Egyptian trampled her. There
had been a day when Philistia and Edom quailed and fell before her, and
the Lord wrought victory by the hand of David. So it is David's history
that stands out fullest and clearest in the whole record, from Abraham
onward. How much is true history and how much is imaginative addition
must be largely guesswork. But we see in David the ideal hero and type
of that period of Jewish history as we see in Achilles and Odysseus the
ideal types of primitive Greece.
And the story of David is as deeply colored with the primal passions of
humanity as are the songs of Homer. There is the picture of the
shepherd-boy, to which must be added the exquisite psalm which later
traditions put in his mouth; the victory over the giant; the most
pathetic story of the moody and wayward Saul--the power of music over his
melancholy, the alternations of jealous rage and compunction; the
friendship with Jonathan, more tender and pure than the friendships Plato
pictures; the dramatic fortunes of the outlaw; the family tragedies full
of crime and horror; the dark story of Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom; the
passion of fatherhood in fullest intensity, with the agonized prayers for
the sick child and the heartbroken lament over Absalom; the group of
valiant captains and their chivalrous exploits; the risk of life to bring
to their homesick chief a drink from the well of Bethlehem; the story of
Bathsheba and Uriah--lust, treachery, and murder; the prophet's rebuke;
the years declining under heavy shadows. How full of lifeblood it all
is! Every chapter is an idyl, an epic, or a tragedy.
It is largely this picturesque dramatic quality which made the English
Bible in its early days the favorite book of the English people, and has
kept for it always so high a place. But the attempt to reduce a story
like David's to terms of spiritual edification has been difficult above
measure, ever since mankind advanced beyond the half-barbaric age in
which the story was told. Judged by our standards, the ethics of the
story are often low, and its religion is largely a superstition. What
brings the Almighty on the scene is most frequently some great calamity,
which priest or soothsayer interprets as a divine judgment. Often there
is attributed to him the quality of a jealous Oriental despot. The
justice he enforces is often injustice and savagery. Take the story of
the Gibeonites. A three years' famine in Israel was explained by
Yahveh's oracle as a retribution for the breach of faith by Saul, many
years before, with the Gibeonites, whom he had persecuted in defiance of
ancient compact. David thereupon invited the Gibeonites to name the
requital which would appease them, and they asked for the death of seven
sons of Saul. So David delivered the seven innocent men into their
hands, "and they hanged them before the Lord."
The Zeus of Homer is offensive to religious feeling because he fully
shares the sensuality which we account one of the great defects of
humanity. From that blemish the Hebrew idea of God is always free. The
hostility between Yahveh and the heathen gods has its deep ethical
significance in the struggle of chastity against licentiousness, to which
the religious sanction brings reinforcement. But the Hebrew God has a
savage and vindictive quality, which only slowly and partially
disappears. Originally, it is probable, the God of the sun and fire,
beneficent to illumine, malevolent to burn, he remains always in some
degree a God of wrath.
It was by one of the strange growths of the advancing popular thought
that David, the valiant, passionate soldier-king, came to be conceived of
as the writer of the book of Psalms. Historically a misconception, it
yet lent a continuity and ideal unity to the nation's self-interpretation.
The book of Psalms, says Dean Stanley, is the selected hymns of the
Jewish people, for a period as long as from Chaucer to Tennyson. The
service-book of the Second Temple is Kuenen's description. Beyond any
other single book, it shows us the heart of Judaism in its ripest, most
characteristic development. Its language has become saturated with the
associations of many centuries. In these intense, direct, and fervid
utterances we can see the form and lineaments of a faith which was the
ancestor of our own, yet is not the same.