THE INFLUENCE OF STOICISM ON THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
ἰὰ φρενῶν δυσφρόνων
ἁμαρτήματα στερεά.
Soph. _Antig._ 1261, 2.
Having in the previous chapter described the influence which
Christianity had in modifying the tenets of the Stoic school, we come
now to the consideration of the influence which the latter exercised on
the Christian Church. Beyond the bounds of the sect a widespread
impression was made by the force of Stoic principles: and by these
Christianity became affected in no small degree. There was so much about
them which was real, and they appealed so strongly to the sympathies and
pride of human nature, that even where their influence was unperceived
and unacknowledged, it was nevertheless deep and lasting. The Stoic
spirit gradually spread within the Church, and found there a new home
for itself after the destruction of the school of philosophy to which it
had given life. Even to the present day it has continued to exist, and
still manifests undiminished energy.
The early Fathers, who came into contact with the Stoic system in its
strength, saw its many excellences as well as its many defects. Being a
wonderful advance on merely speculative philosophy, drawing men to the
cultivation of the moral sense instead of indulging in wild dreams,
there was much for the Christian to admire in its purpose. Still he
would naturally be discontented with a great deal that it contained, as
well as disappointed at the absence of much that it omitted. There was
something to commend the system to many minds, in the fact that it
taught the duty of cultivating the nobler part, of self-denial, of
bringing the appetites into subjection to the will. There was a great
deal of pretension also in the outward appearance of the philosophers
and of their disciples, and this had an influence on many Christians,
which became stronger as time wore on.
In endeavouring to decide how the Church was affected by this spirit, we
perceive that there were two principal dangers to which the religion of
Jesus was liable from Stoicism. These dangers were lest the purity of
the Gospel should be overridden by the asceticism born of the Stoic
spirit; and lest the foreknowledge and providential care of the great
Father should be confounded with the fatalism which was so marked a
feature of the Stoic belief. These dangers include others which will be
noticed as we proceed.
There is a great proneness in many minds to look on self-imposed
austerities as in themselves a mark of virtue. Hence men who have been
discontented with the ordinary duties of life and attempted to find
higher walks of excellence, have been looked on as superior to others.
This spirit has shown itself in all countries and systems. Those who
have yielded to it have generally affected a superiority over the rest
of the world, and a peculiarity in their garb and manners. The Stoics
were greatly influenced in this way. We read of their long robes, just
as we read of the long robes of the Pharisees. Horace and Persius, in
their Satires, bring before us the assumption of superiority by “the
wise man.”
This spirit of asceticism found its way into the Christian Church.
Perhaps jealousy lest the Stoic philosophy, or Jewish Pharisaism, should
seem to have a more marked influence than Christianity, produced a
desire to make a display of asceticism. Or it might be that a persuasion
of the excellence of this, for its own sake, led Christian men to adhere
to it. Whatever the motive, there was soon manifested, in the Church, an
exaggeration of self-restraint. Men began to withdraw from the ordinary
walks of Christian life. They began to despise the performance of merely
common duties; and to sketch out new ways to perfection, which they
thought better than those taught by the Saviour. They began to do
violence to their natures. In fact they became Stoical, as if they
thought the being so was an advance on being Christian.
Christianity is a religion eminently suited for the daily life of men.
It teaches us to do our duty in the world. We are taught that the
highest degree of piety is consistent with, and indeed implies, the
performance of one’s proper part, as belonging to a great family, which
has a right to the energy and service of each of its members. To do our
duty amongst men, wisely and bravely, is taught us too by the example of
the divine founder of our religion. A man’s interests and desires may
often lie in the direction of his ordinary duties. There can be no true
piety in relinquishing the post GOD has given him merely because his
interest would induce him to retain it. On the other hand, our duties
may often be difficult and distracting. In that case, we have no right
to leave them. There is often greater victory in doing our work in the
world than in fleeing into solitude for the exercises of devotion. He
who makes his religion to consist of care for self only, who for selfish
ends neglects the duties which every man owes to his fellow-men, has a
very unsatisfactory sense of the doctrines of the Gospel. Yet we find
early mention in the records of the Church, of men who cut themselves
off from intercourse with their fellow-Christians, leaving their place
in the human family vacant, their work undone. They assumed the air of
peculiar sanctity, clad themselves in coarse garments, slept on the
hardest of couches, often on the ground, covered only by a sheepskin, or
some similar coverlet, lived on the humblest fare, and many of them
thought it a peculiar virtue to forego the joys of the marriage-life.
When we look at this state of things with the eye of reason, we see that
it has really no claim on the veneration of mankind. If it was good for
one, why not for another? If certain persons, by means of their
seclusion and mortification of the flesh, as they termed it, made
themselves peculiarly the loved of GOD, then might all men do so; for we
are told, “there is no respect of persons with” Him[61]. But, if all
were to adopt this system of living, what would become of human society?
The earth would soon cease to be the scene of busy industry, commerce
would die, and religion would be a bane instead of a blessing. If one
man makes himself peculiarly the favourite of heaven by forswearing
marriage, then of course all men might make themselves so by the same
means. But if celibacy were universal, what would become of the human
race? Yet it is the duty of every man to make himself as much like what
God would approve as he can. And if celibacy is peculiarly acceptable to
heaven, all should be celibates. This, however, would make it to be
agreeable to the wishes of the Most High, that the race of man should
come to an end. As this cannot be GOD’S will, so neither can celibacy be
the state in which a man must be holiest and most approved by his maker.
The fact is that Christianity does not teach any such an idea as this
mistaken one, to which I have referred. This has its origin in the
spirit to which Stoicism gave birth. The religion of Jesus is one of
faith in another’s merits, as the first step of all; and then, from the
loyalty to GOD which this produces, the believer is anxious to do the
utmost he can to show his gratitude. He tries his best to please his
King and Lord, by whatever means. He counts no sacrifice too great if
called on to make it. But he is not to mark out a way different from the
rule of the Gospel. He must be content to do GOD’S work in the place and
by the means which His providence may point out. Since the Most High has
implanted certain feelings and affections in all our natures, though it
may be Stoical, it is hardly Christian to try to uproot them. The Gospel
does not teach us to destroy natural affections, but to control them. It
is true our appetites are not to be our masters; yet they are not evils;
they are sent to be our servants, and are good gifts of heaven, if used
aright. We are nowhere taught by GOD, that, to be His peculiar people,
we must go out of the world, and live selfish and unsocial lives. The
word of GOD lays it down as a mark of evil to be “without natural
affections.” Our blessed Lord, in His prayer for His disciples and the
future Church of all ages, said[62], “I pray not that Thou wouldest take
them out of the world, but that Thou wouldest keep them from the evil.”
The noble duty laid upon us is to show in our daily life the excellence
and power of virtue.
Yet we find that very early in the history of the Church there were
great numbers of persons leading lives of selfish seclusion, and
claiming peculiar sanctity because of this. Their solitude, and the
lonely places in which they chose to live, gave rise to the name of
Monk, Hermit, and Anchorite. Very soon these men occupied the same
position in the religious world that the Stoics held in the heathen. And
because Christianity gave woman her proper place, as an heir of
immortality, and did not neglect her as philosophy had done, the same
rules of living became also common with that part of the Christian women
which aimed at superiority, as prevailed with regard to the men. They
separated themselves, were placed under peculiar discipline, and bound
by special vows.
It is surprising to observe how soon the notion became widespread, that
these men and women were worthy of more reverence than others. Religion
became divorced, in thought at least, from the daily life, and began to
be considered as a system apart; as if it inculcated the excellence of
certain courses, which were impracticable to ordinary men. This divorce
of Christianity from its duty of raising the world by permeating all
classes, and imparting to all its life-giving influence, had a most
disastrous result on the souls of men. They who were obliged by the
necessity of things to devote themselves to the affairs of time, almost
ceased to care about being religious, since they thought religion to be
the peculiar possession of others, who performed certain acts and
submitted to austerities, to which they could not devote their time.
Those who neglected their worldly duties, at the same time that they
forewent certain advantages, arrogated to themselves the name of piety,
and monopolised the right to the title of religious. So, pure, vigorous
Christianity decayed before a hybrid system born of superstition and
asceticism. Those who devoted themselves to the monastic life became so
much esteemed because of their pretensions, that they acquired more
influence than the ministers of GOD’S holy word and sacraments. The
unscriptural merit attached to celibacy caused people to reckon those
who embraced it as better than those who did not. Hence the clergy, to
retain their influence, gave in to the idea. As early as the Council of
Nice, we find that it was the custom for those who were unmarried when
they were ordained, to continue single. Not only so, but an attempt was
made, at that Council, to order all married clergy to separate from
their wives: and this decree would probably have been carried, but for
Paphnutius, an African Bishop, who was himself, however, a celibate.
We are reminded by the hermits of the Christian Church of those Stoic
anchorites from whom they differed but little. We see in the work, which
M. Aurelius has left as the record of his self-communings, the following
observation on the fondness for seclusion among his fellow-philosophers.
“They seek places of retreat for themselves, lone dwellings in the
country, and the sea-shore, and the mountains.” Then he goes on to say
to himself, “And thou thyself art wont most earnestly to long for such
retreats[63].” This spirit of abstraction found, in the Church of
Christ, more and more adherents as time wore on, and exacted a more
absolute attention. We find from the writings of SS. Chrysostom,
Cyprian, Jerome, Pachomius and Basil, how fast a hold it obtained of the
minds of men. Basil was a student at Athens from A.D. 351 to A.D. 355,
with Gregory Nazianzene and at the same time as the Emperor Julian.
Philosophy doubtless still flourished there. We find Julian renouncing
Christ altogether, for its sake. Basil, probably from the education
which he received at the old home of Stoicism, was peculiarly in love
with asceticism. He places before us the secluded life in its best
light. We see how his ideas of piety were warped, however, by this
spirit of asceticism. We hear him saying to a young monk, his disciple,
“Hast thou left thy cell? Thou hast left there thy virtue.” “Shun the
society of those of thine own age; yea, flee from it as from a burning
flame.” “It is the devil’s craft,” he says (_Mon. Con._ Cap. XX.), “to
keep alive in the mind of the monk a recollection of his parents and
natural relatives, so that under colour of rendering them some aid, _he
may be drawn aside from his heavenly course_.” He tells us that some
objected to this, because the Apostle declared, “If a man provide not
for his own, and specially for those of his own kindred, he hath denied
the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” But he gives the Antinomian
reply that a monk, being one of a peculiar class, was virtually dead to
the world and to his duty in it; “As dead thou art free from all
contributions for the benefit of thy natural relatives, and, as utterly
a pauper, thou hast nothing which thou canst bestow.”
This same spirit has continued to animate many parts of the Christian
Church to this day. It has given rise to a vast variety of bodies, bound
together by various rules, all more or less austere and unnatural. Among
the Roman Catholics it has developed itself in the Trappists, the
Jesuits, and other societies; and even in the English Church we have
seen movements which tend to show that this spirit is confined within no
certain limits, but exists in all quarters.
It is not my purpose to pursue the subject further in this direction.
But there is one view of it to which I shall slightly allude. I would
gladly pass over this, only it serves to show the influence exerted by
the ascetic spirit on certain members of the Church, and therefore seems
to claim a passing notice, I allude to the practical Antinomianism of
the ancient ascetics. Respecting those who have followed in their steps,
in more recent ages, I will be silent. When we turn to the writings of
the ancient Fathers, however, we are struck with the testimony they bear
to the fact that just as among the Stoics the long robe covered very
often gross licentiousness; just as the sanctimonious look and the
formality and pretension were thought enough by some[64] to take away
the sinfulness of sin; so it was too much the case also with the
Christian anchorites. They fell into grievous sins which were a disgrace
to their natures. Epiphanius informs us that when Nicolaus affected to
live a celibate life, he did not, either from want of power or will,
restrain his lusts, but rushed into promiscuous intercourse, urging
others to follow his example. The descriptions which this writer, and
Irenæus, and others have given of the failings of those who professed
extraordinary sanctity among the early heretics is such as forbid their
being produced for public perusal. The Christian Fathers complained of
similar conduct among the professed ascetics of the orthodox Church in
the first ages. St Cyprian describes the iniquity of their conduct in
his reply to Pomponius: among men and women who had devoted themselves
to the monastic life great disorders prevailed. There can be no mistake,
as he enters into minute particulars. Allusions were made to these by
writers before his time. Monks had professed virgin sisters of the
Church, under vows of perpetual chastity, living with them. These were
called συνεισάκτοι by the Greeks, _mulieres subintroductæ_ by the
Latins. With these the single men lived, lodging in the same cell by
day, and even sleeping on the same couch by night. But they called their
marriage that of the soul and not of the body. They pretended to have
reached such a height of excellence and self-control, as to be able to
despise temptation, and to brave moral dangers with impunity. St
Chrysostom, who was a great admirer of the ascetic life, thus bewails
the evil result[65]. “Alas, my soul! Well may I exclaim, and repeat the
lamentable cry with the Prophet, Alas, my soul! Our virginity is fallen
into contempt; the veil that parted it off from matrimony is rent by
impudent hands: the holy of holies is trodden under foot, and its
weighty and awful sanctities have been profaned and thrown open to all;
and that which was once held in reverence, as far more excellent than
matrimony, is now sunk so low, as that one should call the married
blessed, rather than those who profess celibacy. Nor is it the enemy
that has effected all this, but the virgins themselves.” St Basil’s
works show even more plainly the evils resulting from the system. St
Jerome also intimates the same facts. There is indeed nothing wonderful
in all this. Men and women were fighting against human nature, common
sense, yea, even against Christianity itself, possessed by an evil
spirit; which was of Stoic birth, but assumed the garb of preeminent
sanctity.
Other vices, besides those hinted at above, were the necessary offspring
of the system. St Jerome tells us that men who wore the garb of poverty
and wished to excite admiration as avowedly poor, were gathering wealth
within their ragged sleeves. But I need go no further in this
disagreeable direction, and shall content myself with having said what
the subject seemed to demand.
Another phase of the same ascetic bias in the human mind is what we
understand by Puritanism. This turn of religious sentiment led men, and
leads men still, to forego pleasures and to look with suspicion on
enjoyments, however innocent in themselves. It is a persuasion of the
same kind as that which led the Stoic to exclaim[66], “Thou wilt despise
the pleasant song, the dance, the ‘pancratium,’ if thou dividest the
harmonious strain into each of its notes, and askest thyself am I
overcome by that? For thou wouldst blush to confess as much. Having done
the like with regard to dancing, and considered each separate motion and
action, thou wouldst come to the same conclusion, with respect to it:
and the same also about the ‘pancratium.’ In short, except virtue and
the things relating to virtue, remember in all things to consider the
parts of which they consist, one by one, that by their dissection thou
mayest learn to despise them.” The closely cut hair, which Persius gives
us[67] as a characteristic of the Stoic youth, has had its counterpart
among those whom the Cavaliers for this cause called Roundheads. And we
find that these men were animated by a zeal for what they considered the
cause of GOD, which led them to defy danger, and apparently to court
difficulties. Yet there was often an exaggeration of feeling and
sentiment in many, similar to that which led to the asceticism of the
first ages of the Church; and which leads men still to seek the monastic
life. Among the Puritans, though distinguished from them in history, in
name, and in many peculiarities, we see the Quakers standing prominently
forth. In fact, they were more puritanic than the Puritans, and seem the
personification of Stoicism among Christian people.
Another feature of Stoicism which has exerted great influence on the
Church of Christ is its fatalism. This has been developed into a system
of Christian doctrine, which we shall designate sufficiently, when we
call it Calvinism; though it existed, in a considerable degree, before
Calvin; and though, in the system, the necessitarian element is a
variable quantity. The Supralapsarians carry their belief so far as to
hold that GOD decreed man’s fall into sin, with all the dreadful
consequences. Others, with less of this fatalism in their faith,
restrict the decrees of the Almighty to the disposal of man after the
fall. St Augustin was considerably influenced by doctrines bearing a
resemblance to certain phases of Calvinism: but he argued stoutly for
man’s freedom of will. He was essentially a Latin in his scholarship,
and did not draw his information from the Hebrew and Greek. His views
were tinged with the fatalism of the Stoical philosophy which had widely
influenced those with whom he came in contact in early life. With these
views he came to the perusal of the Epistle to the Romans, and thought
he read there a confirmation of them. Respecting the 9th chapter of that
Epistle, Dodwell says[68], “St Paul, being bred a Pharisee, spake there
and is to be interpreted according to the doctrine of the Pharisees[69]
concerning fate, which they had borrowed from the Stoics.” St Augustin
and Prosper and Fulgentius understood St Paul to mean almost the same
predestination that the Stoic belief would imply. Yet they did not
contradict and explain away other parts of Scripture, nor utterly ignore
reason and common sense. The same difficulty met them that had occurred
to the Stoic Chrysippus. How was this absolute predestination to be
reconciled with human freedom? Cicero tells us (_De Fato_, VII. 11) that
Chrysippus laboured painfully to show how all things were ordered by
fate, and yet that there was something in ourselves; and tried to
reconcile the inconsistencies of the system by saying that while fate
predisposed, the human will determined. So, naturally the reasoning
would occur that, if GOD has predestined us to be saved, there is no
need for striving; if he has not, there is no use in any effort we can
make. St Augustin, however, does not seem to set before men such
absolute fatalism as this; at least, he strongly impresses on us the
fact, that GOD is willing to receive every sinner coming to Him; and
gives us our choice of good and evil. The Jansenists adopted and upheld
similar views to these on predestination. So did Luther and Beza. Calvin
advanced more decidedly necessitarian views, and many of his followers
to the present day have set out with eternal fate as the foundation of
their creed, and have interpreted all other doctrines so as to harmonize
with this. The essential tenet of Calvin was that GOD, from no other
motive than His good pleasure and freewill, has predestinated from all
eternity certain members of the human family to everlasting happiness,
and the rest to endless misery. Calvin says[70], “Many indeed, as if
they wished to avert odium from GOD, admit election in such a way as to
deny that any one is reprobated. But this is puerile and absurd, because
election itself could not exist, without being opposed to reprobation.
Whom GOD passes by therefore he reprobates, and from no other cause than
his determination to exclude them from the inheritance which he
predestines for His children.” Such a doctrine as this requires that
other doctrines, such as “The Lord is not willing that any should
perish; but that all should come to repentance[71],” be taken in a
qualified sense. Moreover, since salvation is entirely independent of
the individual, there can be no danger to one predestinated, whatever he
may do or neglect. He cannot fall and be lost. Again, as Christ would
not die for men whom he reprobated, his death was not for the sins of
the whole world, but for the elect only. The first five of “the Lambeth
Articles” thus set forth that part of the Calvinistic doctrine which is
necessary for our present purpose. 1. “GOD hath from eternity
predestinated some persons to life; others he hath reprobated to death.
2. This predestination to life proceeds not from the faith,
perseverance, good works, or any other quality in the predestinated, but
from the sole will or pleasure of GOD. 3. The number predestinated is
limited before, and cannot be increased, nor lessened. 4 Those not
predestinated to life will of necessity be damned. 5. True faith and
sanctification in the elect never fails either in part, or totally.” The
ninth Article stated, “It is not in every one’s will, or power, to be
saved.” The Synod of Dort, A.D. 1618, reduced the system under five
heads, which it is not necessary to produce here, as they are a
reiteration of what I have adduced above. The Puritans were firm
adherents to the doctrines of Calvinism, and rejoiced in the belief that
they were the peculiar people of GOD; so that in their doctrine, as well
as discipline, they partook of the spirit which animated, though in a
different manner, the Stoic sect. Of the Church party, at the same time,
many held a mitigated form of Calvinistic doctrine, though others
rejected it altogether.
From Calvinism, carried to its extreme limits, resulted violent
Antinomianism. In this also Stoicism repeated itself. Just as the Stoics
declared that nothing could be a crime which the wise man did; so the
believers in Antinomian doctrines declare there can be no sin in those
who are the elect; that Christ obeyed the law and fulfilled all
righteousness in their stead, and that his righteousness being imputed
to them, whatever their conduct may be, they are righteous still. Hence
they call observance of the will of GOD, and a sense of the duty of
obeying his law, “the bondage of legality.”. They cry down morality, as
a worthless thing in the sight of GOD. The Stoics divided the world into
the wise and fools. These two classes included all mankind. They called
ordinary men, who did not come up to their standard, fools and mad. “The
school and sect of Chrysippus,” says Horace[72], “deem every man mad,
whom vicious folly, or the ignorance of any truth, drives blindly
forward. This definition takes in whole nations, yea, even great kings
themselves, the wise man alone being excepted.” When once a man was a
“wise” man, however, they held that all things, even the most revolting
crimes, were indifferent to him. So, if mankind be divided into two
classes, the elect and the reprobate, not one of whom can ever change
from either class to the other, “then,” some men argue, “do what I will
it does not matter.” The Antinomian claims to be free from the law of
GOD, and believes that whatever he does, he cannot bring himself under
the condemnation which it denounces against the transgressor. Hence have
resulted fatal mistakes. We see how evil was the result in the case of
the Anabaptists in Germany. They were men who called themselves, and
perhaps believed themselves, the elect of GOD; and, as such, despised
all law, human and divine. The excesses which they committed, their
crimes and subsequent misfortunes, have left a fearful record behind
them of the height to which this spirit may be carried, and how it may
bereave men of their reason and virtue. The sixth of the Lambeth
Articles declares, that “an assurance of having justifying faith is
certain of remission of sins, and of eternal salvation through Christ.”
One cannot but see how possible it is that men may be deceived in such a
matter as this, and how fatal such self-deception may be in its
consequences. Indeed, it may lead a man on in false security and
unfounded presumption till he is undone.
CONCLUSION.
We have now examined the several parts of the subject which claimed our
consideration. In the course of our investigation we have seen that,
while Christianity and Stoicism have many things in common, all that
which is excellent in the Stoic system is contained in the Christian.
There is in philosophy this irremediable defect, that though it may
point out man’s duty, it does not give him power to fulfil it. It shows
him a height of excellence which he cannot reach. Christianity also
points man to noble and exalted paths. She gives him lessons of the
highest wisdom, and furnishes him with an example of a perfect life. She
does more. She furnishes him with the power to obtain what she pictures
to him of excellence. Stoicism is like the dry bones which Ezekiel saw
in his vision, the frames of men without the life. Christianity is like
those bodies after they had been endowed with beauty, and strength, and
vital energy, by His power, to whom alone it belongs to pronounce the
decree, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these
slain, that they may live[73].”
Nothing is more marked in our holy religion than its reality. It enters
into the every-day life of men, preparing them for their duty, and
helping them to perform it. It would extend its blessed influence to
all. Not like philosophy, which separated a distinct class from their
fellow-men, and considered the mass of mankind as far removed from any
hope of their becoming wise; this divine system seeks the lost, and the
lowly, and the foolish of this world, and raises them so that in their
several spheres they may be holy and happy. We are warned in strong
language against allowing our souls to be surfeited with the cares and
pleasures of this world. We are to be spiritual, thoughtful, and earnest
in our purely religious exercises. Yet we must guard against the mistake
that religion is merely an abstract thing. It does not end when our
ordinary duties begin: but follows us from the mercy-seat, when we have
finished our communions with GOD and go about those duties which his
Providence has laid upon us. It does not deny us innocent pleasure,
though we are forbidden to waste time in pursuit of even harmless
amusement. The sentiment which would divorce religion from the burdens
and joys of ordinary men, is more of Stoic, than of Christian birth. If
we read the history of the Saviour, we see him presenting a marked
contrast to John the Baptist, the ascetic and solitary. “The Son of man
came eating and drinking,” and mingling as a man with men so freely as
to scandalize the Pharisees, the Stoics of the Jewish Church. Our place
also is in the world, doing the will of GOD. Not choosing our own path,
or our own will, we are to resist the temptation to separation and
spiritual pride which sometimes assails us. GOD has given us life,
spiritual as well as bodily life, that it may be used in his service;
not to serve our own selves. Yet many a man has served self and has
followed a false light, that has deceived him and led him into bye-ways;
while the deceived one thought he was doing GOD service, and practising
self-denial. We want no special circumstances made for us, no
extraordinary opportunities granted: for each man has by infinite wisdom
been placed in his position, whatever it may be; and has, every day and
all day long, opportunity for honouring GOD, and helping on His designs
in the world. This St Paul felt when, writing to the Corinthians, he
says (2 Ep. v. 14), “The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus
judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died
for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto Him who died for them, and rose again.” The great lesson to
learn is real self-sacrifice. We shall not fail in learning this lesson
if, depending on divine aid, we study to conform ourselves to His
example, whose life was summed up in a few words by the Apostle Peter,
when he described Him as “Jesus of Nazareth, who went about doing good.”
THE END.
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
Footnote 61:
Rom. ii. 11.
Footnote 62:
St John, xvii. 15.
Footnote 63:
M. Aurelius uses the very word from which the anchorite took his name,
Ἀναχωρήσεις αὐτοῖς ζητοῦσιν, κ.τ.λ.—B. IV. c. 3.
Footnote 64:
Juvenal, in reference to this says, _Sat._ II. 8:
“Frontis nulla fides, quis enim non vicus abundat
Tristibus obscœnis?”
So _Sat._ III. 105, he has the following:
“Audi facinus majoris abollæ.
Stoïcus occidit Baream, delator amicum,
Discipulumque senex.”
Respecting this man (P. Egnatius), Tacitus says (_Ann._ XVI. 32):
“Cliens hic Sorani, et tunc emptus ad opprimendum amicum, auctoritatem
Stoicæ sectæ præferebat, habitu et ore ad exprimendam imaginem honesti
exercitus, ceterum animo perfidiosus, subdolus, avaritiam ac libidinem
occultans.” He goes on to say we should be on our guard against those
“specie bonarum artium falsos.”
Footnote 65:
Chrysostomi, _Opera_, Tom. I. p. 309. Ed. Ben. 8vo. Paris, 1834.
Footnote 66:
Ὠδῆς ἐπιτερποῦς, καὶ ὀρχήσεως καὶ παγκρατίου καταφρονήσεις, κ.τ.λ. M.
Aurelii Ant. _Com._ XI. 2.
Footnote 67:
Haud tibi inexpertum curvos deprendere mores
Quæque docet sapiens braccatis illita Medis
Porticus, insomnis quibus et _detonsa_ juventus
Invigilat, &c.
_Sat._ III. 52-4.
Footnote 68:
Proleg. ad J. Stearn, _de Obstin._ Sect. 41, p. 147.
Footnote 69:
“Ex mente Pharisæorum.”
Footnote 70:
Calv. _Inst._ III. 25. 1.
Footnote 71:
2 Peter iii. 9.
Footnote 72:
Quem mala stultitia, et quæcunque inscitia veri
Cæcum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus et grex
Autumat. Hæc populos, hæc magnos formula reges,
Excepto sapiente, tenet.
Hor. _Sat._ II. 3.
Footnote 73:
Ezekiel xxxvii. 9.
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the sections in which they are
referenced.