CHAPTER XVII.

THE STOIC STRAIN IN CHRISTIANITY. [Sidenote: Neighbours, but strangers.] =455.= During the first century and a half of the Christian era Stoicism maintained an active and successful propaganda, without becoming conscious that meanwhile a new force was spreading in the Hellenic world which was soon to challenge its own supremacy. There is no evidence to show that any of the Stoic teachers with whom we have been concerned knew anything of Christianity beyond the bare name, until the two systems came into conflict in the time of Marcus Aurelius; and it is in the highest degree improbable that any of them were influenced in their opinions, directly or indirectly, by the preaching of Christianity[1]. On the other hand the apostles of the newer faith, as often as they entered any of the chief cities of the Roman empire, met at once not only with the professed adherents of Stoicism, but also with a still wider world of educated men and women which was penetrated by Stoic conceptions. From the first it was incumbent on Christian teachers to define their attitude towards this philosophy; and it is our purpose in this chapter to sketch shortly the manner in which they did so. This task belongs primarily to the historian of Christianity, but the present work would be incomplete without some adumbration of this important field of study. From the middle of the second century the relations between the two systems alter in character: there then sets in a steady stream of conversion by which the younger Stoics are drawn away from the older creed, and carry over to its rival not only their personal allegiance but also their intellectual equipment. [Sidenote: Common influences.] =456.= It is necessarily a difficult task to estimate the influence of Stoicism upon the historical development of Christianity, and it is impossible to do so without trenching upon ground which is highly debateable. Upon parallels between phrases used by Stoic and Christian writers respectively not too much stress should be laid[2]. Many of these can be traced back to common sources from which each religion drew in turn. From Persism the Stoic creed inherited much through Heraclitus, and Christianity through Judaism. The kindred doctrines of Buddhism and Cynism present themselves to our view in Christianity in the Sermon on the mount, and in Stoicism through the discourses of Epictetus. Individuals in either camp were also influenced in varying degrees by a wave of feeling in favour of asceticism and resignation which spread over the whole Greco-Roman world about this time, resulting from exaggerated attention being paid to the individual consciousness at the cost of social and political life. We should therefore endeavour to keep our eyes steadily fixed on the essential features of Stoicism rather than on its details, and inquire how these were regarded by Christian teachers in successive generations. [Sidenote: Progressive influence of Stoicism.] =457.= A starting-point is obviously afforded us by the speech of St Paul upon Mars’ hill, in which he accepts a verse from the Stoic poet Aratus[3] as a text upon which to proclaim the fatherhood of God. This Stoic doctrine (like many others to which he refers in his writings) is treated by Paul as embodying an elementary truth, and as a starting-point for fuller knowledge; from any other point of view philosophy is regarded as a snare and an imposture[4]. A generation later we find that the editor of the fourth gospel boldly places the Stoic version of the history of creation in the forefront of his work[5]. Later on in the second century we find the doctrines of the double nature of the Christ and of the variety inherent in the Deity becoming incorporated in technical Stoic forms as part of a defined Christian creed. From whatever point we regard the Stoic influence, it appears during this period as an increasing force. We shall speak of it here as the ‘Stoic strain’ in Christianity; meaning by this that a certain attitude of the intellect and sympathies, first developed in Stoicism, found for itself a home in early Christianity; that men, Stoics by inheritance or training, joined the church not simply as disciples, but to a large extent as teachers also. This point of view can perhaps best be explained by a sketch of the development of Christian doctrine as it might be regarded by fair-minded Stoics, attached to the principles of their philosophy but suspicious of its close relations with the religion of the State, and ready to welcome any new system which might appeal to their reason as well as to their moral sense. [Sidenote: Jesus from the Stoic standpoint.] =458.= A Stoic of the time of Vespasian (A.D. 69 to 79) might well be supposed to be made acquainted with the beginnings of Christianity by some Christian friend. The story he would hear would take the form of one of those ‘oral gospels’ which are now generally supposed to have preceded the shaping of the ‘gospels’ of our New Testament, and to have corresponded generally to the common parts of the first three gospels and some of the narratives of the fourth[6]. He would thus learn that the founder was a Jew named JESUS, the son of Joseph a carpenter of Nazareth[7]. This Jesus had in his childhood sat at the feet of the philosophic Rabbis of Jerusalem[8], and had learnt from them to interpret the documents of Hebraism, ‘the law and the prophets,’ in the sense of the world-religions, and by the principle of allegorism to give a new and truer meaning to such parts of them as seemed obsolete or incredible[9]. Upon reaching manhood he had been shocked to find that the general body of the Pharisees, to which his teachers belonged, was far more interested in maintaining prejudices of race and class than in boldly proclaiming principles of world-wide application; and that whilst freely avowing their own opinions amongst friends, they held it indiscreet to reveal them to the crowd[10]. After a period of prolonged reflection and inward struggle[11] he resolved on coming forward as a teacher in his own name. [Sidenote: The wise man.] =459.= At this point our Stoic would assuredly be impressed by the ‘strength and force’ of character displayed in the preaching of the young Jesus, and would so far be disposed to rank him with Socrates and with Zeno. In the content of Jesus’ teaching he would at once recognise some of the prominent characteristics of Zeno’s _Republic_. For Jesus too spoke of a model state, calling it the ‘kingdom of heaven’; and in this state men of all nations were to find a place. Not only the ceremonies of the old Hebrew religion, its sacrifices and its sabbaths, were to be superseded[12]; the temple itself at Jerusalem was to cease to be a place of worship[13]; the social and economic system of the Jewish people was to be remodelled; the rich were to be swept away, and the poor to enter into their inheritance[14]. Men’s prayers were no longer to be offered to the God of Abraham, but to the Father in heaven, surrounded by spirits like those of Persism, the Name, the Will, the Kingdom, the Glory and the Majesty[15]. That Jesus also spoke, after the Persian fashion, of rewards for the good and the wicked in a future existence might interest our Stoic less, but would not be inconsistent with the traditions of his own sect. [Sidenote: The emotions in Jesus.] =460.= Whilst recognising this strength of character and sympathizing generally with the gospel message, our Stoic could not fail to observe that the Christian tradition did not claim for the Founder the imperturbable calm which the wise man should under all circumstances possess. From time to time his spirit was troubled[16]; sometimes by Anger, as when he denounced in turn the Pharisees, the scribes, and the traders in the temple; sometimes by Pity, as when he wept over Jerusalem; by Fear, as in the garden of Gethsemane[17]; then again by Shame, as in the meeting with the woman taken in adultery[18]; and even by Hilarity, as when he participated in the marriage revels at Cana. Yet perhaps, taking the character as a whole, a Stoic would not be surprised that the disciples should remember only the sweetness, the patience, and the perseverance of their master; that they should account him a perfect man[19], attributing his faults to the weakness of the body[20], and not to any taint of soul; and finally that they should accept him as their Lord and their God[21]. For all these points of view, without being specifically Stoic, find some kind of recognition within Stoicism itself. [Sidenote: Mythologic Christianity.] =461.= But as our inquirer proceeded to trace the history of Christianity after its Founder’s death, he would soon find the beginnings of division within the Christian body. He would learn, for instance, that the Christians of Jerusalem, who even during their Master’s lifetime had been puzzled by his condemnation of Hebrew traditions, had quickly relapsed upon his death into the ways of thinking to which in their childhood they had been accustomed. They had become once more Hebrews, and even ardent advocates of an obsolete ceremonialism; and in this respect they seemed entirely to have forgotten the teaching of their Founder. But their allegiance to his person was unshakeable; and they cherished the conviction that during the lifetime of most of them he would rejoin them, and establish that earthly kingdom which in their hearts they had never ceased to covet. In view of this imminent revolution, quite as much as out of respect for the teaching of the Sermon on the mount, they encouraged their members to spend their savings on immediate necessities, and soon fell into dire poverty. To Christianity as an intellectual system they contributed nothing; ‘little children’ at heart[22], they were content to live in a perfect affection one towards another, and their miserable circumstances were cheered by visions of angels and a sense of their master’s continual presence[23]. From this company our Stoic might easily turn aside as from a band of ignorant fanatics, displaying the same simplicity and conservatism as the idol-worshippers of Rome, with the added mischief of being disloyal towards the majesty of the empire, and a possible danger to its security[24]. [Sidenote: Philosophic Christians.] =462.= In startling contrast to this band of simple-minded brethren would appear the Christian propagandists whose temper is revealed to us in the latter part of the book of Acts, in the epistles of Paul, the first epistle of Peter, and the epistle to the Hebrews. These fiery preachers, equally attached to the name of their Lord, might appear to have been singularly indifferent to his person and his history, and even to have paid little heed to the details of his teaching as recorded in the oral gospels[25]. But they were entirely possessed by his secret—the transmutation of Hebraism into a world-religion; and they had an ardent desire to present it to the Roman world in a form that would win intellectual assent. Into this effort they threw their whole personality; all the conceptions which filled their minds, some of them childish and common to them with uncivilised peoples, others derived from Jewish tradition or Hellenistic philosophy, were crudely but forcibly fused in the determination to present ‘the Christ’ to the world, as the solution of its difficulties and the centre of its hopes. The outpourings of these men were as unintelligible and unsympathetic to the fraternity at Jerusalem as they are to the average church-goer to-day; only breaking out here and there into the flame of clear expression when at last some long-sought conception had been grasped[26]. Of such preachers St Paul is for us the type, and we may describe them as the ‘Paulists.’ Paul himself is self-assertive in tone, as a man may be who feels himself misunderstood and misjudged in his own circle[27]. But an ardent Stoic might well have recognised in him a kindred spirit, an intellect grappling boldly with the supreme problems, and laying the foundations of a new philosophy of life. [Sidenote: St Paul and Stoicism.] =463.= PAUL was a man of Jewish descent, intensely proud of his nationality; but nevertheless brought up in the city of Tarsus, which had for centuries been a centre of Hellenistic philosophy of every type[28], and more especially of Stoicism[29]. This philosophy is to Paul’s mind entirely inadequate and even dangerous; nevertheless he is steeped in Stoic ways of thinking, which are continually asserting themselves in his teaching without being formally recognised by him as such. Thus the ‘universe’ (κόσμος), which to the Stoic includes everything with which he is concerned, and in particular the subject-matter of religion, becomes with Paul the ‘world,’ that out of which and above which the Christian rises to the ‘eternal’ or spiritual life.’ Yet this contrast is not final[30]; and whether or not the Pauline ‘spirit’ is derived from the Stoic πνεῦμα, the Pauline system, as it is elaborated in detail, increasingly accommodates itself to that of the Stoics. Our supposed inquirer would examine the points both of likeness and of contrast. [Sidenote: The Paulist logic.] =464.= The teaching of Paul was, like that of the Stoics, positive and dogmatic[31]. He accepted unquestioningly the evidence of the senses as trustworthy, without troubling himself as to the possibility of hallucinations, from which nevertheless his circle was not free[32]. He also accepted the theory of ‘inborn ideas,’ that is, of moral principles engraved upon the heart[33]; and for the faculty of the soul which realizes such principles he uses the special term ‘conscience’ (συνείδησις)[34]; conscience being described, with a correct sense of etymology and possibly a touch of humour, as that within a man which becomes a second witness to what the man says[35]. From another point of view the conscience is the divine spirit at work in the human spirit[36]. Closely associated with conscience in the Pauline system is ‘faith’ (πίστις), a faculty of the soul which properly has to do with things not as they are, but as we mean them to be[37]. The Stoic logic had failed to indicate clearly how from the knowledge of the universe as it is men could find a basis for their hopes and efforts for its future; the missing criterion is supplied by the Paulist doctrine of ‘faith,’ which may also be paradoxically described as the power always to say ‘Yes[38].’ The fraternity at Jerusalem appear to have been alarmed not so much at the principle of faith, as at the manner in which St Paul used it to enforce his own doctrines; we find them by way of contrast asserting the Academic position that ‘none of us are infallible[39].’ We may here notice that the next generation of Christians again brought the theory of faith into harmony with Stoic principles, by explaining that the power of knowing the right is strictly dependent upon right action[40]. [Sidenote: Paulist metaphysics.] =465.= In their metaphysical postulates the Paulists started, like all ancient philosophers, with the contrast between soul and body, but this they transformed into that between ‘spirit’ and ‘flesh.’ To them the ‘spirit’ included the whole message of Christianity, the ‘flesh’ the doctrine and practice of the Gentile world[41]. The terms themselves were in use in the oral gospel[42], but the Paulists developed the content of ‘spirit,’ until it included a whole world of conceptions, encircling and interfused with the world of sense-experience. But Paul did not desire that this spiritual world should be regarded as wanting in reality, or as a mere product of the imagination: and to express this objectivity of spirit he adopted the Stoic term ‘body.’ Body then expresses the underlying monistic principle of all nature; and we may say ‘spirit-body’ exists[43], with the same confidence with which we speak of animal body or ‘flesh-body.’ There has been a flesh-body of Jesus; with that we have no more concern[44]. There exists eternally a spirit-body of Christ; from that his church draws its life. The Christian feeds upon the spirit of his Master; but in paradoxical phrase we may say that he eats his body and drinks his blood[45]. What is not ‘body’ has no real existence at all[46]. [Sidenote: The Christian universe.] =466.= St Paul in his letters appears entirely lacking in that reverent feeling towards the physical universe, that admiration for sun, moon and stars, which marked the earlier world-religions, and which he perhaps associated with Babylonian idolatry. As we have seen, he only used the Stoic term for universe in disapproval. And yet the conception of the history of the universe was deeply impressed upon the Paulists, and almost precisely in Stoic form. God, the Father, is the beginning of all things; from him they come, and to him they shall all return[47]. From the Father went forth an image of him[48], his first-born Son[49], his word, the Christ; by this he created the world, and for this the world exists[50]. By a further outpouring of the divine spirit, men are created with the capacity of becoming the ‘images’ or bodily representations of God and his Son[51]. To this general doctrine individual Paulists add special features; St Paul himself introduces ‘woman’ as a fourth order of creation, an image or ‘vessel’ bearing the same relation to man as man to Christ[52]; and a writer (of distinctly later date) seems to refer not only to the creation of the elements[53], but also to their coming destruction by the conflagration[54]. Of the creation of the animals no notice is taken[55]. [Sidenote: The divine immanence.] =467.= From this theory of creation it would seem to follow as a consequence that the world is inhabited by the Deity, and is essentially good. This is the Stoic doctrine, and it is accepted boldly by Paul. God dwells in the universe, and the universe in him; man is not in the strict sense an individual, for apart from God he does not exist at all[56]. But there nevertheless remains the fact of the existence of evil, both physical and moral, in apparent defiance of the divine will. Here too the Paulists agree with Stoic teaching; they hold that evil serves a moral purpose as a training in virtue[57]; that God turns evil to his own purpose, so that in the final issue all things are working together for good[58]; that God is active through his Word in restoring a unity that has been for a time broken[59]. Neither can man shift on to his Maker the responsibility for his own wrongdoing; that is (as Cleanthes had taught before) the work of men following out their own ways in accordance with some bias which is in conflict with their divine origin[60]. In spite of all this common ground Paul maintains with at least equal emphasis doctrines of a gloomier type. The universe, as it is, is evil; its rulers are the powers of darkness[61]. St Paul by no means put out of sight, as the Stoics did, the doctrine of an Evil Spirit; on the contrary, this conception dominates his mind and multiplies itself in it. Sin in particular is in his eyes more widespread, more hideous, more dangerous than it is to the Stoic philosopher. To this point we must revert later. [Sidenote: Religion.] =468.= With regard to religious belief and practice (we are here using the word ‘religion’ in the narrower sense, as in the previous chapter on this subject) Paul was in the first place a monotheist, and addresses his prayers and praises alike to the Father in heaven, and to him alone. At the same time he does not regard the Deity as dwelling in a world apart; he is to be worshipped in and through the Christ, who is the point of contact between him and humanity[62]. From the ceremonial practices of Hebraism all the Paulists break away completely. Its bloody sacrifices take away no sin[63]; the solemn rite of circumcision is nothing in itself[64], and in practice it is an impediment to the acceptance of Christ[65]. The disposition to observe days and seasons, sabbaths and new moons, is a matter for serious alarm[66]. In place of this ritualism is to be substituted ‘a worship according to reason[67],’ which is in close agreement with Stoic practice. To think rightly of the Deity[68], to give thanks to him[69], to honour him by an innocent life[70], is well pleasing to God; and the writings of Paul, like those of Epictetus, include many a hymn of praise, and show us the existence at this time of the beginnings of a great body of religious poetry[71]. [Sidenote: Human nature.] =469.= In the analysis of human nature Paul again started from the Stoic basis. In the first place he recognised the fundamental unity of the man as a compacted whole[72]; subject to this monism, he recognised three parts, the spirit, the animal life, and the flesh[73]. Of these only the two extremes, the spirit and the flesh, are usually mentioned; but these do not strictly correspond to the traditional distinction of soul and body. The soul (ψυχή, _anima_) is that which man has in common with the animals; the spirit (πνεῦμα, _spiritus_) is that which he has in common with God. Where therefore only two parts are mentioned, the soul and the flesh must be considered both to be included under the name ‘flesh.’ Soul and flesh are peculiar to the individual man; spirit is the common possession of the Deity and of all men[74]. Thus God and man share in the spiritual nature, and become partners in an aspect of the universe from which animals, plants, and stones are definitely excluded[75]. The ‘spirit’ of St Paul therefore corresponds closely to the ‘principate’ of the Stoics, and though the Christian apostle does not lay the same emphasis on its intellectual aspect, he fully recognises that the spiritual life is true wisdom, and its perversion folly and darkness[76]. [Sidenote: Resurrection and immortality.] =470.= From this analysis of human nature Paul approaches the central doctrine of the Christian community, that of the resurrection of its Founder. To the simple-minded fraternity at Jerusalem the resurrection of Jesus was a marvel, an interference with the orderly course of divine providence, a proof of the truth of the gospel message. Jesus has returned to his disciples in the body as he lived; he has again departed, but before this generation has passed away he will return to stay with them and establish his kingdom. To St Paul all this is different. He accepts implicitly the fact of the resurrection, but as typical, not as abnormal. As Christ has risen, so will his followers rise. But Christ lives in the spirit; by their intrinsic nature neither the flesh-body nor the soul-body can become immortal[77]. And in the spirit Christ’s followers are joined with him, and will be more fully joined when they are rid of the burden of the flesh[78]. This continued existence is no mere fancy; it is real, objective, and (in philosophical language) bodily. Though by the creation all men have some share in the divine spirit, yet immortality (at any rate in the full sense) is the privilege of the faithful only; it is won, not inherited. Paul does not venture to suggest that human individuality and personality are retained in the life beyond. He draws no picture of the reunion of preacher and disciple, of husband and wife, or of mother and child. It is enough for him to believe that he will be reunited with the glorified Christ, and be in some sense a member of the heavenly community[79]. [Sidenote: The seed theory.] =471.= On its philosophical side the Paulist view of immortality is closely akin to the Stoic, and is exposed to the same charge of logical inconsistency. If the whole man is one, how can we cut off the flesh-body and the soul-body from this unity, and yet maintain that the spirit-body is not also destroyed? To meet this difficulty St Paul, in one of his grandest outbursts of conviction, propounds the doctrine of ‘seeds,’ closely connected with the Stoic doctrine of seed-powers’ (σπερματικοὶ λόγοι)[80], and with the general principles of biological science as now understood. This seed is the true reality in man; it may throw off both soul and flesh, and assume to itself a new body, as a tree from which the branches are lopped off will throw out new branches. Thus, and not otherwise, was Christ raised; and as Christ was raised, so will his followers be raised[81]. Man is not in any final sense a unit; as the race is continued by the breaking off of the seed from the individual, so is the spirit-life won by the abandonment of soul and flesh. [Sidenote: Life and death.] =472.= At this point we are brought face to face with a very old paradox, that life is death, and death is life. What is commonly called life is that of the soul and the flesh, which the animals share and which may mean the atrophy of man’s higher part; on the other hand death has no power over the life of the spirit, which is therefore called ‘eternal life’ or ‘life of the ages.’ To enter upon this ‘eternal life’ is the very kernel of the gospel message[82]; in the language of philosophy it is the bridge between physics and ethics. Although the steps by which it is reached can be most clearly traced in the Pauline epistles, yet the general conclusion was accepted by the whole Christian church. From this point of view Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by virtue of their communion with God, are still alive[83]; he who holds his life dear, loses it; and he who makes it of no account keeps it to the life of the ages[84]; he who listens to the teaching of Jesus and believes in the Father who sent him, has passed over out of death into life[85]. [Sidenote: Moral principles.] =473.= From the doctrine of ‘eternal life’ follow the first principles of morals: eternal life is the moral end (τέλος) or _summum bonum_[86]. The spirit is everything, the act nothing; good lies in the intention, not in the performance[87]; we are saved by faith, not by works[88]. Therefore all _tabus_ fall away; ‘to the pure everything is pure[89]’; ‘in its own nature no food is impure; but if people regard any food as impure, to them it is[90]’; ‘our ungraceful parts come to have a more abundant grace[91]’; ‘everything that God has created is good[92].’ And because God and all men share in one spirit, all men are fellow-citizens in the cosmopolis[93]. To this St Paul sacrifices all personal advantages of which otherwise he might be justly proud, his Hebrew descent, his free citizenship in the Roman empire, and even his standing in sex above an inferior part of the creation[94]. The spiritual condition is expressed in terms of certain emotional attitudes which correspond to the three Stoic ‘constancies[95]’; the details vary, but love, joy, peace, gentleness and sweet reasonableness[96] are frequently recurring terms, whilst faith, hope and love are recommended in one passage of the highest eloquence, love (ἀγάπη, _caritas_) being given the highest place of all[97]. [Sidenote: Virtues and vices.] =474.= In the treatment of the virtues and vices we miss the familiar series of the four virtues, though three of them find a place here or there in some more elaborate list[98]. The vices are treated with much more fulness. Those connected with the sexual relations and functions are invariably the first to be condemned; incest, adultery, harlotry, foul conversation, are named in almost every list[99]. Next in importance are ill-feeling and quarrelsomeness; heavy drinking comes after these. More upon Stoic lines is the reproof of ‘excessive grief[100].’ The necessity of steady progress is strongly pressed, and the term used (προκοπή) is that with which we are familiar in Greek philosophy[101]. In all the Paulist writers there is also incessant insistence upon the importance of the regular performance of daily duties[102]. Experience not only of the disasters which befel the church at Jerusalem, but also of similar tendencies nearer at hand, had impressed deeply on Paul the insufficiency of moral teaching which relied on general principles and emotional feeling only, especially if such teaching (as in the Sermon on the mount) was mainly negative. The Paulists at any rate set forth, almost in a fixed form, a body of instructions to serve the community as a whole, and social[103] rather than ethical in nature. This teaching follows closely the Stoic teaching of the same period, and is based upon the relationships (σχέσεις), such as those of king and subject, master and slave, husband and wife, parent and child[104]. It is conservative in character, advocating kindness, contentment, and zeal in social relations as they exist. Thus whilst we recognise the spirit of Zeno in the Sermon on the mount, we find that of Panaetius in the Pauiist discourses. [Sidenote: Sage and saint.] =475.= As against the Stoic sage the Paulists set up as their ideal the saint, and used all the resources of eloquence in his commendation. He is the true king and priest[105]; even if he is a beggar, he is surpassingly rich[106]; he alone, though a slave, is free[107]. On the other hand the sinner is always a slave[108]; even his good acts are without real value[109]. All such phrases would be familiar to our Stoic inquirer; but perhaps he might be specially impressed by finding once more the doctrine of the ‘sufficiency of virtue’ amongst the Christians. The term is indeed altered[110], but it bears the same meaning as regards independence of wealth, health and liberty, though with more emphasis upon support from a divine source. [Sidenote: St Paul and sin.] =476.= It is generally agreed that in the writings of St Paul there is displayed a special sense of shame and horror in speaking of sin[111], which entirely differentiates his teaching from that of the Stoics. This difference, however, cannot be due to St Paul treating sin as ‘defiance towards a loving Father[112],’ for this view was also that of Cleanthes and the Stoics generally; and Paul’s horror of sin depends on no reasoning, but is felt by him as instinctive. It remains to add that our Stoic inquirer would find an apparent conflict between this instinct and Paul’s reasoning. The sin of which St Paul finds it ‘a shame even to speak[113]’ is sexual; and so far as it consists in abnormal social habits, such as those relations between persons of the same sex which had found excuse in the classical world, the Stoic would at once agree that these practices were ‘against nature[114]’ and were unseemly. Again, the marriage of near relations, though not against nature in the sense in which nature is illustrated by the animal world, is still opposed to so deep-seated a social tradition as to merit instinctive condemnation[115]. But the instincts of St Paul go far deeper; the marriage relation is to him at the best a concession to human frailty, and falls short of the ideal[116]. Nor is this merely a personal view of Paul; it is deeply impressed upon the consciousness of the whole Christian church. How, it would be asked, can this be reconciled with the abolition of the _tabu_, with the principle that ‘all things are pure,’ or even with the obvious purpose of the Creator when he created mankind male and female? [Sidenote: The sex tabus.] =477.= It would seem that here we have touched a fundamental point in the historical development of the moral sentiments. The sexual _tabus_ are the most primitive and deeply-seated in human history. From this point of view woman is by nature impure, the sex-functions which play so large a part in her mature life being to the savage both dangerous and abhorrent. Hence the view, so strongly held by St Paul, that woman as a part of the creation is inferior to man. But man too becomes by his sex-functions impure, though for shorter periods; and by union with woman lowers himself to her level. Hence the unconquerable repugnance of St Paul to the sexual relation under any conditions whatever[117]; a repugnance which reason and religion keep within limits[118], but which yet always breaks out afresh in his writings. Hence also he assumes as unquestionable the natural unseemliness of the sexual parts of the body; in all these points not going beyond feelings which are to-day as keen as ever, though no philosopher has found it easy to justify them. But in certain points St Paul outpaces the general feeling, and shows himself an extreme reactionary against the philosophic doctrines which he shared with the Stoic. He extends his dislike, in accordance with a most primitive _tabu_, to woman’s hair[119]; he desires the subordination of woman to man to be marked in her outward appearance[120]; and he forbids women to speak in the general meetings of church members[121]. [Sidenote: Hebrew feeling.] =478.= This intense feeling on the part of St Paul required, as his writings assume, no justification; it was therefore an inherited feeling, as familiar to many an Oriental as it is usually strange and unsympathetic to the ancient and modern European. It appears also to be rooted in Hebrew tradition; for if we are at liberty to interpret the myth of Adam and Eve by the parallel of Yama and Yamī in the Rigveda[122], the fall of man was nothing else than the first marriage, in which Eve was the suitor and Adam the accomplice. In the dramatic poem of the Rigveda Yama corresponds to the Hebrew Adam, his sister Yamī to Eve[123]. Yamī yearns to become the mother of the human race; Yama shudders at the impiety of a sister’s embrace. Zeno had already conceived the world-problem in much the same shape[124]; but to the Oriental it is more than a problem of cosmology; it is the fundamental opposition of sex attitude, the woman who longs for the family affections against the man who seeks an ideal purity. In Genesis the prohibition of the apple appears at first sight colourless, yet the meaning is hardly obscure. After touching the forbidden fruit man and woman first feel the shame of nakedness; and Eve is punished by the coming pains of child-bearing, and a rank below her husband’s. None the less she has her wish, for she becomes the mother of all living. It is hard to think that Paul, who always traces human sin back to the offence of Adam, and finds it most shamelessly displayed in the sex-relationships of his own time, could have conceived of the Fall in any very different way. [Sidenote: The taint in procreation.] =479.= According then to a point of view which we believe to be latent in all the teaching of Paul on the subject of sin, the original taint lay in procreation, and through the begetting of children has passed on from one generation of mankind to another; ‘through the succession from Adam all men become dead[125].’ As an ethical standpoint this position is very alien from Stoicism; with the Stoic it is a first law of nature which bids all men seek for the continuance of the race; with the Apostle the same yearning leads them to enter the pathway of death. It would lead us too far to attempt here to discuss this profound moral problem, which has deeply influenced the whole history of the Christian church. We are however greatly concerned with the influence of this sentiment on Pauline doctrine. For it follows that in order to attain to a true moral or spiritual life man needs a new begetting and a new birth[126]; he must become a son of God through the outpouring of his spirit[127]. This is one of the most familiar of Pauline conceptions, and for us it is easy to link it on to the Stoico-Pauline account of the creation, according to which man was in the first instance created through the Word of God, and endowed with his spirit. But to the community at Jerusalem all conceptions of this kind appear to have been hardly intelligible, and tended to aggravate the deep distrust of the teachings and methods of St Paul and his companions, which was rooted in his disregard of national tradition. [Sidenote: The quarrel.] =480.= This difference of mental attitude soon broke out into an open quarrel. So much was inevitable; and the fact that the quarrel is recorded at length in the texts from which we are quoting is one of the strongest evidences of their general accuracy. The Christians at Jerusalem formed themselves into a nationalist party; they claimed that all the brothers should be in the first instance conformists to Hebrew institutions. Paul went up to Jerusalem[128], eager to argue the matter with men of famous name. He was disillusioned, as is so often the traveller who returns after trying experiences and much mental growth to the home to which his heart still clings. Peter and the others had no arguments to meet Paul’s; he could learn nothing from them[129]; they had not even a consistent practice[130]. At first Paul’s moral sense was outraged; he publicly rebuked Peter as double-faced. After a little time he realized that he had met with children; he remembered that he had once thought and acted in the same way[131]. Jews in heart, the home apostles still talked of marvels[132], still yearned for the return of Jesus in the flesh[133]. A philosophic religion was as much beyond their grasp as a consistent morality. Through a simple-minded application of the doctrines of the Sermon on the mount they had slipped into deep poverty[134]; they were ready to give Paul full recognition in return for charitable help. This was not refused them; but to his other teaching Paul now added a chapter on pecuniary independence[135]; and in his old age he left to his successors warnings against ‘old wives’ fables[136]’ and ‘Jewish legends[137].’ [Sidenote: The development of Christian mythology.] =481.= Thus for the first time the forces of mythology within the Christian church clashed with those of philosophy. For the moment Paul appeared to be the victor; he won the formal recognition of the church, with full authority to continue his preaching on the understanding that it was primarily directed to the Gentile world[138]. External events were also unfavourable to the Hebraists: the destruction of Jerusalem deprived them of their local centre; the failure of Jesus to reappear in the flesh within the lifetime of his companions disappointed them of their most cherished hope. But their sentiments and thoughts remained to a great extent unchanged. To Paul they gave their respect, to Peter their love; and the steady tradition of the Christian church has confirmed this judgment. No saint has been so loved as Peter; to none have so many churches been dedicated by the affectionate instinct of the many; whilst even the dominant position of Paul in the sacred canon has hardly secured him much more than formal recognition except by the learned. So again it was with Paul’s teaching; formally recognised as orthodox, it remained misunderstood and unappreciated: it was even rapidly converted into that mythological form to which Paul himself was so fiercely opposed. [Sidenote: The Virgin birth and the resurrection.] =482.= This divergence of view is illustrated most strikingly in the two doctrines which for both parties were the cardinal points of Christian belief, the divine nature of the Founder and his resurrection. On the latter point the standpoint of the Hebraists is sufficiently indicated by the tradition of the gospels, all of which emphatically record as a decisive fact that the body of Jesus was not found in his grave on the third day; to the Paulists this point is entirely irrelevant, and they pass it by unmentioned[139]. To Paul again the man Jesus was of human and natural birth, born of the posterity of David, born of a woman, born subject to the law[140]; in his aspect as the Christ he was, as his followers were to be, begotten of the spirit and born anew[141]. His statement as to descent from David (which hardly means more than that he was of Jewish race) was crystallized by the mythologists in two formal genealogies, which disagree so entirely in detail that they have always been the despair of verbal apologists, but agree in tracing the pedigree through Joseph to Jesus. The phrase ‘begotten of the spirit’ was interpreted with equal literalness; but the marvel-lovers were for a time puzzled to place the ‘spirit’ in the family relationship. In the first instance the spirit seems to have been identified with the mother of Jesus[142]; but the misunderstanding of a Hebrew word which does not necessarily connote physical virginity[143] assisted to fix the function of fatherhood upon the divine parent. The antipathy to the natural process of procreation which we have traced in St Paul himself, and which was surely not less active amongst many of the Hebraists, has contributed to raise this materialisation of a philosophic tenet to a high place amongst the formal dogmas of historic Christianity. [Sidenote: The doctrine of the Word.] =483.= But if the tendency to myth-making was still alive in the Christian church, that in the direction of philosophy had become self-confident and active. The Paulists had taken the measure of their former opponents; they felt themselves superior in intellectual and moral vigour, and they knew that they had won this superiority by contact with the Gentile world. More than before they applied themselves to plead the cause of the Christ before the Gentiles; but the storm and stress of the Pauline epistles gave way in time to a serener atmosphere, in which the truths of Stoicism were more generously acknowledged. A Stoic visitor of the reign of Trajan would meet in Christian circles the attitude represented to us by the fourth gospel, in which the problem of the Christ-nature stands to the front, and is treated on consistently Stoic lines. St Paul had spoken of Jesus as ‘for us a wisdom which is from God[144]’ and had asserted that ‘from the beginning he had the nature of God[145]’; his successors declared frankly that Christ was the Logos, the Word[146]; and in place of the myth of the Virgin Birth they deliberately set in the beginning of their account of Christ the foundation-principles of Stoic physics and the Paulist account of the spiritual procreation of all Christians. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing that exists came into being[147].’ ‘To all who have received him, to them—that is, to those who trust in his name—he has given the privilege of becoming children of God; who were begotten as such not by human descent, nor through an impulse of their own nature, nor through the will of a human father, but from God. ‘And the Word came in the flesh, and lived for a time in our midst, so that we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, sent from his presence. He was full of grace and truth[148].’ The Stoic character of this teaching is no longer latent, but proclaimed; and the Church Fathers recognise this in no doubtful terms[149]. [Sidenote: The doctrine of the Trinity.] =484.= During the whole of the second century A.D. men trained in Stoic principles crowded into the Christian community. Within it they felt they had a special work to do in building up Christian doctrine so that it might face all storms of criticism. This effort gradually took the shape of schools modelled upon those of the philosophic sects. Such a school was founded by an ex-Stoic named PANTAENUS at Alexandria in 181 A.D.; and his successors CLEMENS of Alexandria (ob. c. 215 A.D.) and ORIGENES (c. 186-253 A.D.) specially devoted themselves to developing the theory of the divine nature upon Stoic lines. Not all the particulars they suggested were accepted by the general feeling of the Christian body, but from the discussion was developed gradually the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity[150]. The elements of this doctrine have been already traced in St Paul’s epistles, in which the dominating conceptions are those of God the Father, the Christ, and the divine spirit. For these in the next generation we find the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; and the last term of the triad becomes increasingly identified with the ‘holy spirit’ of Stoicism. But these three conceptions (with others) are in Stoic doctrine varying names or aspects of the divine unity. Seneca, for instance, had written in the following tone: ‘To whatever country we are banished, two things go with us, our part in the starry heavens above and the world around, our sole right in the moral instincts of our own hearts. Such is the gift to us of the supreme power which shaped the universe. That power we sometimes call “the all-ruling God,” sometimes “the incorporeal Wisdom” which is the creator of mighty works, sometimes the “divine spirit” which spreads through things great and small with duly strung tone, sometimes “destiny” or the changeless succession of causes linked one to another[151].’ Here the larger variety of terms used by the early Stoic teachers[152] is reduced to four aspects of the first cause, namely God, the Word, the divine spirit, and destiny. The Christian writers struck out from the series the fourth member, and the doctrine of the Trinity was there. Its stiff formulation for school purposes in the shape ‘these three are one’ has given it the appearance of a paradox; but to persons conversant with philosophic terminology such a phrase was almost commonplace, and is indeed found in various associations[153]. The subsequent conversion of the members of the triad into three ‘persons’ introduced a simplification which is only apparent, for the doctrine must always remain meaningless except as a typical solution of the old problem of ‘the One and the many,’ carried up to the level of ultimate Being[154]. [Sidenote: Subsequent history.] =485.= In the ages that have since followed mythology and philosophy have been at work side by side within the Christian church. At no time had Christians of philosophic temperament entirely thrown off the belief in marvels, and this in increasing degree infected the whole Hellenistic world from the second century onwards. But this spirit of concession proved no sure protection to men who, after all, were guilty of thinking. It was substantially on this ground that the first persecutions began within the church. Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria (circ. 230 A.D.), excommunicated Origen, and obtained the support of the great majority of the Christian churches for his action; still Origen steadily held his ground, and has found advocates in all ages of Christian history[155]. Throughout the ‘dark ages’ philosophical thought lay almost extinguished, and a childish credulity attained such monstrous dimensions as to threaten the very existence of social life. In the ecclesiastical chronicles of the middle ages miracles are so frequent that the orderly course of nature seems the exception; angels and devils are so many that men are almost forgotten. To these hallucinations and fictions of the monastery, so deservedly ridiculed in the _Ingoldsby Legends_[156], the practical experience of daily life must always have supplied some corrective; the swollen claim of ‘faith’ to say yes to every absurdity had to be met by the reassertion of criticism, the right to say ‘no.’ The Reformation, at the cost of infinite effort and sacrifice, swept away the miracles of the saints; modern criticism has spared none of the marvels of the Old Testament, and is beginning to lay its axe to the root of those of the New. Every day the conviction that ‘miracles do not happen’ gains ground amongst intelligent communities; that is (in philosophic language) the dualism of God and Nature is being absorbed in the wider monism according to which God and Nature are one. [Sidenote: Christian philosophy.] =486.= As the credit of Christian mythology diminishes, the philosophic content of the new religion is regaining its authority. The doctrine of the ‘spiritual life’ has not yet lost its freshness or its power; but the more closely it is examined, the more clearly will it be seen that it is rooted in the fundamental Stoic conceptions of providence and duty, and that, in the history of the Christian church, it is specially bound up with the life and writings of the apostle Paul. It is not suggested that the sketch of Christian teaching contained in this chapter is in any way a complete or even a well-proportioned view of the Christian faith; for we have necessarily thrown into the background those elements of the new religion which are drawn from Judaism[157] or from the personality of the Founder. Nor have we found in Paul a Stoic philosopher: it remains for a more direct and profound study to determine which of the forces which stirred his complex intellect most exactly represents his true and final convictions. No man at any rate ever admitted more frankly the conflict both of moral and of intellectual cravings within himself; no man ever cautioned his followers more carefully against accepting all his words as final. With these reservations we may perhaps venture to join in the hopes of a recent writer who was endowed with no small prophetic insight: ‘The doctrine of Paul will arise out of the tomb where for centuries it has lain buried. It will edify the church of the future; it will have the consent of happier generations, the applause of less superstitious ages. All will be too little to pay the debt which the church of God owes to this “least of the apostles, who was not fit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the church of God[158].”’ [Sidenote: Stoicism in the present.] =487.= When that day comes, it will be recognised that Stoicism is something more than what the Church Fathers meant when they described it as part of the ‘preparation of the gospel’; that it may rather be regarded as forming an integral part of the Christian message, or (as it has been recently called) a ‘root of Christianity[159].’ If this view is correct, Stoicism is not dead nor will it die; whether it is correct or not, the study of Stoicism is essential to the full understanding of the Christian religion, as also to that of many other fundamental conceptions of our modern life. Still the Christian churches celebrate yearly in quick succession the twin festivals of Pentecost and Trinity, in which the groundwork of the Stoic physics is set forth for acceptance by the faithful in its Christian garb; whilst the scientific world has lately in hot haste abandoned the atomic theory as a final explanation of the universe, and is busy in re-establishing in all its essentials the Stoic doctrine of an all-pervading aether. In the practical problems of statesmanship and private life we are at present too often drifting like a ship without a rudder, guided only by the mirages of convention, childishly alarmed at the least investigation of first principles; till the most numerous classes are in open revolt against a civilisation which makes no appeal to their reason, and a whole sex is fretting against a subordination which seems to subserve no clearly defined purpose. In this part of philosophy we may at least say that Stoicism has stated clearly the chief problems, and has begun to pave a road towards their solution. But that solution will not be found in the refinements of logical discussion: of supreme importance is the force of character which can at the right moment say ‘yes’ or say ‘no.’ In this sense also (and not by any more mechanical interpretation) we understand the words of the Founder of Christianity: ‘let your language be “Yes, yes” or “No, no”; anything in excess of this comes from the Evil one[160].’ To the simple and the straightforward, who trust themselves because they trust a power higher than themselves, the future belongs. FOOTNOTES [1] As to supposed instances to the contrary see Winckler, _Stoicismus_, pp. 5 to 14. [2] For material of this kind see Winckler’s dissertation just quoted, and Lightfoot’s _Philippians_, pp. 278-290. [3] ‘For we are also his offspring’ Acts xvii 28. [4] 1 Cor. i 20-25. [5] John i 1. [6] In the references to the New Testament books in this chapter no attempt is made to apply any precise critical theory of their origin or date. Since we suppose that all Christian doctrine was enunciated orally long before it was committed to writing, the date and circumstances of the written record become for the present purpose of secondary importance. Translations from the New Testament are, as a rule, taken from Dr R. F. Weymouth’s _New Testament in Modern Speech_ (London 1903). This admirable translation has for the present purpose the great negative advantage of keeping in the background the mass of associations which hinder the modern reader from taking the words of the writers in their simple and natural sense; but on the other hand, Dr Weymouth sometimes disguises the technical terms of ancient philosophy so far as to make them unrecognisable. In such cases the Revised Version is quoted, and occasionally the Greek text. [7] Matt. xiii 55, Luke ii 48; and see below, § 482. [8] Luke ii 46, 47. Such men would of course be typical of the spirit of ‘Judaism,’ see § 22 above. [9] See the treatment of the Jonah myth (Matt. xii 40 and 41), and of the prophecy of the return of Elijah (Matt. xvii 10 to 13). [10] Matt. xxiii 13. [11] Matt. iv 1 to 11; Mark i 13; Luke iv 1 to 14. [12] Matt. xii 1 to 13; Mark ii 23 to 28; Luke vi 1 to 10. [13] John iv 21. [14] Matt. v 5. [15] Matt. vi 9 to 13; a doxology is first found in the MS of the _Teaching of the Apostles_, and it was probably not specifically connected with the prayer originally. [16] John xiii 21. [17] Luke xxii 44. [18] John viii 6 and 8. [19] Matt. v 48; Luke vi 40. [20] Matt. xxvi 41; Mark xiv 38. The author of the _Epistle to the Hebrews_ adopts the technical terms of Stoicism more completely. According to him Christ was touched with all the passions of weak men, but to a degree falling short of sin; οὐ γὰρ ἔχομεν ἀρχιερέα μὴ δυνάμενον συμπαθῆσαι ταῖς ἀσθενείαις ἡμῶν ... χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας Heb. iv 15. Thus the agony in the garden, though accompanied by loud cries and tears, did not pass the limits of the healthy affection of caution (εὐλάβεια), or (as we might say) ‘anxiety’; _ib._ v 7. [21] John xx 28. [22] Mark x 15. [23] Acts xii 15. [24] This antipathy to the Roman government finds biting expression in the _Apocalypse of John_. [25] There seems to be no definite reference even to the Lord’s prayer, or to any of the parables, in the books named above. [26] For instance, that of ‘love’ in 1 Cor. xiii, and of ‘faith’ in Hebrews xi. [27] For the conflict between St Paul and the church at Jerusalem, see below, § 480; for his tone towards those who differed from him, see Galatians i 8 and 9; Col. ii 4; 1 Tim. i 20, vi 3 to 5; Titus i 10. A gentle expostulation as to this style of controversy is found in the epistle of James, see note 39. [28] ‘With such zeal do the inhabitants [of Tarsus] study philosophy and literature, that they surpass Athens, Alexandria, and all other schools of learning.... Rome knows well how many men of letters issue from this city, for her streets swarm with them’ Strabo xiv p. 673. [29] Juv. _Sat._ iii 117 and 118; and see above, § 25, note 65. [30] Romans viii 20 and 21. [31] Romans vi 17, 1 Cor. i 10. [32] 2 Cor. xii 2 to 5. [33] ‘a knowledge of the conduct which the Law requires is engraven on the hearts [of the Gentiles]’ Rom. ii 15. [34] _ib._ [35] ‘my conscience adds its testimony to mine’ Rom. ix 1. [36] _ib._ [37] ‘Faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope’ Heb. xi 1. Thus whilst sense-knowledge, and especially sight, calls for acceptance because it is ‘objective,’ and detached from personal bias, faith is essentially subjective, and suggests a power by which (in harmony with a divine source) personality dominates fact. [38] 2 Cor. i 19. [39] ‘Do not be eager to become teachers; for we often stumble and fall, all of us’ James iii i and 2. [40] ‘He who does what is honest and right comes to the light’ John iii 21; ‘if any one is willing to do His will, he shall know about the teaching’ _ib._ vii 17. [41] ‘The cravings of the [flesh] are opposed to those of the spirit, and the cravings of the spirit are opposed to those of the [flesh]’ Gal. v 17; cf. Romans viii 12 and 13. [42] See above, § 460, note 20. [43] ‘There are bodies which are celestial and there are bodies which are earthly’ 1 Cor. xv 40; ‘as surely as there is an animal body, so there is also a spiritual body’ _ib._ 44. [44] 2 Cor. v 16. [45] 1 Cor. xi 24, 25. [46] ‘which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is Christ’s’ Col. ii 17 (Revised Version). [47] ‘The universe (τὰ πάντα) owes its origin to Him, was created by Him, and has its aim and purpose in Him’ Rom. xi 36 (Weymouth’s translation); ‘of him and through him and unto him are all things’ _ib._ (Revised Version); ‘God, the Father, who is the source of all things’ 1 Cor. viii