Stoics and Saints - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE STOIC
FAILURE.
a man was converted to Christianity he sought to convert
his neighbours, and in every way strove to make known
his beliefs. The Christians were everywhere in the ;
army,
in the imperial household, and above all
among the slaves,
who were then in close contact with the higher classes of
society. Seneca associated with his slaves and had them
to his table ;
and the fact that there was this new life, full
of power, joy, hope, stirring in so many hearts and kindling
in so many eyes, must have lent something to the atmo
drank in some
sphere of the times which the philosophers
thing vital, something stimulating, something hopeful, which
acted strongly, though they did not understand its nature and
springs, on their ideas and on their lives. Moral elements
may be in the air, and infuse a power into the hearts and
lives of men, the source of which, the exact character of
which, they cannot trace. So we may be sure that the
Christian certainty, the Christian joy and hope, and above
all the Christian charity, vitalised the atmosphere
of the
Eoman world during those first two centuries of the Empire ;
and had something, and not a little, to do with that firmer
assurance, that stronger hope, that warmer and more uni
versal love, which characterised the teaching of the heathen
Schools, in the generations in which Christianity was winning
its
way to the hegemony
of the civilised world.
We have traced then a very
clear advance in the tone
and temper of these heathen Schools ; resulting
in a certain
approximation to the teaching of Christianity about God,
and about the nature, duties and destinies of man. It has
been established too that this advance cannot be traced
directly to Christianity itself; it is not a theft from the higher
system, but an independent evolution in the philosophical
Schools, a natural and necessary progress. The thought will
immediately occur, how would it have been had this develop-