Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

230 STOICISM.CHAPTER XIV.THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER IN RELATION TOOTHER ASPECTS OF THOUGHT.The foregoing pages have been occupied almostexclusively with the moral aspect of the Stoic system,in which all its real force and originality was centered.It only remains to gather up in a concluding chaptersome remarks on its relations to other departmentsof social thought and progress. It confronted theChristian Church, as we have seen, as a rival influence,appealing chiefly to the pride and self-control ofresolute natures, though turning at last to preach,as Lactantius observes, even to women and toslaves,^ but with no balm for stricken consciences,or gospel of consolation for the weak. TheChurch, therefore, borrowed nothing from it atthe first, except perhaps a technical phrase or twoand illustrations, which point either to the commonplacesof the schools or to an attitude of consciousbe ascribed theopposition. To the first class maypsychological division of man's nature into body,soul, and spirit, which appears in slightly differentforms in Marcus Aurelius and St. Paul ; or, again, the'Lactantius, " Instit. Div.," iii. 23.