Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 243imagination of the people. Its direct influence onthe lower classes probably was very slight, thoughthe C>Tiic missionaries spread some knowledge ofits principles in coarser forms. It was othenvisewith the higher and the middle classes, but even hereit is not easy to give definite proofs or apply materialtests. In dealing with societies that have outwardsymbols of communion we may be able to count thenumbers and appraise some positive results, but howare we to measure the influence of aspiritual leavenworking in the midst of a complex social system,A^ith countless forces of attraction and repulsion allaround it. The literature, whether grave or gay, ofthe early Roman Empire abundantly attestsitspopularityand wide diffusion. Under the Antonines itreigned supreme as a rule of life among the highercircles. It stamped itself ineffaceably upon the languageof the civil law; it gave a tone to earnestthought on moral questions ; it set an example ofresolute self-control which became one at least ofthe moving forces of the age, and provided in thehomely talk of Epictetus a manual in constant usein serious households. What more itmight havedone we cannot say, for the Christian Church wasready by that time to take upits work from the farhigher vantage-ground of an organized society, witha personal ideal and a new spirit of enthusiasticservice. The new-comer had already all that wagof vital efficacy in the Stoic creed, together with freshelements to which heathen philosophy could not ofitself attain. But Stoicism still lived on, though weR 2