Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

90 THK FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMAurelius, a rigid believer of the Stoic divine unity,can be a zealous defender of the ten thousand godsof Koine.IILet us now consider the system of those writersfrom a somewhat different point of view, that, namely,which presents certain points of analogy, contact, orcontrast between it and the Christian Faith.I. The generative principle of Stoicism, and thekey, therefore, to its whole doctrine, is the relationshipof the human intelligence to the divine. " As light,says Posidonius,1 " is perceived by the vision which isakin to light, and sound by the hearing which is akinto air, so the universal nature must be perceived byits kindred reason." Thus Seneca : " God is near thee,with thee, within thee. A sacred spirit is withinus-in every one of good men a god dwells, uncertainthough it be who that god is." " Reason isnothing else but a part of the divine spirit plungedin a human body." And Epictetus : " Our souls arebound into God, are in contact with him, as beingportions and fragments of him." "Thou art a fragmentof God; thou hast in thyself a portion of him:how knowest thou not thine own nobility ? Whydost thou not recognise whence thou art come ?Carriest thou God about with thee, and knowest itnot?" And Marcus Aurelius: "Every man's intelligenceis God, and an efflux of the Deity." " Theunderstanding and reason of every one is the divinespirit whom Zeus has given to him for guardian andguide, a portion of himself." And as all souls areportions of the divine intelligence, so all together1 Quoted by Zeller, iv. 70, 3.