Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

104 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMIt is thus Cicero i set forth the Stoic doctrine:" Compassion and envy belong to the same subject,he who grieves over another's adversity, likewisegrieves over another's prosperity. But just as compassionis a sickness arising from another's adversityso envy is a sickness arising from his prosperityThus he who is liable to compassion is liable to envyThe wise man is not liable to the latter: therefonnot to the former." And Zeller sums it up, saying:" He can feel no compassion, and exercise no indulgence,since what he would esteem in his own case asno evil, he cannot compassionate others for: he canas little for their sake as for his own give himself upto an unhealthy emotion, and if justice demandpunishment, his feeling will not mislead him intoorgiving." If Cicero, following Panrctius, mentionsjustice and benignity as the two component parts ofthat virtue by which human society is held togethhe stops in depicting the latter very far short indeedof the part which Seneca gives to it. And Cicero,as an exponent of Stoic doctrine, probably gave aslarge a share to this virtue as was to be found intheir teaching up to his time. A hundred years lateranother spirit, whencesoever it came, had breathedupon Seneca. Eemaining entirely on the Stoicding-ground, he drew from the cardinal doctf the sect conclusions which for three hundred ynone had drawn before him. In this respect tlfollowing portrait exactly describes him. " Thproper crown of his moral teaching lies in thuniversal love for man, the purely human sympathywhich shows itself to all without distinction, even th1 Tiisc. Difsp. iii. JO. 2 iv. 216.3 Zfller, iv. 647.