Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

NEOSTOICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH109The common reason, which runs through all things,pervading the minutest point of matter and the wholeuniverse, crushes every sentient and intellectual naturein its grasp, eternally destroying and reproducingthem. Is it any wonder that a spirit such as M.Aurelius, in presence of such a conception, should beshrouded as it were in the blackness of despair, stifledwith the " bitter smoke " of its own imaginings ?Thus the Stoic and the Christian both proclaim, andalmost in identical terms, that the sum of life is tofollow God and to do His will: but the Stoic god isthe absolute contradiction of the Christian, to whomthe soul cries, " Thou God seest me," and "is pacified,comforted, and exalted.II. And this last thought leads directly to thecontrast which the Stoic and the Christian ends ofman present.Stoicism is mainly a system of morality founded uponthe intrinsic dignity of each individual man as possessingin his intelligence that which is akin to the onedivine intelligence. To live in accordance with this,or with nature, is the whole Stoic rule, under whichall individual duties are ranged. And this deificationof man, whose duties depend on his sense of his owndignity, and are a realising of the god within him,comes to an end at his death. This " Son of Jove "terminates in non-existence, as a personal being. Andso a relationship with " the divine " which is foundedin boundless pride finishes in absolute nothingness.The Christian rule of life on the other hand s-' l"om an act of infinite humiliation by which the Sonof God becomes man, and as man a sufferer above allHis fellow-men. Thus humiliation and suffering corne1 See Philip, ii. 5, 13.