Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

RESURRECTION OF CULTURED HEATHENISM I I 5f the little power it had exercised in the worldduring the century preceding the time at which hwrote. This is a point on which I have dwelt ipreceding chapters, and therefore need not pursue hereI would note the three periods which have bee]assigned to Greek philosophy, and the three corresponding attitudes in which it stood to the nationsreligion. It was originally identical - with theology,but this position lasted only a 'short time. Assoonl as Thales, and from him downwards, men philosophisedno longer on the basis of the popular belief.From his time philosophy, dividing itself therefrom,sought for an independent solution of the highestroblems of life, and worked itself out in oppositito popular belief, which it tended to break up. Thperiod lasted for several hundred years, and its endcoincides with the first preaching of the Christianreligion. Its third period and its third attitude waswhen, in proportion to the advance of that religion tohe conquest of the Graeco-Boman world, it took upthe defence of the ancient worship of the gods, withall its rites and customs.Before proceeding to the third period of the Greekphilosophy, let us note the course which it had takenduring the long second period. After reaching itsculminating point in Plato and Aristotle, it had followedthree main directions, the Stoic, the Epicurean,and the Sceptic. The proper movement of Greek andLatin heathenism had completed itself in these three.But what sort of a thing was the heathen society inthe midst of which philosophy started on its course ?The people among whom Thales and Pythagoras,1 See Lasaulx, Ueber den EntwicJclungsgang des griechischen undromischcn Lelens, p. 55.