Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

RESURRECTION OF CULTURED HEATHENISM 123ward compliance with rites and ceremonies which theyinwardly disbelieved, yet a vastly larger number, ruledby habit, custom, and ancestral belief, frequented themstill with undiminished faith. It would seem that theevidence of remaining inscriptions and votive tabletsbears as decisive a testimony to this temper of mindin the mass, as the spirit of the literature bears to aprevailing unbelief in that far smaller class to whichit is addressed.It was not until after the time of Seneca, and onlywhen the Christian Church had been spreading itselfduring forty or fifty years in the Roman Empire, thatwhat may be called a believing movement in culturedheathenism can be traced. This constitutes the thirdperiod of Greek philosophy, when, over against theextending influence of Christianity, it took upon itselfthe explanation and defence of the worship of thegods. Its characteristics are on the one hand areligious feeling of piety, on the other an endeavourto give a logical and doctrinal foundation to heathenism,and so to reconcile together popular belief withphilosophic thought.1All existing evidence points to Alexandria as theplace at which this school arose, and those who studiedthere, whether Greeks or Jews, 4 as taking part in themovement, among whom the learned Helleniser, Philo,was conspicuous. It is difficult to trace the exacttime at which it appeared; in Philo, at any rate, itfirst reached importance. If before him a number ofwriters under the assumed names of old Pythagoreanshad composed works which pretended to be the1 See this state of mind set forth by Mohler, Geschichte, i. 208, 262 ;Dollinger, Ifeidenthum, p. 598. Lasaulx, Studicn des Hassischcn Alter-thums, recognises the motive I have given to it.