Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

140 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMBut there is no trace of any such doctrine respectingGod or man's relation to God having been received byhim. On the contrary, there is not a particle of pietyin all the writings of Seneca. How should there be,since his God is a primal force dwelling in the wholebody of the universe, and how should man worshipforce, or pray to an unbroken series of cause andeffects ? Then, as to the relation between God andman, Seneca would reach knowledge and virtue by theexercise of his own reason, which is the principle ofscientific thought, and had been the animating principleof Greek philosophy down to his time. Philowould reach them by the gift of God, bestowed throughHis grace, to which man must correspond, though thefirst movement comes from God. And Philo dwellsthose moral relations of God, as maker, provid(rn lor, judge, which had well-nigh disappeared fr