Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

156 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMthe reason may be, all the mixture of Greeks or Romanswith Jews had very little affected any but proselytes.It had not touched literature or philosophy amongthe heathen so as to introduce into their mindsthat in which the Jews were so superior, the beliefwhich Tacitus in Trajan's reign amid his caricatureof Jewish history ^^ and manners recognised, -^^^"- the belief.. in one only God who is spiritual, supreme, eternal,unchangeable, imperishable."This up to the time of Philo.Let us pass on fifty years when Plutarch is amiddle-aged man, and is lecturing to an admiringaudience in the later years of Domitian at Eome.What do we find ? The tone and temper of heathenphilosophy are completely changed. It is becomepious instead of impious, worshipful instead of unbelieving.It invites men to prayer and frequentsacrifices, whereas Seneca had told them that prayerwas useless, and that the only God which they shouldworship was the God which they had within themselves.But let us note the altered position of philosophy,as seen in Plutarch, with regard to two points:the first, its conception of God, and the second, itsbearing towards the polytheistic worship. As to thefirst, instead of the lifeless, hard, metallic unity offatalism, it speaks only of one God, who is spiritual,not material, who is likewise the pattern of everyvirtue, who exerts an universal providence over theworld and man. As to the second, instead of underminingall religious rules and observances by itsdoctrine, while it bestowed at rare intervals an outwardattendance on them, it has eagerly taken up thedefence of the actual worship, ranging all the nationalgods as the ministers and agents of the Supreme God,