Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

RESURRECTION OF CULTURED HEATHENISM 159f the One God, who would not give His glory toanother, was like an assault from a foreign power,which aims at overthrowing and thoroughly subjectingwhat it attacks. It* the attack is strongenough, it is wont to unite against itself those rivalparties for civil pre-eminence which betoken a statef internal security. Foreign invasion brings aboutdomestic union. Was not something like this ap-arent in that complete change of front which inthe time of Trajan philosophy had made? At allevents, the change corresponds exactly to the twopoints of attack by the foreign invader. Pluthas a doctrine of the divine unity, and at the samtime he is the warmest friend of the polytheistiworship. And the civil power has no objection aall to such a statement of monotheism as that ofPlutarch. It is compatible with the full maintenanceof the established religion; indeed, it is made by apriest of Apollo, who is most assiduous in the dueperformance of his rites. Accordingly Trajan promotesto a post of honour Plutarch, who believes, aswe have seen, in one God, and states his belief, whileas soon as St. Ignatius avowed that he carried theone God in his bosom, Trajan ordered him to bethrown to the wild beasts.