Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

164 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMEpicurus," is the type of the former frame of mind :Plutarch, who finds the hours spent in their servicea delight, of the latter. Here, however, we are mettwo contrasts: the Stoic and the Platonic characteron the one hand, the Greek and the Latin mindon the other.There are two men of this period, exact contemporaries,both Greeks, one a writer who has had greatinfluence, the other a man whose sayings as collectedby a disciple are among the most noteworthy utterancesof heathenism. Both are remarkably religions,if compared with Cicero or any man of the Augustanor Tiberian time. But the character of their religionis quite different. Epictetus is a rigid mouotheist inso far as this that the only God whom he worshipsis the reason which is in every man, and is part ofthe one divine being. Upon this single ground heestimates every action, and divides his day into itsseveral duties as a Christian might. All externalgoods, rank, wealth, beauty, talent, health, are viewedby him with regard to this one standard. A manis fulfilling his duty as man, not in proportion ashe possesses these, but as possessing more or less ofthem. Not having it in his power at all to determinethe degree in which he has them, he uses whathe has of them according to the dictates of reason.And all other men, since they possess this divineattribute, as he does himself, are by nature brethren,common children, he even calls them, of one God.In reality they are rather parts of one God, and goback to him, or more properly to it, with no consciousexistence after death. If piety be possible tosuch a frame of mind, Epictetus is pious. But it isplain that he does not aim at a restoration of heathen