Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

168 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMas a writer: as well as those who have'had by far thegreatest influence on the generations which have succeededthem. They represent the Stoic and Platonicmind in the r>hase which it assumed at the befrinninpof the second century. Let us add to them anothGreek who is likewise of the same epoch, Dio of Prussurnamed for his eloquence the golden tongue, themost successful Rhetor, or as we should now call himLecturer, of the day. Dio's occupation was to go fromcity to city of the great empire, and deliver addressesto the cultured class of society. Eclectic in his creed,that is, serving up such a mixture of Stoic and Platonicviews as would please the palate of his hearers,and only partially a philosopher, he yet professed tobe a physician of souls. He was born about A.D. 50,and he lived at least to the end of Trajan's reign, sayto 120. When Domitian made his raid upon thephilosophers he was expelled from Rome, and wanderedfor some time among the barbarians on thebanks of the Danube. But with Nerva's accession anew time opened for him, which was one of unbrokenprosperity until his death. His lectures procured himfame, while they increased his already large patrimonialwealth, and he enjoyed the special favour of theEmperor Trajan. Thus he was acceptable both to theclass which he addressed, and to the ruling sovereign,and we can be sure that what he put forth fairly exhibitedthe prevailing spirit of the time. Now two ofhis extant orations, the twelfth and thirty-sixth, giveus in considerable detail his conception of the universeand of the power ruling it. Thus he considers theonly strong and indissoluble principle of communionand justice to be the conjunction of the human race1 Orat. xxxvi. p. 46. Edit. Morel.