Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

I 92 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMipersonality of man. " This poor body is nothing tome : its parts are nothing to me. Death, let it comewhen it will, in whole or in part. . . . For if deathbe any evil it is equally an evil, whether in companywith others or alone. Will it be anything morethan the separation of this poor body and the soul ?Nothing." And he proceeds to mention that there isalways in case of need the option of suicide. " Is thedoor shut ? May you not die ? You may."The fair conclusion is that Epictetus having hadthe sufferings of Christians brought vividly before himin his youth, and acknowledging their heroism, wasmore or less acquainted with their doctrine, and thathe was not unaffected by the two things, but neverthelesspreferred his old heathen standing-ground.Many since in the full blaze of Christian light anthe full knowledge of Christian practice during hundredsof years before them, have done as he did.But it results that the heathenism of Epictetus, asthat of Plutarch and Dio Chrysostomus, is not thatof Cicero or Augustus. A new light has shoneupon their moral world, a new order of ideas haspassed before their minds. A very learned writerobserves that " their doctrines concerning the relationof the individual to humanity in general breathe asstrongly a Christian spirit as they bear witness to themost decided break with what had been, specifically,the ancient views of the world." " Stoicism andCynicism raised themselves in this time to a heightand a purity in their moral grasp of human rightsand human duties which had not been reached inearlier antiquity.""The Stoic principle that all men1 Epictetus, iii. 22, p. 447.- Friedlaender, Sittengcschichte Roms, iii. 609, 610.