Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

198 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM" Taurus used every sort of exhortation to lead hisscholars to what was right and good."It appears that there was no concern of life tooimportant to be beyond the reach of the philosopher'sinspection, none too minute to be beneath it. ThusEpictetus gives particular directions as to the dressand the personal habits of those who frequent him,such as the wearing a beard, the arrangement of thehair. In all scruples of conscience, in all difficultpositions of life, the philosophers were consulted.When Gellius, who had been appointed a judge at theage of twenty-five, found himself unable to determinea suit, he suspended the sitting and betook himselfimmediately to the philosopher Favorinus, of whom hebegged a decision for this particular case, as well asinstruction generally in the office of judge. It wouldseem that philosophers had to complain rather thatthey were consulted too much than too little. Epictetussays men came to him as to a greengrocer or ashoemaker, to get articles ready made, and say theyhad conversed with him, as if he were a statue, withoutgiving themselves the trouble to learn the moralprinciples on which particular decisions should befounded.1The function of philosophy and the supervisionexercised by philosophers over the life of their adherentsbeing in general such as have been described,there were three sorts of relation in which it wasexercised. First, there was the house-philosopher.In many great Roman families it had become theusage to have such an appendage. Such a manwould serve not only as the educator of the children,but as the counsellor and guide of the elders. Especi-1 Epictetus, iii. 9. I take the above examples from Friedlaender.