Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

26o THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMto him is of the utmost moment. Sacrifice and worshipa god-pleasing acts, and th t only thebond < of hurm n society, but the p id supportf the individ soul. The whole existing worship1 its multiplicity, is taken under the protection ofth philosophic mind, and th r toration of pietytion with it makes up the character of PlutBut h f d Philostratus o beyond PlutarchMaximus, Ap Celsus, and th k In hption of God perhaps not all. S as thihis Ap b mbodiment f suchbelief d o ,hip th t had 0 r anbeyond this he constructs an ideal of the philosophic lifh is a heathen copy of Christ b f scope,knwled m d death but ascension.And as in doing this Philostratus carefully ignoresChrist and Christians, so if in all the works of Plutarchthere is no hint that such a religion was existing,it cannot be taken as a conclusive proof either thatPlutarch knew nothing about it, or that knowing ithe did not think it worthy of notice. How vast isthe difference between the heathendom Seneca represents,and that portrayed by Philostratus, is shownmost of all in that spirit of piety with which hisApollonius fosters religious worship wherever hegoes. An active principle of belief has been substitutedfor the principle of negation which prevailedin the century closed by Seneca. Further, the valueof the work of Philostratus to us consists in its beinga full-length picture of the Neopythagorean system ofthought. It contains the best that cultured heathenismhad to say for itself in the first half of the thirdcentury. It also indicates unmistakably the positionwhich it took up in the face of the advancing Church.