Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

POWER OF THE GREEK PHILOSOPHY357his empire was scoured by philosophers who contendedwith each other in a chaos of ever-varying opwithout authority, unpersuasive and fruitless to thrn iss of mankind. To the cultured few who listened ttheir disputations, they were unable to give any definitnotion of that cloudy god of fire, or ether, or the universal mind, whom they obscurely hinted at. At thsame time, and in every city, he saw an orderly societyof bishop, priests, and people taught by them, of theyoung instructed by laborious interchange of questionand answer, of the faithful collected together, cheered,exhorted, and directed by the unfailing proclamationof a religious truth, one, definite, precise in all places.We have preserved for us an instance of this preaching,the more precious because it stands at the beginningof this institution, is addressed to the profthat philosophy which we have been so long considering,and represents the bearing and attitude cthe institution towards the philosophy. It shows athe same time how it set forth those very truthsconcerning which it was vain to seek for any definiteinformation from philosophy, the One God, the relationof man to Him, and of the various members of thehuman family to each other.When St. Paul in his apostolic travel first came toAthens, his spirit was stirred within him at the sightof a city given up to idolatry. His discussions withStoics and Epicureans in the market-place led to theirdemanding an account of his doctrine, and of the" strange things which he brought to their ears." Hewas led to the Areopagus, and at their demand gavethem what may be termed a manifesto of the ChristianChurch to the Greek philosophy. His words area summary of three hundred years of action, for tha