Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

398 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM5. A point of the greatest importance in consideringthe Gra:co-Roman civilisation is the attitude ofthe State towards the individual. It is remarkedby Zeller i that " an essential difference distinguishesall modern ideal commonwealths from the Platonicrepublic. Plato's leading idea is the effecting moralityby the State. It is the State which must form itscitizens to virtue. The State is a vast educationalinstitute which embraces the whole life and being ofits members. All other ends must be subordinate tothis one; all private interests be unreservedly sacrificedto it. The State can only aim at the happinessand perfection of the Whole. The individual canclaim no more tban is compatible with the beauty ofthe Whole." " Plato wishes to do away with privateinterest; his modern imitators wish to content it.Plato strives after the perfectness of the Whole ; theseafter the happiness of individuals. Plato treats theState as the end, the Person as means; these treatPersons as the end, the State and society as means."The contrast here drawn will serve to bring out thethorough distinction between what we may call theChristian conception of the State's functions and theHellenic conception. " That consists," says the sameobserver, " much less in forms of constitution thanin the position which is assigned to the State as awhole in regard to individuals, their rights and theirconduct. In our view the State is built up frombelow; individuals are the first. The State arisesfrom the fact that they meet together for the protectionof their rights and the general furtherance ofused of God in accepting the first sacrifice of Noah as he came fromthe ark. See above, p. 329.1 Zeller's Vortrdgc. "Der platonische Staat in seiner Bedeutungfur die Folgezeit." Pp. 78-80.