Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

400 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMhis essential difference between not only Greek butRoman and generally heathen thought, and Christthought, on the position of man as an individualregard of the State, is the conception of human py-that counterpart and reflex of the PersonalGod-which has been wrought into the hearts of menby the Christian Church. It is the force of the divineword, " What shall it profit a man to gain the wholeworld and lose his own soul ? " which has been incorporatedby her preaching into human society. TheChristian Church taught heathenism the fact that thehuman soul is greater than the world. With thispebble from her sling the Church struck on the foreheadthe giant of heathen tyranny, who had exercisedautocracy in the State over the actions and the consciencesof men. The Church as the City of God, theBody of Christ, established a whole code of treatmentin dealing with the individual. This code has onlyto be applied to the human commonwealth in orderto illuminate all the relations of the individual to theState.How did the Church deal with the individual inrespect to the whole body ?For answer let us consider heathenism in the ripenessof that corruption which it had reached by thetime of the Emperor Claudius. We may note thatthe whole heathen conception of the commonwealth,as it bears upon the individual, was the result ofdisbelief in any future life, and ignorance concerningthe true nature of the human personality.If man was not to l-ve after this life, the valueof his life here was essentially altered. He wasbecome the property of the State. The generalinterest would rule every particular interest. In