Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

26 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMgive themselves up to the study of the nature ofthings. O But though O himself a man with an extremethirst for knowledge, and trusting much to his ownself-inquiry for the attainment of knowledge, he seemsto have attributed the highest importance rather to apractical life grounded upon unity of belief than tomere science, which he subordinated to a moral end.Simplicity of food, daily self-examination, purity ofmorals, were required of his disciples. And he trustedhis teaching only to the living body of men, for,writing nothing, he actually formed a society whichcarried on his doctrine. It obtained a considerablesuccess, grew and flourished in Crotona, until thefear it called forth as a political union broughton persecution, which finally broke up the society,though all through Grecian history we find individuals,and those the most distinguished of their day,imbued with so-called Pvthagorean O tenets.In this conception of Pythagoras there was tosome extent a sort of natural anticipation of theChristian Church. And his great personal qualities,combined with a noble religious purpose, produced aresult, which, however, was frustrated and dissolvedby the first attack of violence. That which heattempted, a political society based upon moral andreligious principles, was never repeated with thesame definiteness in Greek history again. His successorsadmired his idea, entertained it in theirthoughts, but never ventured to carry it out.Plato, himself in a measure a Pythagorean, conceivedphilosophy as a system of teaching to beconveyed orally by the master to his disciples, thatis, to the few who can be found fitted for suchpursuits by natural gifts, and prepared by moral dis.