Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

FOUNDATION OF THF, ROMAN CHURCH 31society of the most distinguished inhabitants, Peterhad formed at Rome a society including the highestand lowest, the young and the old, in one bond. Inthe former case the brilliant circle of educated menformed by Pythagoras was scattered by a persecutorand never was restored again. In like manner tharm of Nero came down upon Peter's society, whic'he had drawn out of the four-footed creatures of theearth, the wild beasts and reptiles, and birds of theprophetic vision, and a " great multitude " died. Butthe society lived ; it lived to meet many such anotherstorm in successive generations; to yield up againand again a great multitude to the same sufferingIt lived on in the self-same city: after eighteehundred years it lives still, and in the self-same chairin which Peter ^ taught, his two hundred and fifty-eighthsuccessor teaches still.*The disciplines of Plato, of Aristotle, and of Zeuoafford us absolutely nothing to compare as a societywith that of Peter. They produce individual anddiverging specimens of certain schools of thought,but a community ruled by such thought they have notto show. It is not that they did not wish to createsuch a community ; they had the wish, but were farfrom having the power. It is expressed exactly inZeno's conception of the human polity, which Plutarchspeaks of as so much admired ; expressed, but neverrealised. This impotence of philosophy runningthrough eight centuries from the time of Pythagoras,was shown two hundred years after Peter, in the caseof the most fervent, most consistent, most elaborate,and the last of Grecian systems. Plotinus besoughtthe Emperor Gallienus to grant the philosophers acity wherein a system of life could be carried out