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FOUNDATION OF THE ROMAN CHURCH 45but as that to which he was reduced by the necessity "of his position. This will be more apparent when weconsider the third great constituent of society, worship.Now of this Philosophy was entirely destitute. It hadnone of its own, and it fell throughout its course andin all its sects into the fatal weakness of consentingto take at least an external part in an ancestralworship to which its inmost belief was opposed. Thusin the most important act of human life the philosopherwas a hypocrite. He joined in rites the efficiencyof which he disbelieved, and which were offeredo powers whose existence he denied. This is true oPlato and of Aristotle as well as of Zeno and Epicurusof Cicero and of Cato, of Seneca too and of MarcuAntoninus. The result was that in philosophy thtwo forces of doctrine and morals were entirely dtached from that other great force which raises mbove himself, and exalts him in proportion to thidea which he has conceived of the Being who ruleshim. In fact, the personal relation, which ran allthrough Jewish life, binding together worship, doctrine,and morals, was exalted to its highest expressionby the mystery of the Incarnation, and from itformed and impregnated the whole Christian lifethis was wanting to Philosophy.1 And it was far mwanting to the philosopher than to the ordinheathen, in whom the natural conscience still left afeeling or imperfect conviction that he was a creatureunder dependence and rale.In the disruption of these three forces we see thepermanent and universal cause of that weakness andpowerlessness to persuade, which marks the Greekphilosophy in all its sects, and of that inability to form1 See Kleutgen. Phil, der Vorzeit, ii. 830.