Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

LECTUREXVINEC-STOICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHIWE have hitherto considered what Philosophy, workingo in the most intellectual of human races, f had doneup to the time of our Lord's teaching. Then, in orderto illustrate the grounds of its insufficiency we tracedthe foundation of the greatest and most celebratedChurch, the special work of the chief Apostle, to whomthe keys of the kingdom of heaven were given, in theprincipates of Claudius and Nero. It remains to considerin the same manner what Philosophy was ableto do during the period in which the teaching of ourLord was being embodied before its eyes in a visibleinstitution by His disciples. The first study gave usthe measure of what human reason was able to do,mainly by its own power, in solving the mysteries ofhuman life, while the nations were covered with darkness.The second will unfold to us a scene not lessinteresting. We shall see the same human reasonpursuing in the main its old course and resting on thesame fundamental principles, but gradually awakeningto the sense of a great rival power arising in the worlof thought which it had claimed for its own. Andit is acted upon, more and more, whether consciouslyor unconsciously, by this power. It remains uncon-ted by it, but not unaffected. Its greater thheathen still, but of a very different stamp fromthe heathen of the republic. Already Seneca, th47