Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

54 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMGod is become, the first and most pressing of questions,and next to it the question how the humansoul may approach that God. But nothing can befurther from the spirit of the Latin world, as all itsextant writings show, than these questions in the timeof Claudius, when Peter first appeared at Rome.The only form of Philosophy which existed in anyforce at this time was the Stoic. Now this was asystem penetrated with unbelief. The never-endingand never-broken series of cause and effect, the icychain of physical and material necessity applied unrelentinglyto mind also, this being indeed the only Goda God of its own creation-which the Stoic philosophyadmitted, had dethroned the Platonic God, apure spiritual essence. It treated the popular gods ofthe current mythology as mere manifestations of thissupreme power, and viewed as such it found no contradictionin their number, and no embarrassment intheir various functions. They had ceased to be personsand become mere agencies. As we are about to considerparticular tenets of the four chief Stoics afterChristianity was preached, of Seneca, Musonius, Epic-tetus, and Marcus Aurelius, let us endeavour to obtaina clear and succinct view of the general system ofthought, to which Cato and many others of the nobleRomans had addicted themselves. It reappeared inthe senate of Nero, inspiring Thrasea, as afterwardsHelvidius and Rusticus, and was alone, it may be said,standing on its feet when St. Peter began to preachat Rome. It may be viewed, in fact, as the outcomeof the Greek wisdom respecting God, Providence, andman, his present and his future, when the Epistle tothe Romans was written.That our picture may be perfectly unbiassed I