Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

NEOSTOICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH5 5it from an accurate modern compendium ofphilosophy.The term Physics embraces with the Stoics notonly Kosmology but also Theology.1 Everythingactual with them is held to be corporeal. Matterand Force are the two superior principles. Matter isin itself without motion or form, but capable of takingevery motion and form. Force is the active, moving,and forming principle. It is inseparably bound upwith matter. The working force in the whole massof the world is the Deity. The world is limited andspherical. It has a permeating unity together withthe greatest multiplicity of particular shapes. Thebeauty and design of the world can only spring froma thinking mind, and therefore demonstrate the beingof the Deity. As further the world has consciousparts, the universe which must be more perfect thaneach individual part cannot be without consciousness.But the consciousness in the Universe is the Deity.This permeates the world as an all-pervading Breath,as an artistically-shaping Fire, as Soul and Reason ofthe Whole. It contains in itself the particular germsand seeds of reason.2 The divine original Firechanges itself in constructing the world into air andwater: the water becomes in part earth, in partremains water, in part evaporates in air, whenceagain fire is enkindled. The two grosser elements,earth and water, are chiefly passive; the two finer,air and fire, chiefly active. After the lapse of artain world-period the Deity takes back all thingto itself, since all passes by the burning up of thworld into fire. Out of this divine fire the world thgain and again comes forth anew. In the arising1 TJeberweg, pp. 195, 198.2 \6yot o-tr