Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

NEOSTOICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH67f men to each other, in the two duties of JusticeandHumanity, so that there was a side of severity and aside of mildness in their teaching, but then the side ofseverity had greatly predominated. Justice had beenso urged that it assumed an aspect of inhuman hardness.Humanity and kindness had quite receded intothe background. In Seneca, on the contrary, all thvirtues which belong to kindliness are set forth witha warmth, a detail, an inspiring sympathy which beforehim had no example. In this respect he far surpassesall classical antiquity, including therein Socrates andPlato as well as Cicero.It would require a treatise of considerable lengthto bring out with adequate force how far his doctrineon certain subjects not merely * goes beyond, but isopposed to that of the greatest intellects and the besthearts of the heathen world preceding him. Thus hislanguage on the duty of beneficence to all men, on theunseemliness of anger, in censure of revenge, and inpraise of placability, is without precedent, if we take itin its fulness, and as part of a system of thought.For instance, through the whole line of Greek andLatin writers down to his time the principle prevailsthat hatred of enemies and revenge are not onlyupright, but an indispensable duty for a man ofworth. Even among the Greeks, with all their kindli-ness of disposition, no doctrine was so often expressed,and in ways so various, as that a proper revenge wassomething good and honourable. A kindlier Greciangentleman than Xenophon is not to be found, and heputs in the mouth of Astyages the hope respectinghis grandson, the elder Cyrus, that he may grow upto be a man able to help his friends and punish hisenemies. Of his favourite the younger Cyrus he