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 BL 27 .D63 1891 
 
 Dods, Marcus, 1834-1909. 
 
 Erasmus, and other essays 
 
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EEASMUS AND OTHEE ESSAYS 
 
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
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E E A S M U S 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARCUS DODS, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 yotttrott : 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 
 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCXCII. 
 ; ^ 1 -I- 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/erasmusotheressaOOdods 
 
pe:efatoey note 
 
 Of the Essays collected in this volume, those on 
 "Confucius" and on "Christianity and Civilisation" 
 have been already published in Good Words ; the 
 address on " Preaching " was separately issued by 
 Messrs. Maclehose of Glasgow ; the Essay on 
 " Marcus Aurelius " was printed in the Madras 
 Christian College Magazine \ and the remaining 
 papers were contributed to the British and Foreign 
 Evangelical Review. To the Editors and Publishers 
 concerned I am indebted for permission to re- 
 publish. vSome of the papers are rather out of 
 date, and had I been writing them now, I should 
 probably have expressed myself differently on one 
 or two points, but I have judged it better on 
 the whole to reprint without alteration. 
 
 M. D. 
 Edinbtjrgh, October 1891. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAOE 
 
 Erasmus 1 
 
 II 
 
 Christian Element in Plato .... 68 
 
 III 
 Hippolytus's Homily against Noetus ... 94 
 
 IV 
 Clement of Alexandria and his Apologetic . 119 
 
 V 
 
 Frederick Denison Maurice . . . .165 
 
 VI 
 Confucius 239 
 
Vlll CONTENTS 
 
 VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Christianity and Civilisation .... 266 
 
 VIII 
 On Preaching 317 
 
 IX 
 
 Marcus Aurelius 349 
 
ERASMUS 1 
 
 Whoever has looked upon the portrait of 
 Erasmus — that portrait which he himself was 
 so reluctant to sit for^ — must have wished to 
 acquaint himself with the soul that dwelt behind 
 those brightly intelligent but melancholy and 
 sceptical eyes. Whoever has considered that 
 large eloquent mouth, whose proportions are 
 preserved by the finely-cut curve which denotes 
 scholarly taste, and whose massiveness is relieved 
 by the humorous, ironical smile which plays 
 about the upturned corners of the lips, must have 
 
 ^ 1. The Oxford Reformers John Colet^ Erasmtis, and 
 Thomas More. Being a History of their Fellow-work. By 
 Frederic Seebohm. Second Edition. London, 1869. 2. 
 Erasraus : his Life and Character, as shown in his Correspond- 
 ence and Works. By Robert Blackley Drummond, B.A. 
 2 vols. London, 1873. 
 
 '■^ " Vix extortum est amicorum precibus, nt se pingi pater- 
 etur." — Vita Erasmi — irrefixed to the Colloquies. 
 
 B 
 
2 ERASMUS 
 
 said to himself, There is a man who has known 
 and thought much, but who has strength enough 
 to be free and airy in his movements with all his 
 burden of knowledge, — a man who has seen 
 strange and sad experiences in this world, but 
 who has spirit enough to be gay, nay, to be hope- 
 ful and tender throughout, — a man who must 
 have been the best of company while living, and 
 who must have dropped from these lips pregnant 
 sayings which cannot die. It is one of the great 
 faces of the world, to be ranked with that of 
 Dante, or of Newman ; though distinctly memor- 
 able from the first glance we get of it, it draws 
 one back again to look at it, as if there were a 
 meaning Ave had not taken up, or perhaps a capa- 
 bility which even all the difficulty of threescore 
 years and ten had not developed.^ And it is not 
 the face alone which attracts us. The most 
 superficial facts of his life show us that it must 
 be one of the most significant ever lived. The 
 man who laid the egg which Luther only hatched ; 
 
 ^ In the nearly magnificent but queer Valhalla at Ratisbon, 
 in which the busts seem to have been made to order rapidly 
 and in large numbers, at so much per hero, neither inartistic 
 dulness nor payment l)y the i)iece has availed to chisel that 
 face into insipidity. But it is doubtful whether it was 
 judicious to place amid all the solemn dignitaries, a face whose 
 curl of the lip seems to be pouring perennial satire on the 
 whole affair. 
 
ERASMUS 3 
 
 the man who in that time of fierce strife, when 
 all Europe was divided into two parties diametric- 
 ally antagonistic, refused to join either party, 
 though wooed by both as essential to their com- 
 plete success, — this man deserves to have his 
 biography written and read. And yet, like 
 Alexander at the tomb of Achilles, he may still 
 weep for a biographer ; or possibly it may give 
 his restless shade a more cono-enial satisfaction to 
 observe the baffled efforts of his would-be bio- 
 graphers, as one after another they attempt to 
 weave into a consistent character his quite trans- 
 parent and yet never sharply defined aims and 
 leanings, or to form a readable narrative out of 
 the perplexingly superabundant material which lies 
 to the hand of any one who undertakes the work. 
 In saying that Erasmus has not yet found an 
 adequate biographer, we do not mean to speak 
 slightingly of the many well-equipped writers who 
 have thrown light upon his character and career, 
 and least of all, of the two authors whose works 
 are named at the head of this article. Indeed, of 
 Mr. Seebohm's volume we feel disposed to speak 
 in terms which would at once be set down as 
 exaggeration. And it is of little moment how we 
 speak of it, for already it has been accejited as a 
 standard work on a j^eriod which deserves the 
 
4 ERASMUS 
 
 most careful study. Of Mr. Seebohm's leading 
 aim or conclusion, viz. that the theology of 
 Jerome and the Oxford Eeformers, is preferable 
 to that of Augustine and Luther, we may have 
 more to say in the sequel ; but however much we 
 may dissent from his conclusions, we heartily 
 admire his accurate research, and the masterly 
 finish with which he has arranged and presented 
 his material. His work has obviously been a 
 labour of love, and it is not too high praise to 
 say that he writes in a spirit worthy of two of 
 the noblest Englishmen, Colet and More, whether 
 he has imbibed this spirit from so long cultivating 
 their society, or whether his own native love of 
 what is true and pure and of good report has led 
 him to live with these congenial spirits. We 
 have not happened to see any other production of 
 Mr. Seebohm's pen, but this volume alone gives 
 him a place among our most accomplished writers 
 in the historico -biographical department. It is 
 this style of controversy we welcome ; a careful 
 and truth -seeking investigation into what men 
 \ really thought and said, together with an earnest 
 Ibut dispassionate statement of the author's own 
 [views, if he thinks fit to give us them. 
 
 In this quality of uttering his own opinion, 
 without spitefully abusing that of his neighbour, 
 
ERASMUS 5 
 
 Mr. Drummond somewhat fails. There is a 
 want of dignity about his attacks on evangelical 
 religion which is beneath the historian ; and 
 there is a manifest bias in his reading of some 
 of Erasmus's opinions, which will, we fear, cause 
 the public to think his work rather a plea for 
 looseness of opinion than an impartial narra-j 
 tive. His book is to a great extent a polemic ; 
 and a polemic against polemics. He is haunted 
 throughout by the " evangelicals," and too fre- 
 quently, to the reader's surprise, turns aside from 
 his proper course to make a rush at them. We 
 do not, of course, object to his interspersing his 
 narrative with reflections of his own. We wel- 
 come reflections which reveal the springs of 
 character or the pregnancy of a situation ; reflec- 
 tions such as that master of critical biography, 
 John Morley, knows so well how to insert.^ We 
 welcome the sudden flashes which George Eliot 
 shoots through a whole region of life, leaving it for 
 ever more comprehensible or more entertaining to 
 us. But when a writer interrupts his narrative ' 
 with passages which suggest that he is writing 
 with a strong theological bias and with a contro- 
 versial aim, it is inevitable that he loses as a 
 
 ^ It must be owned, however, that Mr. Morley sometimes 
 very seriously offends in the same way as Mr. Drummond. . 
 
d ERASMUS 
 
 biographer more than he gains as a controversial- 
 ist. Mr. Drummond sometimes writes well, 
 with information and force, on controverted 
 topics ; there are passages in these volumes 
 which must have shown extremely well in the 
 Theological Review, where they first appeared, but 
 his biography of Erasmus would have been better 
 received, would have been read with greater 
 pleasure and trust, and would have lived longer, 
 had he exercised some self-restraint, and withheld 
 from his book applications of his subject to 
 modern circumstances, and indignant pleadings 
 for his own school of theology. He may suppose, 
 and justly, that to mend his own times is a 
 higher task than to write a good biography. 
 But as the dramatist who understands his art 
 does not give us an interlude of sermon between 
 the acts to enforce the moral of his piece ; as the 
 novelist who writes to reform a grievance or to 
 shame out of countenance a social abuse, misses 
 his end, just in so far as his teaching is separate 
 from his story ; so the greatest possible amount 
 of light would have been shed on our times, and 
 the greatest possible conviction produced in our 
 minds, by the simple exhibition of Erasmus's own 
 character and views. Nevertheless, Mr. Drum- 
 niond's book is valuable. To those who have 
 
ERASMUS 7 
 
 tried to use Jortin's chaotic mine, we may best 
 describe Mr. Drummond's volumes as an arranged 
 Jortin. The earlier writer had probably greater 
 learning, and certainly had a keener edge on his 
 mind ; but any one who wishes to form an 
 opinion of Erasmus, will find ample material for 
 doing so in Mr. Drummond's book. He will find 
 in it a careful collection of facts, an accurate and 
 spirited translation of the most important of 
 Erasmus's letters, a skilful analysis of his best 
 known writings, and sufficient allusion to those 
 which are less read. It is a work of great dili- 
 gence, and will be really useful as a guide to the 
 study of Erasmus's own writings. No one can 
 read it without feeling that he is in the company 
 of a modest, unostentatious, painstaking, com- 
 petent writer, who has the rare virtue of taking 
 his own measure, and understanding what he is 
 most likely to do well. There are a few winters 
 who, as they move, shed a blaze of light into 
 every surrounding region. We do not mean to 
 claim for Mr. Drummond a place among these ; 
 but we should deem it only justice, were his book 
 acknowledged as a successful attempt to shed 
 light upon a single and very important line of 
 fact. And it is, at all events, the most satisfactory 
 life of Erasmus which our language can boast. 
 
8 ERASMUS 
 
 Of other lives of Erasmus, a very judicious 
 estimate will be found in Milman's Avell known 
 and delightful essay, into which there is con- 
 densed an amount of information which few men 
 could have afforded so prodigally to lavish on a 
 Review article. But probably the most living 
 portrait of Erasmus is that which has been drawn, 
 since Milman's article was written, by the accom- 
 plished and perfervid historian of the era of 
 England's rejuvenescence. In one point certainly 
 Mr. Froude excels the other writers who have 
 chosen Erasmus for their theme. He has abund- 
 ant sense of humour. His wit indeed is earnest 
 and fierce, but he quite understands, if he some- 
 what underrates, tlie more genial and less blood- 
 thirsty satire of the author of the Praise of Folly. 
 Besides, he has a native genius for apprehending 
 the characters of the past, if not with perfect 
 accuracy, yet with a vividness of imagination 
 which enables him to present them quite definitely 
 before our eyes. And therefore it is Froude's 
 Erasmus which lives in one's mind ; and, correct 
 the picture as we may, it is still the stronger 
 colouring of that consummate artist that shines 
 through our feeble re-touchings. 
 
 We fear that, like Erasmus himself, his true 
 biographer has passed to that land in which 
 
ERASMUS 9 
 
 earthly careers are read, not in the printed page 
 of laborious investigation and doubtful criticism, 
 but in results manifest to all at a glance, in fixed 
 features of character which reflect an infallible 
 judgment on the essence of what was done and 
 thought here upon earth. A very few years ago 
 the most ardent students of Erasmus felt that in 
 the hands of James Hamilton his life and labours 
 were safe, and looked eagerly for the completion 
 of a work whose first portions gave promise of a 
 complete and perfect biography. Here was the 
 needed culture, diligence, humour, sympathy with 
 the subject. Here was the eye, candid and truth- 
 ful, open to see what was without, and not the 
 mere reflection of what was within ; here was the 
 spirited, graphic style, which could engage the 
 reader's interest and rise level with his theme. 
 To many, as probably to Hamilton himself, it 
 seemed that this was a subject instinctively 
 chosen, as likely to elicit from him the fullest 
 power he could exert ; but by choosing a task 
 which it will take years to finish, a man does not 
 always secure that he shall live out these needed 
 years. 
 
 We are not now to attempt to tell again the 
 story of Erasmus's life, nor to re-mould material 
 which has already passed through the hands of 
 
10 ERASMUS 
 
 accomplished writers. As we have ah^eady said, 
 there are few lives regarding which there is more 
 abundant or more accessible information. The 
 romantic but sad story of his parents and of his 
 birth has been told by Charles Reade, in his 
 somewhat highly -coloured but entertaining and 
 useful novel, The Cloister and the Hearth. In 
 Erasmus's own letter to Grunnius, — a letter vital- 
 ised by indignation, — we have a moving sketch 
 of his youthful difficulties and troubles, of the 
 unscrupulous arts used to entrap him into the 
 monastic life, and of his unfitness for such a life 
 by reason of his delicate constitution, which dis- 
 abled him from enduring the smell of fish without 
 a headache, and from getting to sleep again after 
 rising for service during the night.^ In the 
 Colloquies^ he makes use of his own college 
 experiences to expose som.e of the grievances 
 under Avhich students at that time laboured, and 
 which, as he tells us, drove some to madness, and 
 doomed others to leprosy or blindness for life. 
 We see him in the College Montaigu {Vinegar 
 College, from the sour or acid theological disputa- 
 
 1 it 
 
 Hahebat aclolescens peculiare inconimodum, quod illi a 
 teneris uiiiiis in banc iisque aetatem haeret. Nou nisi profuuda 
 vespera potest obdorniiscere, et a seniel interrupto soiuno uoii 
 redorniiscit, nisi post boras aliquot." — Ad Grim. 
 2 lobtbyophagia. 
 
ERASMUS 11 
 
 tion that was carried on in it till the very walls 
 reeked with theology ; so he says) rising from a 
 filthy bed, coughing out of his throat the damp 
 which had distilled from the mouldy walls, and 
 shivering out in the darkness and frost to break 
 the ice from the w^ell and draw the fetid water, 
 scarcely distinguishable from the pestilential 
 sewers that flowed or stagnated close by. By 
 means of his letters it is easy to trace him 
 indomitably fighting his way out of ignorance, 
 poverty, obscurity, now keeping pupils in Paris, 
 now teaching Greek at Cambridge, writing dedi- 
 cations, begging with more or less shamefaced- 
 ness, declining the invitations of popes and 
 princes but accepting their gifts, publishing books 
 at almost every printing office in Europe, every- 
 where making some friends and many enemies, 
 always learning and always making startling use 
 of his learning, until he stood the recognised first 
 scholar of the world. By means of his letters — a 
 collection full of interesting reading, bringing one 
 into pleasant connection with all the leading men 
 of the age, and putting the reader into, as nearly 
 as possible, a contemporary's point of view — we 
 insensibly gather an impression of Erasmus and 
 of his influence, as with him we impatiently re- 
 visit what he refused to call his fatherland, and 
 
12 EEASMUS 
 
 preferred contemptuously to nickname his " beer 
 and butter land " ; or go with him to Eome, and 
 mark the disappointment and contempt of the 
 ecclesiastics that mingled with his admiration of 
 the literary collections, and broke through his 
 desire to stand well with all dignitaries ; or dwell 
 pleasantly with him in his most congenial resi- 
 dence at Basle, doing as much work in one day as 
 most men did in two,^ and yet finding time to 
 stroll about in Froben's garden, or spend the 
 afternoon writing in his summer-house ; or come 
 back again and again to England, drawn mainly 
 by his love of Colet, "the best beloved of his 
 age," ^ attracted, too, by the culture of More, 
 Linacrc, Grocyn, Fisher, Warham, and others 
 whom he is never weary of extolling, and bearing, 
 no doubt, also a not unpleasing remembrance of 
 the women who, probably for the first time, 
 showed him the possibility of combining a perfect 
 purity of thought with the most encouraging 
 frankness of manner, always leaving our island 
 
 ^ " Plus operis abs te uuo factum die, quani quantum abs 
 quovis alio biduana opera exigi consuevisset." — Scaligers 
 remarh ahovt Erasmus's work at Venice for the Aldine 2^1'ess, 
 quoted in Drummond, i. 172. 
 
 '^ Seebolun (p. 505) tells us that his coffin bore an inscrip- 
 tion which contains these words, *'ob vitae integritatem et 
 •liviuum concionandi niunus, omnium sui temporis fuit charis- 
 simus." 
 
ERASMUS 13 
 
 with regret, and prepared to defend everything in 
 it but its houses ; ^ thus we wander with him, 
 sharing the hardships and the triumphs and 
 pleasures of a literary life in the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century, until the clouds gather, 
 though not with so heavy a gloom as Froude 
 depicts, and the air, which had rung with the 
 voices and been brightened by the kind faces 
 of many friends, becomes silent and chill, and 
 the last touching signature is written, " Eras. 
 Eot. aegra manu." 
 
 And the impression which is thus conveyed to 
 the mind, is that of a man not of the very first 
 order, either intellectually or morally. It has 
 been observed by one who sows truth and error 
 in about equal quantities, that " our fatuous per- 
 sistency in reducing man to the spiritual, blinds 
 the biographer to the circumstance, that the 
 history of a life is the history of a body no less 
 than that of a soul ; many a piece of conduct that 
 divides the world into two factions of moral 
 
 ■■ See the letter in wliicli lie complaius, like any sanitary- 
 commissioner, of the inconvenient internal arrangements and 
 unwliolesome situation of English houses. "The floors are 
 commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, which are only lifted 
 at long intervals, and under which lies unmolested, an 
 ancient collection of beer, grease, bones, spittle, and every 
 nameless abomination." 
 
14 ERASMUS 
 
 assailants and moral vindicators, provoking a 
 thousand ingenuities of ethical or psychological 
 analysis, ought really to have been nothing more 
 than an item in a page of a pathologist's case- 
 . book." Certainly in any endeavour to estimate 
 the character of Erasmus, we must take into 
 I account his nervous temperament. It was this 
 ) which made him so keenly sensitive to physical 
 pain, so averse either to its infliction or endurance. 
 It was this which made him at once intensely 
 alive to the current of public affairs, and shy of 
 the responsibility and danger which beset a leader 
 of opinion. It was this which fitted him for 
 society and enabled him to find his best and most 
 pleasurable stimulus in the friendship of good 
 men, but this also which prevented him from 
 showing any of the deeper qualities which friend- 
 ship elicits. Kindly, charitable, ever genial, he 
 was a bright, cheerful, entertaining companion, 
 but always, as one of his enemies said, " homo pro 
 se." Often displaying a quick resentment, and 
 sometimes as abusive in his language as Calvin, 
 he was never vindictive. He was almost too ready 
 to be reconciled to those who had injured him ; 
 in this, as in all matters, shrinking from disagree- 
 able personal collisions, and from everything which 
 would perturb him. He would involve himself 
 
ERASMUS 1 5 
 
 with no party ; he would identify himself with no 
 movement which he could not himself control, 
 with no opinions which might demand from him 
 unwelcome action. 
 
 It is a mistake, however, to suppose that this 
 was due to timidity ; and it is a greater mistake 
 to appeal to Erasmus's fear of death as a proof of 
 this timidity. No one accuses Samuel Johnson of 
 timidity, because we find him exclaiming, " 
 my friend, the apj^roach of death is very dreadful. 
 I am afraid to think on that which I know I 
 cannot avoid." And they who are fond of quoting 
 passages, which show that Erasmus partook of 
 this common shrinking from dissolution, should 
 have had the decency to remark also, that when 
 death did approach, this fear and horror entirely 
 disappeared. When he lay ill at Louvain, when 
 doctor after doctor had turned from his bed in 
 despair, and when the monks of Cologne w^ere 
 already shouting (in Latin worthy of the taste 
 and feeling which prompted the triumph), that he 
 had died "sine lux, sine crux, sine Deus," his 
 mind was calm and hopeful.^ " When the disease 
 
 ^ Romanists have for one reason or other altered their views 
 of Erasmus, for we find one of their living writers making the 
 audacious assertion, that he died "• with the names of Jesus 
 and Mary on his lips." 
 
16 ERASMUS 
 
 was at its height, I neither felt distressed with 
 desire of life, nor did I tremble at the fear of 
 1 death. All my hope was in Christ alone, and I 
 prayed for nothing to Him except that He would 
 do what He thought best for me. Formerly, 
 when a youth, I remember I used to tremble at 
 the very name of death." So he writes in a 
 letter to one of his most intimate friends. 
 
 Indeed, no one can read even a little of 
 Erasmus's writings, without being amazed at his 
 boldness. Read, e.g., the description he gives in 
 his Adages ^ of the royal bird — 
 
 " Let any physiognomist worth anything at all 
 consider the look and features of an eagle — those 
 rapacious and wicked eyes, that threatening curve of 
 the beak, those cruel jaws, that stern front — will he 
 not at once recognise the image of a king 1 a magni- 
 ficent and majestic king 1 Add to this a dark 
 ill-omened colour, an unpleasing, dreadful, appalling 
 voice, and that threatening scream at which every 
 kind of animal treml:)les. Every one will acknowledge 
 this type who has learnt how terrible are the tlireats 
 of princes, even uttered in jest. At this scream of 
 the eagle the people tremble, the senate yields, the 
 nobility cringes, the judges concur, the divines are 
 dumb, the lawyers assent, the laws and constitutions 
 give way, neither right nor religion, neither justice 
 
 ^ Under the proverb "Scarabaeus Aquilani quaerit."— See 
 Seebolim, 310. 
 
EKASMUS 17 
 
 nor liiiraanity avail. And thus, wliile tliere are so 
 many birds of sweet and melodious song, tlie un- 
 pleasant and unmusical scream of the eagle alone has 
 more power than all the rest. Of all birds the eagle 
 alone has seemed to wise men the type of royalty — 
 not beautiful, not musical, not fit for food ; but 
 carnivorous, greedy, hateful to all, the curse of all, 
 and, Avith its great powers of doing harm, surpassing 
 them in its desire of doing it." 
 
 Pretty well this, for the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, and for one who received pensions or 
 gifts from nearly all the kings and princes in 
 Europe. 
 
 If further proof of the boldness of Erasmus be 
 needed, it is to be found in his unsparing de- 
 nunciation of the corrupt practices of the Roman 
 Court, and especially of what Ranke terms "the 
 ruling passion " of Pope Julius II., — namely, his 
 innate love of war and conquest. In the Praise 
 of FoUi/, Erasmus drew a picture of Julius which 
 no one could mistake ; " The decrepid old man, 
 assuming all the vigour of youth, sparing no cost, 
 shrinking from no toil, stopped by nothing, if only 
 he can turn law, religion, peace, and all human 
 affairs upside down." The whole passage is im- 
 portant as bringing out very unmistakably the 
 point and vehemence with which Erasmus assailed 
 the real evils of the Church of his own day — 
 
 C 
 
18 ERASMUS 
 
 " Of si^iritual weapons, indeed," lie says, " the popes 
 are mighty liberal, of interdicts, suspensions, denuncia- 
 tions, greater and lesser excommunications, and bulls 
 that fright those tliey are thundered against ; and 
 these most holy fathers never issue them more 
 frequently than against those who feloniousl}^ and 
 maliciously attempt to lessen St. Peter's patrimony. 
 For although in the gospel that apostle is said to have 
 declared ' we have left all and followed Thee,' yet 
 these popes speak of ' St. Peter's patrimony ' as con- 
 sisting of lands, towns, tributes, customs, lordships ; 
 for which, when their zeal for Christ is stirred, they 
 fight with fire and sword at the expense of much 
 Christian blood, thinking that in so doing they are 
 ajjostolical defenders of Christ's spouse, the Church, 
 from her enemies. As though indeed there were any 
 enemies of the Church more pernicious tlian impious 
 popes, who give dispensations for the not preaching of 
 Christ ; evacuate the main design of our redemption 
 by their pecuniary sales ; adulterate the gospel by 
 their forced interpretations and undermining tradi- 
 tions ; and lastly, by their lusts and wickedness, 
 grieve the Holy Spirit, and make the Saviour's 
 wounds bleed afresh. Further, as the Christian 
 Church was founded in blood, and confirmed by blood, 
 and advanced by blood, now in like manner, as though 
 Christ were dead, and could no longer defend His own, 
 they take to the sword. And though war be a thing 
 80 savage, that it becomes wihl beasts rather tlian men, 
 so frantic that the poets feigned it to be the work of 
 the Furies, so pestilent that it blights at once all 
 morality, so unjust that it can be best waged by the 
 
EKASMUS 19 
 
 worst of ruffians, so impious that it lias notliing in 
 common with Christ, yet to the neglect of everything 
 else they devote themselves to war alone." 
 
 Surely he who wrote this was not ambitious of 
 a cardinal's hat, nor very careful about giving 
 offence to the most formidable power then on 
 earth. But we shall be better able to estimate 
 his strength of character and his relation to the 
 Church of Rome, after we have briefly reviewed 
 his literary labours, and recognised what it was 
 that he himself reckoned the proper work of his 
 life. 
 
 His diligence in his proper vocation as a literary 
 man has rarely been equalled, never surpassed, 
 not even by the most " adamantine " of scholars, 
 such as Heyne. For a combination of rapidity 
 and brilliance of execution, his work may be com- 
 pared to that of his almost compatriot, Eubens. 
 The one artist " careers over the canvas," earning 
 his hundred florins a day, and leaving from a few 
 strokes of his brush a lasting joy to men. The 
 other writes his forty letters a day, collates manu- 
 scripts which are maddeningly corrupt, edits the 
 most voluminous writers of antiquity, does not 
 always earn as many florins as he could wish, but 
 wins the hearty admiration and gratitude of all 
 lovers of genial humour, pungent wit, and lively 
 
20 ERASMUS 
 
 learning. Unconquerable as Eichard Baxter, he 
 worked on through the attacks of one of the most 
 painful of diseases, and managed to produce sallies 
 of merriment where other men would have fancied 
 themselves legitimately excused from all but 
 groans. Indefatigable as the elder Pliny, and 
 infinitely less pedantic, he used every available 
 moment for study, and was yet always ready to 
 turn an epigram for a friend, and never denied 
 himself the pleasures of social intercourse. He 
 once challenged Froben to print as fast as he 
 could write. He could compose in the midst of 
 the greatest noise, and his great satire. The Praise 
 of Folly, is evidence that the work he produced on 
 horseback was of better quality than some which 
 we are told proceeded from that stimulating seat. 
 Too frequently great scholars have wasted their 
 energies on subjects of no general utility or even 
 interest. But one is struck, in reading over the 
 long catalogue of Erasmus's literary labours, with 
 the sagacity which, at the very revival of letters, 
 guided him to discern what stood highest in 
 literature. He stands l)etween the ancient and 
 modern world, as a kind of gentleman -usher, 
 selecting with unerring instinct such writers as 
 were worthy of immortality, redeeming them from 
 the obscurity to which a non-reading Avorld had 
 
ERASMUS 21 
 
 consigned them, and introducing them, as free 
 from soil as he could make them, to the world 
 which dates from the invention of printing. A 
 number of the classics, which have ever since 
 remained the favourites, he either edited or trans- 
 lated, or both. In summing up the character of 
 Erasmus, Mr. Drummond makes the somewhat 
 unintelligible statement, that " original genius, or 
 creative power of any kind, cannot be ascribed to 
 him, nor was the time ripe for the appearance of 
 any such qualities, when the apparatus of literary 
 workmanship had still to be got into order" (ii. 
 346). Creative genius has not been wont to wait 
 for the elaboration of any particular apparatus. 
 But certainly, when we consider the difficulties 
 which a scholar in those days had to overcome, 
 the want of previous editions, the corrupt state of 
 the manuscripts, the absence of grammars and 
 dictionaries, and of trustworthy geographical and 
 historical information, it is impossible to overrate 
 the perseverance, if not the genius, which com- 
 pensated for the lack of these aids. The picture 
 of a scholar's life which is graphically sketched in 
 the letters of Erasmus, is very different from that 
 which floats in the imagination of the youthful 
 student of modern times, and invites him to a life 
 of quiet if not of ease, to a comfortable competence 
 
22 ERASMUS 
 
 if not to wealth. Tischendorf and Curzon are the 
 modern scholars, whose adventurous labours in 
 some respects most fitly compare with those of 
 Erasmus. His frequent changes of residence were 
 due not solely to the restlessness of his disposition, 
 but mainly to his desire to consult manuscrii^ts 
 which lay scattered in distant libraries, and to 
 find printers capable of executing his work. He 
 was thus compelled again and again to traverse 
 Europe in days when travelling was both tedious 
 and dangerous. At one time we find him laid up 
 at Ghent with a sprain in his back, caused by the 
 shying of his hack ; again a dolorous lament 
 comes from the banks of the Rhine in flood, and 
 where he says he was kept swimming rather than 
 riding. In one respect his fate was the same as 
 that of more recent travellers, his passages from 
 England to the continent prostrated him with 
 sea-sickness. The channel had, besides, associa- 
 tions in his mind which might well have debarred 
 him from ever revisiting our island. On one 
 occasion he was stripped, by the custom-house 
 officers of the niggardly Henry YH., of the hard- 
 earned English gold with which he was exjiecting 
 to pay his way through the succeeding year. On 
 another occasion, after embarking, he discovered 
 that his luggage containing his Jerome and the 
 
ERASMUS 23 
 
 collation of New Testament MSS., was not on 
 board — one of those skilfully-contrived accidents 
 which are still, we fear, sometimes practised upon 
 travellers for the sake of extorting the trinkgeld 
 which is readily given in the moment of relief 
 that follows the long anxiety. But his bitterest 
 complaints are of the bad wines and stifling filthy 
 inns of some parts of Germany. Every reader of 
 the Colloquies remembers the passage in which he 
 describes the sufferings of a guest in one of these 
 inns ; a passage we would quote, were it not so 
 painfully graphic, that we fear our readers would 
 sicken with the loathsome steam which rises from 
 the damp and dirty travellers gathered round the 
 stove, or finally turn from a page which thrusts 
 sights so disgusting before their eyes. 
 
 It was no ordinary zeal which carried the 
 delicate and sensitive scholar through scenes such 
 as these, but there was no sacrifice he was not 
 prepared to make in the cause. "If any new 
 Greek book comes to hand," we find him writing, 
 "I would rather pawn my coat than not obtain 
 it j especially if it be religious, such as a psalter 
 or a gospel " — especially if it he religious, for those 
 quite misunderstand Erasmus, who do not know, 
 or refuse to believe, that his main object and chief 
 endeavour, was to Christianise rather than even to 
 
24 ERASMUS 
 
 educate Europe. " If we are genuine Christians," 
 he says, "nothing ought to seem erudite, elegant, 
 or admirable to us which is not redolent of Christ, 
 wherever the subject admits of this." And again, 
 " The highest object of the revival of philosophical 
 studies will be to become acquainted with simple 
 and pure Christianity in the Bible." His prefer- 
 ence for religious writings was sufficiently proved 
 by his enormous labours in patristic literature. 
 He edited the whole works of his favourite 
 Jerome, of Cyprian, Augustine, Hilary, Irenaeus, 
 Ambrose, with portions of the works of Chry- 
 sostom, Athanasius, Basil, Epiphanius, and Lact- 
 antius. To read these works would in these 
 degenerate days constitute any one a learned man, 
 and it is opppressive to think of the labour 
 involved in preparing so many ponderous folios 
 for the printer, even though he had correctors of 
 the press so accurate as his friends Lystrius and 
 Beatus Ehenanus. Once or twice he broke down 
 under the labour, but this was the sacrifice he 
 thought himself justified in making to the Fathers, 
 the true and legitimate worship of the saints. 
 " We kiss the old shoes and dirty handkerchiefs 
 of the saints," he says in his preface to Jerome, 
 " and we neglect their books, which are the more 
 holy and valuable relics. We lock up their shirts 
 
ERASMUS 25 
 
 and clothes in jewelled cabinets ; but as to their 
 writings on which they spent so much pains, and 
 which are still extant for our benefit, we abandon 
 them to mouldiness and vermin." 
 
 It was this masculine sense and discernment 
 which lifted Erasmus above the inveterate super- 
 stitions and follies of the time, and which also 
 saved him from the vices peculiar to scholars. A 
 mind that steeps itself in classical literature, 
 sometimes gains refinement at the expense of 
 robustness. In our own day, certainly, some of 
 our most distinguished scholars have also been 
 among the most vigorous thinkers, and have been 
 no less remarkable for practical sagacity than for 
 delicacy of taste ; but this is probably due rather 
 to the tendency of the times than to the inherent 
 influence of classical studies. It may have been 
 due to the character of the times that Erasmus 
 did not degenerate into a mere bookworm, or 
 student, or litterateur ; though the times did not 
 save his friends Budaeus and Reuchlin from that 
 fate. But the nature of Erasmus retained through- 
 out a manly vigour, which forced him to take a 
 part in the stirring events of his times, and taught 
 him to use his learning merely as a weapon in the 
 fierce conflict which he himself had in great part 
 stirred. His Adages, of which one large edition 
 
26 ERASMUS 
 
 after another was rapidly sold out, as no books 
 of the size are now sold out, was not more 
 remarkable for the unrivalled research it displayed, 
 than for the fearless and pointed invective and 
 satire which it levelled against existing abuses 
 and stupidities. So it was with all his writings ; 
 they were all of the nature of artillery, not of 
 fireworks ; while the reader is admiring the flash, 
 he finds himself already hit. Each of his writings 
 has its motive in the real world around him, and 
 all of them are alive with the characters he was 
 daily seeing. 
 
 We must therefore ascribe it in great measure 
 to Erasmus that the Eenaissance was even as 
 Christian as it was. For, as Hallam tells us, 
 " the object of the Italian scholars was, to write 
 pure Latin, to glean little morsels of Roman 
 literature, to talk a heathenish philosophy in 
 private, and leave the world to its oion abuses^ 
 This school would use no word which was not 
 found in the writings of Cicero, 'and would resort 
 to the most circuitous circumlocution, or paganise 
 the most sacred subjects and names, rather than 
 depart from this rule.^ This trifling seemed to 
 
 ^ Bembo is said to have kept forty portfolios, tlirough all of 
 which each sheet of his writings had to pass, being examined 
 and corrected at every stage. See Hallam. 
 
EEASMUS 27 
 
 Erasmus both silly from a literary point of view, 
 and dangerous to Christianity. And it was 
 against this coterie of exclusive and semi-pagan 
 purists, that he issued his effective Ciceronianus. 
 In his brochure he holds up to ridicule the weak 
 pedants who tabulated every word, phrase, and 
 cadence to be found in the works of the master, 
 and who, after reading no books but those of 
 Cicero for seven years, can only feebly and stiffly 
 imitate the graceful language of their model. 
 Erasmus convincingly proves that this is not the 
 path to eminence in literature, and shows that it 
 is a thorough understanding of the subject treated, 
 and an interest in it, which give a forceful and 
 copious style as they give a naturalness and 
 warmth of sentiment, which captivate the reader. 
 There is much in the Ciceronianus which is capable 
 of universal application. He distinguishes between 
 the slavish imitation which reproduces what is 
 obsolete, and the intelligent revival of the ancient 
 severity of taste. He proclaims the folly of 
 putting new wine into old bottles ; and dis- 
 criminates between the adoption of antiquated 
 forms and the application to modern uses of the 
 ancient enlightenment and knowledge. In a 
 word, he distinguishes — and when will men learn 
 the distinction ? — between that imitation which 
 
28 ERASMUS 
 
 consists in a superstitious clinging to old forms 
 and traditional customs, regardless of their in- 
 applicability to modern society, and that imitation 
 which adopts the ancient spirit, and lets it freely 
 produce such forms as may suit the changing times. 
 But while Erasmus exposes the literary mistake 
 with overwhelming force and abundant humour, 
 one sees that he has a much more serious aim 
 than the exposure of a mere piece of silly 
 pedantry. Erasmus thoroughly understood these 
 Italian scholars, and knew that they preferred the 
 culture of heathenism to the self-repressing ethics 
 of the cross. If Christianity was not recognised 
 as a force of sufficient power to produce a new 
 vocabulary, it was because it was misunderstood 
 or purposely held in the background. And if the 
 ideal which these men of culture proposed was to 
 be sought, Christianity must be held in the back- 
 ground, or appear only as the disfigured and 
 dishonoured servant of culture. Erasmus saw 
 that there might be a revival of paganism more 
 dangerous than that attempted by Julian, and no 
 one did so much as he to avert this danger. Not 
 only in the Ciceronianus, but in many other 
 writings, and especially in his letters, he expresses 
 the fear that the revival of classical literature 
 might veil a revival of pagan sentiment, and 
 
ERASMUS 29 
 
 professes that for his own part, he would rather 
 be a Christian with the barbarians, than a pagan 
 with the Ciceronians. This, coming from a man 
 who knew Horace and Terence by heart, who had 
 acknowledged that in reading Cicero he could 
 not but sometimes kiss the page, and pay tribute 
 to the heavenly inspiration that had filled the 
 writer; this coming from the man who was 
 acknowledged by all but Scaliger as the foremost 
 scholar in Europe, could not be without a very 
 powerful effect. Let those who are accustomed 
 to think of Erasmus as himself but a half-hearted 
 Christian, consider whether there was any other 
 man then living, whose decision as to the relative 
 positions of culture and Christianity, would have 
 had the same weight in Europe, and whether he 
 does not deserve our gratitude for so boldly and 
 decidedly throwing himself into what might other- 
 wise have been the losing side. For to ascribe 
 his alienation from the Italian scholars to mere 
 personal vindictiveness is absurd. It is true he 
 had been nicknamed JErrasmus by those who 
 thought it a feather in their cap to find him out 
 in small errors, as he had been called Forrojjhagus, 
 on account of his extreme fondness for the word 
 porro. It is true also that he was unduly sensitive 
 to such kinds of annoyance, but his other writings, 
 
30 ERASMUS 
 
 and especially his letters to his dear friend Colet, 
 put it beyond a doubt, that he did not prize 
 culture for its own sake, but mainly as the best 
 means of introducing a purer Christianity. 
 
 This is very clearly brought out by his con- 
 nection with Dean Colet, in the founding of St. 
 Paul's school in 1510, which, taken all in all, 
 forms one of the most pleasing passages in the 
 history of education. We see the two great men, 
 the one the foremost scholar, the other probably 
 the purest minded and bravest man then alive, 
 filled with mutual esteem and affection, correspond- 
 ing and taking counsel together, and finally devot- 
 ing their means and their labour to the education 
 of 153 boys. No sooner did Dean Colet receive 
 his 23atrimony, than he devoted it to this object, 
 ordaining that " the children should be taught 
 good literature, both Latin and Greek, specially 
 Christian authors who wrote their wisdom in 
 clean and chaste Latin, whether in prose or verse ; 
 for my intent is hy this school, specially to increase 
 knowledge, and worshipping of God and our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and good Christian life and manners 
 in the children." One can scarcely mistake the 
 spirit of the man who concludes the preface to 
 the Latin grammar he wrote for his school in 
 these terms — 
 
ERASMUS 31 
 
 " I pray God all may be to His honour, and to tlie 
 erudition and profit of children, my countrymen 
 Londoners specially, whom, digesting this little work, 
 I had always before mine eyes, considering more what 
 was for them than to show any great cunning. . . . 
 Wherefore I pray you, all little babes, all little 
 children, learn gladly this little treatise, and com- 
 mend it gladly to your memories, trusting of this 
 beginning that ye shall proceed and grow to perfect 
 literature, and come at the last to be great clerks. 
 And lift uj) your little ichife hands for me, which 
 prayeth for you to God, to whom be all honour, and 
 imperial majesty and glory. Amen." ^ 
 
 Erasmus was not only thoroughly at one wath 
 his friend regarding the propriety of using 
 Christian authors in preference to the impure 
 writings of heathen classics, but evinced his 
 tender regard for children, by writing against the 
 practice of flogging,^ by composing schoolbooks, 
 and by doing his utmost to secure the right kind of 
 teachers. In an amusing letter to Colet, dated 
 from Cambridge (where Erasmus had been ap- 
 pointed Margaret Professor of Divinity), he tells 
 of the ill success of his application to some of the 
 college dons for their help in the matter. One of 
 
 ^ Seebohm's Oxford Heformers, 213. 
 
 ^ Flogging for the mere purpose of breaking the will was 
 denounced also by Anselm, in most reasonable and instructive 
 terms. See Church's Anselm, p. 82. 
 
32 ERASMUS 
 
 them sneeringly asked " Who would put up with 
 the life of a schoolmaster, who could get his living 
 in any other way ? " When Erasmus modestly 
 urged that he considered the education of youth 
 the most honourable of all callings, and that no 
 man could serve God better than by bringing 
 children to Christ, the Cambridge doctor turned 
 up his nose in contempt, and replied, " Whoever 
 wishes to give himself up entirely to the service 
 of Christ, let him enter a monastery," Erasmus 
 ventured to ask whether St. Paul did not make 
 true religion consist rather in charity and doing 
 as much good as possible to our neighbours ; but 
 this remark was treated as a mere proof of his 
 ignorance. " Behold, we must leave all ; in that 
 is perfection." "^e can scarcely be said to leave 
 all," replied Erasmus, "who, when he has a 
 chance of doing good to others, refuses the task 
 because it is too humble in the eyes of the 
 world." 1 
 
 Of Erasmus's writings, the two which produced 
 
 ^ Further insight into Erasmus's regard for chiklren is to be 
 gained from a i;)erusal of the pretty colloquy, entitled Pietas 
 Puerilis, from \vhicli one suggestive quotation must suffice. 
 " Ur. — Aiunt vulgo, pueros angelicos in Satanam verti, uhi 
 consenuerint. Ga. — Sed ego proverbium istliac ab autore 
 Satana natum arbitror. Imo vix existimo, senem esse vere 
 piuni, nisi qui a teneris annis assueverit. Nihil felicius 
 discitiir, quam quod ab ipsa statim jiueritia discitur. " 
 
EEASMUS 33 
 
 the greatest sensation, and exercised the mightiest 
 influence, were the Colloquies and The Praise of 
 Folly. Clever and easy, like everything he wrote, 
 full of learned allusion, and yet hitting straight 
 at the faults of his own age, the Colloquies also 
 reveal considerable dramatic power. The spark- 
 ling dialogues are maintained by characters who 
 live in our memory as substantially and familiarly 
 as those of Shakespeare or Scott. The dialogues 
 are not launched with the exquisite grace of the 
 Platonic masterpieces, but they are vigorous from 
 first to last, and are probably as lively reading as 
 any that remains to us from that period. What 
 was said of one of our greatest talkers, may be 
 said of the writer of the Colloquies, that " he 
 winds into his subject like a serpent." There is 
 no appearance of effort ; he seems to carry a light 
 which makes obvious to him what other men 
 have groped after. He finds natural utterance 
 for what all other men have been trying to say. 
 Under the smile that ripples everywhere on his 
 page, and that now and again breaks into uncon- 
 trollable laughter, he is still profoundly in earnest, 
 and each sentence is alive with a real purpose. 
 We may read many Histories of the Reformation, 
 and derive from them all less real knowledge of 
 the church and society which needed reforming, 
 
 D 
 
34 ERASMUS 
 
 than we gain from a pleasant hour or two with 
 the Colloquies. 
 
 But his most pungent and popukir satire was 
 the Praise of Folly — a satire so popuhar, that 
 during his own lifetime no fewer than twenty- 
 seven editions ^ were called for, and so pungent, 
 that an ecclesiastic in Constance hung up the 
 author's portrait in his room, that he might have 
 the satisfaction of daily spitting in the face of the 
 man who had so galled his order. The origin of 
 this piece was very simple. On his journey from 
 Italy to England, his thoughts naturally turned 
 to the cultivated men whose society he hoped 
 shortly to enjoy there, and it occurred to him as 
 an odd coincidence, that the word more should in 
 Greek signify a fool, and should at the same time 
 be the surname of the wisest and wittiest man of 
 his acquaintance. This seems to have led him to 
 think of the large number of persons who were 
 fools, not in name, but in reality ; and while 
 passing these in review, he perceives how truly 
 Folly is queen over a large part of human affairs. 
 Arriving in England, too much knocked up to 
 apply himself to more serious studies, he beguiled 
 the days in the absence of his congenial host, Sir 
 
 ^ The first of these ai)peare<l in 1511, and consisted of 1800 
 copies ; other editions were very niucli larger. 
 
ERASMUS 35 
 
 Thomas More, by writing down the thoughts that 
 had occurred to him on his journey. "It was 
 not done with any grave design, or any view of 
 publication; but he knew his friend More was 
 fond of a joke, and he wanted something to do, 
 to take his attention from the weariness of the pain 
 he was suffering. So he worked away at his manu- 
 script." 1 In one week the whole was completed._^. 
 The plan of the work gives the author the 
 widest range for his satire. Folly is introduced 
 in her cap and bells, declaiming to her ass-eared 
 votaries, and extolling herself as the mistress of 
 human affairs. Under this slight mask Erasmus 
 passes in review all the varieties of fools and 
 follies in the world ; the dicing, hunting, anti- 
 quarian, saint- worshipping fools, are all sketched 
 in a few sharp lines. He hits off the pretenders 
 who after long patching at a speech call it extem- 
 pore, and swear they wrote it in a hurry ; those 
 who interlard their sentences with Greek they 
 cannot construe ; those who nod and smile when 
 they hear anything unusual, that they may be 
 thought to apprehend that of which perhaps they 
 do not understand a word. Taking a wider 
 sweep, Folly claims that she gives all the stimulus 
 to great action, for is it not Folly that blinds 
 ^ Seebolim. 
 
36 ERASMUS 
 
 men to the emptiness of the world's rewards, and 
 leads them to distinguish themselves that they 
 may have a statue in the market-place 1 Consider, 
 too, the miseries and indignities of human life, 
 miseries so great that we cannot but commend 
 the Pythagorean cock, which had passed through 
 life as a man, a woman, a fish, a horse, and a 
 frog, and after this large experience, declared 
 that man was the most wretched and deplorable 
 of all creatures. What but Folly can blind men 
 to these miseries 1 Is not Folly therefore an 
 essential of our nature ? 
 
 " We may as well," says Folly, " call a horse un- 
 happy, because he was never taught grammar, or an 
 ox miserable because he was never taught to fence, as 
 call a man unfortunate for being a fool, for this is 
 what nature and providence have ordained him to be. 
 . . . Self - confidence is a folly, and yet take away 
 this one property of a fool, and the orator shall be- 
 come as dumb and silent as tlie pulpit he stands in ; 
 the musician shall hang up his untouched instrument 
 on the wall ; the completest actors shall be hissed off 
 the stage ; the painter shall himself vanish into an 
 imaginary landscape ; and the physician shall want 
 food more than his patients do medicine. In short, 
 without self-love, instead of beautiful you shall think 
 yourself an old hag of fourscore ; instead of eloquent, 
 a mere stammerer ; instead of well-bred and gentle- 
 manly, a downright clown ; it being so necessary that 
 
ERASMUS 37 
 
 every one should think well of himself before he looks 
 for the good opinion of others. Happiness is nothing 
 else than a contentment to be just what we are, and 
 this is effected by self-love, which so flushes men with 
 a good conceit of their own, that no one thinks ill of 
 his shape, of his wit, of his education, of his country, 
 so that the half-drowned Hollander would not ex- 
 change bis country for the sunny plains of Italy, nor 
 the Scythian quit his desert to become an inhabitant 
 of the Fortunate Islands. . . . Ui^on this account it is 
 that the English challenge the prerogative of having 
 the handsomest women, of being the most accom- 
 plished in music, and of keeping the best tables ; the 
 Scotch brag of their gentility, and pretend that the 
 genius of their soil inclines them to be good disput- 
 ants ; the French think themselves remarkable for 
 their good breeding," and so on. 
 
 The satire of Erasmus belongs rather to the 
 school of Lucian and Goldsmith than to that of 
 Juvenal and Swift. At least there is in the 
 Colloquies and the Praise of Folly the same play- 
 ful raillery and the same keen exposure of vice 
 and ignorance which delight the reader of the 
 Dialogues or the Citizen of the JVoiicl. Certainly 
 we miss the turns of deep pathos and the touches 
 of tender humanity, which have made all men 
 love the thriftless, scrambling, generous Irish- 
 man ; but we happily miss also the fixed scorn 
 that disfigures the pages of Swift, and the some- 
 
38 EEASMUS 
 
 what overdone and self-conscious indiff;nation 
 which, while it gives brilliance to the style, 
 lessens the moral power of Juvenal's satire. 
 Erasmus depends upon ridicule as exclusively 
 as Horace. He excites contempt, not indigna- 
 tion, against the objects of his satire. He 
 laughs ill - doers out of countenance, and leaves 
 it to others to use the lash. Neither is he a 
 buffoon who makes fun of everything, nor a 
 mocker who sneers at what is good as well as 
 at what is corrupt; but he is discriminating, 
 and merits the praise which has been accorded 
 with less justice to another, that "no satirist 
 has to answer for fewer attacks on what is 
 valuable." 
 
 Satirists have been accused of affecting alarm 
 at the consequences of their own freedom. One 
 of our keenest classical critics, G. A. Simcox, 
 has exposed the " comic mixture of vanity and 
 cowardice," in Persius protesting against a perse- 
 cution he had done nothing to provoke, and 
 anticipating a martyrdom he was never to under- 
 go.^ Horace records how he took advice of his 
 friend Trebatius, the lawyer, regarding those who 
 threatened him with an action at law, because he 
 was " nimis acer, et ultra legem " in his satire. 
 ^ Simcox's Juxcno.l, Introduction, p. xviii. 
 
EEASMUS 39 
 
 Voltaire seems to have considered Erasmus guilty 
 of the same species of timidity, for he introduces 
 him (in his dialogue between Lucian, Erasmus, 
 and Rabelais), excusing himself for not taking the 
 same liberties as Lucian, on the following ground: 
 "Vous n'aviez affaire qu'a des dieux qu'on 
 jouait sur le theatre, et a des j^liilosophes qui 
 avaient encore moins de credit que les dieux ; 
 mais, moi, j'etais entoure de fanatiques, et j 'avals 
 besoin d'une grande circonspection pour n'etre 
 pas brule par les uns ou assassine par les 
 autres."^ But Erasmus was never seriously dis- 
 turbed by the violent threats of his enemies, 
 though undoubtedly he was at times in danger. 
 He rather, indeed, makes a jest of the danger, 
 saying that it is hazardous to satirise the divines, 
 " for they are a sort of men very hot and passion- 
 ate, and should I provoke them, I doubt they 
 would set upon me and force me to recant." But 
 while he was not deterred from writing by fear of 
 actual violence, he was more annoyed than he 
 need have been by the violent language the 
 monks used against him. He had none of the 
 self-reliant vigour of our own burly moralist, who 
 could say, " Who the plague is hurt with all this 
 nonsense ? and how is a man the worse, I wonder, 
 1 (Exivres de Voltaire, ed. 1827, vol. ii. p. 1932. 
 
40 ERASMUS 
 
 in his health, purse, or character, for being called 
 Holofernes ? " So hurt was he by an attack made 
 upon him from a pulpit in Louvaine, that he 
 demanded a meeting with his assailant, Nicolas 
 Egmondanus, prior of the Dominicans. Of this 
 meeting he writes a very amusing account to Sir 
 Thomas More.^ For want of space we must 
 refer those of our readers who wish to see this, to 
 Drummond's Erasmus (ii. 52), or to Froude's 
 Essays on Erasmus and Luther. 
 '^ The history of Erasmus's magninn opus, his 
 edition of the Greek Testament, or Novum 
 Instmmentum, is tolerably well known. It has 
 been told by INIill,- who, though not uniformly 
 accurate, has done more than any other critic in 
 collating the different editions of the work, and 
 aflords material for more recent writers on " In- 
 troduction." Wetstein, while acknowledging the 
 services rendered by Mill, gives an independent 
 and interesting account^ of Erasmus's, as indeed 
 of all the editions preceding his own. The useful 
 manuals of Scrivener and Tregelles have made the 
 leading facts familiar to readers of such literature, 
 and have given fair estimates of the importance 
 of the work. But hy non-professional readers, 
 
 1 J']]), p. 721. - ^Vor. Tc.^t. Proleg. lllU-1141. 
 
 3 Ihid. Proleg. p. 120. 
 
ERASMUS 41 
 
 and those who are not in search of mere technical 
 details, the well-informed and thoughtful narrative 
 of Mr. Seebohm will be most highly relished. 
 
 Probably a little too much has been made of 
 Erasmus's own exj^ression regarding the rapidity 
 with which this volume was compiled, that it was 
 " praecipitatum verius quam editum." It is with 
 surprise we find so careful a writer as Mr. 
 Scrivener using the following language : " It is 
 almost painful to be obliged to remember that a 
 portion of ten months at the utmost, could have 
 been devoted by Erasmus to the text, the Latin 
 version, and the notes " ; ^ and even Wetstein is 
 too absolute in his assertion, " Quod nimis 
 festinanter tale ac tantum negotium susceptum 
 gesserit." It is of course natural that Mill, who 
 had given thirty years of toil to his own edition, 
 and Wetstein, who had from his boyhood chosen 
 the editing of the Greek Testament as the great 
 work of his life, should feel hurt at any one who 
 did the same work in a slim and insufficient 
 manner. But though Erasmus did not give 
 himself so early and so undividedly to this same 
 work, there is abundant evidence, that from the 
 time of his acquaintance with Colet, he meant 
 that all his other studies should subserve the 
 ^ Scrivener's Introduction, 296. 
 
42 ERASMUS • 
 
 work of making the Bible known and understood. 
 Thus we find him, in 1504 or 1505, writing, "I 
 cannot tell you, dearest Colet, how, by hook and 
 by crook, I struggle to devote myself to the study 
 of sacred literature, — how I regret everything 
 M^iich either delays me or detains me from it." 
 Then, after relating how he had attempted some- 
 thing on Paul's epistles, and had found his Greek 
 defective, and had in consequence devoted himself 
 for the three past years to the study of that 
 language, he goes on thus : 
 
 " Although, however, I may for a while be engaged 
 upon an humble task, yet whilst thus working in the 
 garden of the Greeks, I am gathering much fruit by 
 the way for the time to come, which may hereafter be 
 of use to me in sacred studies. For I have learned 
 this by experience, that without Greek one can do 
 nothing in any branch of study ; for it is one thing 
 to conjecture, and quite another thing to judge, — one 
 thing to see with other people's eyes, and quite another 
 thing to believe what you see with your own." ^ 
 
 Seven years after this, in July 1512, he writes 
 to Colet again, that he has completed his collation 
 of the Greek Testament, and in the remarkable 
 letter which he wrote to Servatius two years later,'^ 
 
 ^ Tlie above is Seebohiii's translation. 
 ^ Dated from Ilauinies Castle, 9th July 1514. 
 
ERASMUS 43 
 
 he claims to have corrected the text of the whole 
 New Testament, and to have made annotations, 
 "not without theological value," on more than 
 one thousand places. " I have also commenced 
 commentaries on St. Paul's epistles, which I shall 
 finish when the others are published ; for I have 
 made up my mind to work at sacred literature to 
 the day of my death." The knowledge of this 
 fact, that at least ten years had been spent in 
 preparatory labour, must considerably modify our 
 opinion of the haste with which the work was 
 executed. It is obvious that he already had his 
 material pretty well in shape, and that the idea 
 of this publication did not come upon him 
 suddenly. That the work was sent through the 
 press far too hurriedly, every one will admit. 
 
 If any one repeats the question of Wetstein, 
 " Quomodo ipsam festinationem excusavit, aut 
 quis ipsum eo adegit ut festinaret ? " the answer 
 is best given by those very citations which Wet- 
 stein himself makes from the letters of Erasmus. 
 On the 17th April 1515, Beatus Rhenanus wTites 
 to him on behalf of the great printer Frobenius, 
 and invites him to issue his Greek Testament 
 from the Basle press : " Petit Frobenius, Novum 
 abs te Testamentum habere, pro quo tantum se 
 daturum pollicetur, quantum alius cj[uisquam." 
 
44 ERASMUS 
 
 And on the 30th of the same month, the applica- 
 tion is renewed. It is generally understood, that 
 the urgency of Froben was prompted by his desire 
 to anticipate the publication of the Complutensian 
 edition ; a desire in which he w^as gratified, for 
 though the Complutensian New Testament was 
 pinted early in the year 1514, the publication of 
 it was delayed till 1522. It was this rivalry 
 which occasioned one of those memorable passages 
 in literary history, which, though every one knows, 
 every one likes to recall. When Stunica found 
 that the edition on which he had laboured under 
 Cardinal Ximenes was anticipated, he attempted 
 to depreciate the work of Erasmus, but was re- 
 buked by his chief, in words which are as im- 
 mortal as the Polyglot : " I would that all might 
 thus prophesy ; produce what is better, if thou 
 canst ; do not condemn the industry of another." 
 During the summer of 1515, Erasmus repaired 
 to Basle. The printing, however, cannot have 
 begun before September, as the letters of Erasmus 
 show that in that month it was still undecided 
 whether the Latin version should be printed in 
 parallel columns with the Greek (as eventuall}^ it 
 was, and in very beautiful type), or in a separate 
 volume. In the beginning of March 1516, the 
 volume made its appearance, a marvel of rai)id 
 
EKASMUS 45 
 
 work ; for although Erasmus lightened the labour, 
 by simply correcting one of the Greek codices/ 
 and sending it to the printers as copy, and 
 although he received not only the scholarly aid 
 which the printing office of Froben could always 
 supply, but also that of Oecolampadius, as his 
 corrector of the press,'^ it is to be considered that, 
 during this same winter, he was engaged in several 
 other heavy literary undertakings. Unfortunately 
 the results of this rapid printing are too apparent. 
 Mill speaks of the "menda, quibus scatet, typo- 
 graphica " ; Scrivener says, that in this respect it 
 is "the most faulty book " he knows; and Wet- 
 stein gives examples which certainly reflect no 
 credit on the carefulness of Oecolampadius. It 
 appears, also, that the best MS. of the Gospels 
 within his reach was overlooked by him. This 
 
 ^ The MS. thus used is that kuo^\^l as Cod. Basil. B. , vi. 25. 
 It belongs to the fifteenth century, and had been bought, Wet- 
 stein tells us, by the preaching friars of Basle, for two Rhenish 
 florins ; and " dear enough at the money, in Michaelis's judg- 
 ment." It contains the four Gospels. Wetstein gives speci- 
 mens of the corrections made by Erasmiis on the margin. — 
 Nov. Test. Proleg. jd. 44. 
 
 - The words of Froben's prefatory note are worth quoting : 
 " Nee meis laboribus peperci nee pecuniis. Quin et precibus 
 et praemiis egi, ut castigatores adessent complures, haud vulgari 
 doctrina praediti, et in primis Joannes Oecolampadius Vinimon- 
 tanus, praeter integritatis ac pietatis coinmendationem, insignis 
 etiam theologus, triumque linguarum egregie peritus, ipso quo- 
 que Erasmo in hanc partem advigilante. " 
 
46 ERASMUS 
 
 was the MS. known as E Codex Basiliensis, and 
 which had been given in 1431 to a religious 
 house in Basle, by Cardinal John de Ragusio. 
 Its antiquity was much overrated by Mill, whose 
 knowledge of it was second-hand (and who also 
 erroneously thought that Erasmus had made use 
 of it), but Wetstein refers it to the ninth century, 
 while Scrivener concludes that it was written 
 about the middle of the eighth century. Of the 
 five MSS. which he did make use of, none be- 
 longed to an earlier period than the tenth century.^ 
 And where his MSS. altogether failed him, he did 
 not scruple to create a Greek text, by translating 
 from the Vulgate. ^ 
 
 Still, with all its imperfections, this edition 
 effected the purpose of Erasmus, which was to 
 begin the great work of discovering and circulat- 
 ing the true text of Scripture. He recognised 
 the superior value of ancient MSS. ; he led the 
 way in boldly adhering to MS. authority in criti- 
 cal passages, such as 1 John v. 7 ; and thus, and 
 by his own Latin version, he exploded the author- 
 ity of the Vulgate. Even the Complutensian 
 
 ^ For a full account of thcsf MSS., .see either Wetsteiu's 
 Prolegomena, or Scrivener's Introduction. 
 
 - This was scarcely so reprehensiljle as his practice of amend- 
 ing his Greek MSS. from the Vul,-;ate, where he (hdHijht tlieni 
 defective. He thus introduced tlie thirty -seventh verse of 
 
EKASMUS 47 
 
 editors shared in the vulgar veneration for this 
 version, as may be seen from the language they 
 use regarding their arrangement of the Old Testa- 
 ment page. In this page in their edition, the 
 Vulgate occupies the central column, the Hebrew 
 and the Septuagint being on either side ; this 
 they compare to the position of Christ as crucified 
 between two thieves, — "the unbelieving syna- 
 gogue of the Jews, and the schismatical Greek 
 Church." We admire the intelligence and courage 
 of Erasmus the more, when we find another scholar 
 writing thus : " What if it be contended that the 
 sense, as rendered by the Latin version, differs in 
 truth from the Greek text 1 Then, indeed, adieu 
 to the Greek. I adhere to the Latin, because I 
 cannot bring my mind to believe that the Greek 
 are more correct than the Latin codices." ^ 
 
 Acts xiii., and in the ninth chapter he inserted tlie clauses of 
 the fifth and sixth verses, which are recognised as spurious, but 
 which have nevertheless maintained their place in the Textus 
 Receptus through all these years. It is extraordinary how 
 quickly a kind of sacredness attached to the printed text of 
 the New Testament ; so that, as Tregelles observes, " the read- 
 ings originally edited on most insufficient MS. authority, were 
 supposed to possess some prescriptive right, just as if (to use 
 Dr. Bentley's phrase) an apostle had been the compositor." 
 
 ^ The results which flowed from the exclusive use of the 
 Vulgate, are illustrated by the well-known incident in the 
 Convocation of 1512, when an old divine urged as proof that 
 heretics should be put to death the command of Paul to Titus 
 
48 ERASMUS 
 
 No one can read the " Paraclesis," which Eras- 
 mus prefixed to his Greek Testament, or the 
 annotations he appended to it, or the address to 
 the pious reader which prefaces his " Paraphrases," 
 without recognising that he was not more in- 
 terested in his work as a scholar than as a 
 Christian, and that if he exi3ected that the 
 literary success of his book would be great, his 
 hope was that it would bring Christ and His 
 people into a more real contact and communion. 
 None of his writings are more worthy of a perusal, 
 or speak more directly and forcibly than these. 
 They are the utterances of a mind that has long 
 been full of the subject, illustration follows on 
 illustration, argument on argument, to persuade 
 men to the study of the New Testament, and 
 especially of the gospels : 
 
 " No anxious preparatory learning," he says, " is 
 needful. Only bring a pious and open heart. The 
 sun itself is not more common and open to all than 
 the teaching of Christ. For I utterly dissent from 
 those who are unwilling that the sacred Scriptures 
 should be read by the unlearned, translated into their 
 vulgar tongue, as though Christ had taught such 
 subtleties that they can scarcely be understood even 
 
 (iii, 10), " Haereticuiii liomiiieni devita," wiiicli he uiulcrstood 
 to signify "de vita tollere." 
 
EEASMUS 49 
 
 by a few theologians, or as though the strength of the 
 Christian religion consisted in men's ignorance of it. 
 The mysteries of kings it may be safer to conceal, but 
 Christ wished His mysteries to be published as openly 
 as j)ossible, I wish that even the weakest woman 
 should read the Gospel — should read the epistles of 
 Paul. And I wish these were translated into all 
 languages, so that they might be read and understood, 
 not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by Turks 
 and Saracens. To make them understood, is surely 
 the first step. It may be that they might be ridiculed 
 by many, but some would take them to heart. I long 
 that the husbandman should sing portions of them to 
 himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver 
 should hum them to the tune of his shuttle, that the 
 traveller should beguile with these stories the tedium of 
 his journey." And again : " If the footprints of Christ 
 be anywhere shown to us, we kneel and adore. Why 
 do we not rather venerate the living and breathing 
 picture of Him in these books ? If the vesture of 
 Christ be exhibited, where will we not go to kiss it ? 
 Yet were His whole wardrobe exhibited, nothing could 
 represent Christ more vividly and truly than these 
 evang-elical writings. Statues of wood and stone we 
 decorate with gold and gems for the sake of Christ. 
 They only profess to give us the form of His body ; 
 these books present us with a living image of His 
 most holy mind. Were we to have seen Him with 
 our own eyes, we should not have so intimate a 
 knowledge as they give of Christ, speaking, healing, 
 dying, rising again, as it were in our own actual 
 presence." 
 
 E 
 
50 ERASMUS 
 
 There cannot be two opinions, then, about 
 Erasmus's services in the revival of letters and 
 in the Reformation. His intelligence, his judg- 
 ment, his industry, his influence, were surpassed 
 by no one of his contemporaries. He was con- 
 stantly A\Titing, and all that he wrote was eagerly 
 read. It was Goldsmith's characteristic complaint, 
 "Whenever I write anything, I think the public 
 make a point to know nothing about it." Erasmus 
 could complain of no such neglect. Few authors 
 have found in their own lifetime so large an 
 audience, or have seen such manifest results of 
 their writings. While Calvin was learning to 
 prattle in the patois of Picardy, while Tyndale 
 was hanging about Oxford, uncertain as to his 
 future, while even Luther was as yet but groping 
 for light, Erasmus was collating manuscripts of 
 the New Testament, advocating its translation 
 into all vernaculars, and writing annotations to 
 explain its sense to the people. He had already 
 spoken so plainly to two popes about the necessity 
 of reform, and had published, in his own telling 
 and popular style, an exposure of Romish corrup- 
 tions so formidable, that his writings were placed 
 on tlie Index. No one can read his Colloquies^ 
 no one can remember that they were the most 
 popular reading of all classes in Europe at that 
 
ERASMUS 51 
 
 time, without believing that to the author of this 
 book the Reformation, in great part, owed its 
 success. Once for all by this and other daring 
 publications, the fear and superstitious reverence 
 which had been the bulwark of the religious 
 orders were broken through and abolished, and 
 the difference between true godliness and a re- 
 ligion of ceremonial was brought clearly and 
 indelibly before the mind of the people. 
 
 But no testimony to the important part played 
 by Erasmus is so convincing as the fact, that no 
 sooner did Luther begin his work, than Erasmus 
 was at once charged with having suggested to 
 the Reformer his leading ideas, and with being 
 the real author of all the disturbances in the 
 Church. So constantly was this charge repeated, 
 that the letters of Erasmus are full of remon- 
 strances against the injustice of those who made 
 it. Thus he writes to Cardinal Wolsey : 
 
 " As to Luther, he is altogether unknown to me, 
 and I have read nothing of his but two or three pages, 
 not because I despise him, but because my own studies 
 and occupations did not give me leisure ; and yet, as 
 I hear, there are persons who affirm that I helped 
 him. If he hath written well, the praise belongs not 
 to me ; and if he hath written ill, I ought not to bear 
 the blame, since in all his works there is not a line 
 that came from me. His life and conversation are 
 
52 ERASMUS 
 
 universally commended ; and it is no small prejudice 
 in liis favour that liis morals are unblamable, and 
 that calumny itself can fasten no reproach upon him. 
 If I had really been at leisure to peruse his writings, 
 I am not so conceited of my own abilities as to pass 
 a judgment on the performances of so considerable a 
 divine ; though wise children in this knowing age will 
 pronounce that this is erroneous, and that heretical." 
 
 Such is his uniform, constantly reiterated reply, 
 when besought or commanded to prove his ortho- 
 doxy by attacking Luther : 
 
 " I would not hesitate," he says, " to die without 
 confession, were I as free from all vices as I am un- 
 contaminated by Lutheranism." Again : " I have 
 cursorily turned over some pages of his writings, and 
 have recognised in him gifts well fitted to serve the 
 cause of religion, if he employed his abilities to the 
 glory of the Saviour. As many atrocious crimes were 
 charged ujDon him, and some of them manifest lies, I 
 wished that if he were at fault in some things, he 
 should be amended, not made away with " [handed 
 over, as he elsewhere says, not to the hangman, but 
 to the theologians]. " If this be favouring Luther, I 
 frankly own that I favour him, and so doth the pope, 
 and so do you all, if you be true divines, and, indeed, 
 if you be true Christians." ^ 
 
 ! Here, then, it will be observed, is the first 
 
 ^ Most of these passages, and many others, will be found in 
 Jortin. 
 
ERASMUS 53 
 
 reason for Erasmus being neutral. He was busy 
 with his own work — work which he conceived to 
 be too important to admit of his forsaking it to 
 entangle himself in party strife. He had useful 
 work of his own to do, and he was provoked that 
 he should be summoned from the work he had 
 chosen, to work which he detested. A very 
 slight acquaintance with his letters, however, 
 shows that there was another reason for his not 
 joining the Reformers : 
 
 " I have refused the bribes which men in power 
 have offered me, that I should write against Luther ; 
 and I would rather lose what I have than write to 
 please any one contrary to my own conviction. It is 
 no vulgar crime to betray the Gospel of Christ for 
 money. But I have declined to give my name to 
 Luther's party, both for many other reasons, and also 
 because there occur in his l^ooks some passages I do 
 not understand, and some which I cannot approve of ; 
 and especially because I have become aware, that in 
 his party there are men whose character and efforts 
 are very far from being in accordance with the spirit 
 of the Gospel." 
 
 To Melanchthon he complains of Luther's 
 violence, and asks how many of the princes and 
 ecclesiastics against whom he has written, have 
 been turned by his words to the pursuit of holi- 
 ness. He believed that milder measures should 
 
54 ERASMUS 
 
 first have been tried ; physicians do not resort to 
 severe measures till milder treatment has failed. 
 He refuses to listen to those who plead that such 
 a course was useless, and bids them remember the 
 Greek proverb, that it is better to let an evil 
 alone than to a2)ply unsuitable remedies. To 
 what extent he was right we can never know. 
 Whether it was a wholly baseless hope, to expect 
 that men like himself, Warham, Colet, More, and 
 Vitrarius, might effect much in the way of reform 
 within the Church, we cannot say. But that it 
 was natural for Erasmus, who lived among these 
 men, and knew the healthiness and power of their 
 influence, to expect that something might result 
 from their protests, no one can deny. Neither 
 can any one be surprised that the author whose 
 works were the most popular of the day, and who 
 saw that his popularity rested mainly on the 
 circumstance that he pleaded for reform, should 
 have been led to believe that such reform might 
 be gained. We believe the hope was vain. We 
 believe that the death of More, and the petty 
 persecution which drove Colet into retirement, 
 must have taught even Erasmus that no reform 
 from within the Church could be looked for. 
 But before he learned this, he was hopelessly 
 separated from the Lutherans. 
 
EEASMUS 55 
 
 There was still another reason which perhaps 
 operated most powerfully of all in holding Eras- 
 mus aloof from the Reformers. He has been 
 claimed as the precursor of the modern spirit, 
 the Broad Churchman of the sixteenth century, 
 the apostle of free thought. It is quite a study 
 to observe how Mr. Drummond is divided in his 
 mind, not knowing whether to claim Erasmus as 
 a pronounced Arian, or as the herald of deliver- 
 ance from all dogmatism. If Mr. Drummond had 
 been wise, he would not have hesitated to re- 
 linquish the former in favour of the latter claim. 
 But there seems to be an idea abroad, that so 
 long as dogmatism is not orthodox, it is not 
 dogmatism. To be a Trinitarian is dogmatic ; 
 to be an Arian is to be imbued with " the modern 
 spirit." And so Mr. Drummond thinks he may 
 safely claim Erasmus both as an Arian and as a 
 man who had no theological opinions whatever. 
 We must pause for a moment to protest against 
 his insinuation that Erasmus leant towards Arian- 
 ism. The passages which he cites (ii. 162), in 
 proof of this, are from the colloquy entitled 
 "Inquisitio de Fide," and are in the following 
 words : " The Son also is God, but of God the 
 Father. But the Father alone is of none, and ob- 
 taind the principal jdace among the divine persons.'' 
 
56 ERASMUS 
 
 The other passage is an answer to the question, 
 " Why is the Father alone called God in the 
 Apostles' Creed 1 '' and is as follows : 
 
 "Because He is simply the author of all things that 
 are, and the fountain of all Deity. For nothing can 
 be named whose origin does not flow from the Father ; 
 and to Him even the Son and the Holy Spirit owe 
 their Divinity. Accordingly the chief authorship, 
 that is, the principle of origination, resides in the 
 Father alone, because He alone is of none. Neverthe- 
 less, the creed may be thus understood, that the name 
 of God is not personal but generieal, and is afterwards 
 distributed by the terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
 in one God ; which word expressive of nature, com- 
 prehends the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 
 that is, three persons." 
 
 Xow, if this be the Arianism of the Theological 
 Beview, we are sincerely glad to hear it. But we 
 should like to know from whom Mr. Drummond 
 has taken his notions of Trinitarian doctrine ; for 
 on turning to Waterland (vol. ii. 401), we find 
 him professing precisely what Mr. Drummond 
 considers to border on Arianism : 
 
 " Supremacy of order," he says, " consists in this : 
 that the Father has His perfection, dominion, etc., 
 from none ; but the Son from the Father. All that 
 the Son has is referred up to the Father, and not vice 
 versa. Tin's kind of supremacy is of the Father alone ; 
 
ERASMUS 57 
 
 and the Son's subordination tlius understood, is very 
 consistent witli His equality of nature, dominion, per- 
 fection, and glory, according to all antiquity." 
 
 And when Waterland is asked (ii. 97), why 
 the creeds style the Father the one only God, 
 his answer is identical with that of Erasmus. 
 " The Father is, as it were, the top of unity, the 
 head and fountain of all." Or if we turn to the 
 other great writer, whom every student of Trini- 
 tarian doctrine might be expected to consult, we 
 find that Bull lays down this thesis regarding the 
 subordination of the Son to the Father : 
 
 " Filium eandem quidem naturam divinam cum 
 Patre communem habere, sed a Patre communicatam ; 
 ita scilicet ut Pater solus naturam illam divinam a se 
 habeat, sive a nullo alio ; Filius autem a Patre : 
 proinde Pater divinitatis, quae in Filio est, fons, origo, 
 ac principium sit." ^ 
 
 But even had Erasmus enounced and defended 
 Arian proj)Ositions, the fact would have been of 
 no significance, because he lost no opportunity of 
 showing that doctrinal theology had no interest 
 to him. He was willing to accept as his creed 
 whatever the Church enjoined. "I know not 
 what weight the authority of the Church has 
 with other men," so he writes to his friend 
 
 1 Bull's Bef. Fid, Nic. p. 3. 
 
58 ERASMUS 
 
 Pirckheimer (p. 960), "but with me its weight is 
 such that I could think with Arians and Pelagians, 
 if the Church had given its approbation to their 
 doctrine." It is not of such stuff that theologians 
 are made. The natural tendency of his mind 
 was not towards abstract thought ; and this 
 natural incapacity for philosophy and theology 
 was converted into a hearty contempt and dislike 
 by the dry, barren, hair-splitting, merely verbal 
 teaching, which was current in his college-days. 
 He left college, not caring to make up his mind 
 about the more abstruse doctrines, conscious that 
 he could never very decidedly take up one posi- 
 tion rather than another regarding them, and 
 fearing that, if he should adopt any definite 
 opinion, it might turn out to be heretical. In 
 this state of mind he met Colet, who was then 
 passing through an intellectual conversion, com- 
 mon enough in this century, but extraordinary 
 and most significant in the end of the fifteenth. 
 By this conversion Colet was passing over from 
 reliance on the mass of theological dogmas, which 
 the schoolmen and fathers had built up, to 
 reliance on the simple historical facts recorded in 
 the Gospels, and to the natural expressions of the 
 Apostolic letters, which brought him, " not to an 
 endless web of propositions, to the acceptance of 
 
ERASMUS 59 
 
 which he must school his mind, but to a Person 
 Whom to love, in Whom to trust, and for Whom 
 to work." ^ He had found sure standing ground 
 in the Incarnation and Life of Christ, in the few 
 facts on which our religion rests, and which have 
 made salvation for us ; and standing here, he 
 could patiently wait till the mists which rolled 
 everywhere around him, should lift and show him 
 what yet he saw not. He became, in short, a 
 Broad Churchman of the best type. Firmly 
 believing the Gospel history, deeply imbued with 
 the spirit of Christ and the apostles, he declined 
 to turn attention to doctrine, except in so far as 
 the reception of hope in God and the practice of 
 a pure and high morality involved the belief of 
 those few fundamental doctrines which are impli- 
 cated in the facts of the Incarnation and Death 
 of Christ. 
 
 The influence exerted by Colet on Erasmus, 
 may best be gathered from the following colloquy, 
 entitled "Pietas Puerilis," in which Erasmus and 
 Caspar talk over some of the matters which 
 concern the lads, and among these the choice of a 
 profession : 
 
 ^ The whole accouut of Colet's mental growth, and iudeed 
 of the entire movement, as given by Seebohm, is extremely 
 interestinsf and valuable. 
 
60 ERASMUS 
 
 " Erasmus. j\Iany nowadays abstain from tlieology, 
 because they fear that they may waver in the catholic 
 faith, seeing as they do that there is nothing which is 
 not called in question. Gaspar. For my part I believe 
 firmly what I read in Holy Scriptures and the Apostles' 
 Creed, I don't trouble my head about anything else [nee 
 ultra scrutor]. I leave the rest to be discussed and de- 
 fined by theologians if they please. And if the Chris- 
 tian people use any custom which does not manifestly 
 conflict with Scripture, I observe it, that I may not 
 stumble any one. Er. What Thales taught you this 
 philosophy ? Ga. When a boy I lived in the house 
 of John Colet. He imbued me with these precepts." 
 
 It was only by slow steps that Erasmus came 
 round to Colet's position; but in 1522 (and not 
 then for the first time) we find him saying : 
 
 " You will not be damned for not knowing whether 
 the SjDirit proceeds from one origin onl}^, or from both 
 the Father and the Son ; but nothing will avail to 
 save you, if you have not cultivated the fruits of the 
 Spirit, love, joy, peace, goodness, temperance, meek- 
 ness, purity, truth. Not that I think all investigation 
 of supra-mundane things is to be condemned, but only 
 that he who undertakes this task, should be by nature 
 fitted for it, and should avoid rashness in defining, 
 and an opinionative dogmatism, and above all, that 
 lust of victory, which is the bane of all concord." 
 
 This occurs in the preface to Hilary ; ^ the 
 
 ^ Ep. 1631. [The present writer's references to the letters 
 are to the London edition, 1642.1 
 
ERASMUS 61 
 
 whole of which should be studied, as containing 
 the ablest defence of a brief creed, and a ver}^ 
 temperate and well-toned discussion of the natural 
 history and proper sphere of minute doctrinal 
 definitions. And when we speak of Erasmus as 
 conceiving a disgust for theology, it must be 
 borne in mind, that the theology which was 
 chiefly pressed upon his attention was the the- 
 ology of scholasticism, Avhich was certainly open 
 to all the charges he brought against it. Not the 
 science in itself, but the mode of teaching it, was 
 what he condemned — a mode of teaching which, 
 in his own words, "stripped this queen of sciences 
 of all her beauty, and exhibited that theology 
 which was once most venerable and full of 
 majesty, now almost dumb, poor, and in rags." 
 He resented precisely what all right-thinking 
 theologians have resented, that their science 
 should be identified with questions such as 
 these : 
 
 "Whether God could have taken upon Himself the 
 nature of a woman, a devil, an ass, a gourd, or a 
 stone ? ]]liat Peter would have consecrated if he had 
 consecrated the Eucharist at the moment that the 
 body of Christ was hanging on the cross ? " ^ 
 
 ^ Praise of Folly. 
 
62 ERASMUS 
 
 And the kind of subtlety of definition he com- 
 plained of was this : 
 
 " The apostles spoke of ' grace,' but they never 
 distinguished between ' gratiam gratis datam/ and 
 ' gratiam gratificantem.' They preached charity, but 
 did not distinguish between charity ' infused ' and 
 ' acquired,' nor did they explain whether it was an 
 accident or a substance, created or uncreated. They 
 abhorred sin, but I am a fool if they could define 
 scientifically what we call sin, unless, indeed, they 
 were inspired by the spirit of the Scotists." ^ 
 
 It is a great matter when men condescend upon 
 instances, and do not content themselves with 
 general statements which may mean a great deal 
 or nothing at all. If all men who cry out against 
 doctrinal theology would folloAv the example of 
 Erasmus, and say definitely what they allude to 
 and have in their mind when they so speak, some 
 of the popular illusions of our time might be 
 dissipated. Erasmus knew his ow^n mind ; he 
 had not attained to that sentimental laudation of 
 the spirit of doubt which characterises our own 
 day, nor had he learned to prize investigation 
 more highly than the truth it discovers. He 
 declined to express an opinion on many points of 
 theology, but he was too clear-headed a man to 
 
 ^ Praise of Folly, Seebohm, 197. 
 
ERASMUS 63 
 
 esteem doubt more highly than ascertained truth. 
 He had not imbibed "our lofty new idea of 
 rational freedom as freedom from conviction, and 
 of emancipation of understanding as emancipation 
 from the duty of settling whether important 
 propositions are true or false." 
 
 But to return. What Erasmus said of himself 
 was perfectly true. He was not a theologian ; 
 and he could not become one. A theologian 
 nascitur non Jit. And to invite him to write 
 controversial pieces, or to take a lead in ecclesi- 
 astical movements was a mistake ; as it is a mis- 
 take now to judge him by the lives of other men, 
 and condemn him because he^was himself, and not 
 Luther or Zwingle. As Mr. Drummond very 
 justly remarks, " In order to do justice to 
 Erasmus, we must not contrast him with Luther, 
 but rather consider what his own work was, and 
 how far he would have improved its prospects of 
 success by declaring for Luther." He served his 
 generation with formidable weapons and an untir- 
 ing industry, and were it possible to distribute to 
 every man who had a part in the Reformation his 
 own share of merit, it may well be questioned 
 whether any one would have a larger share than 
 Erasmus. But his work was not the formation of 
 doctrinal opinion or belief. His best friends 
 
64 ERASMUS 
 
 must be rather ashamed of the weakness of this 
 side of his mind. The most ardent advocates of a 
 restricted creed must believe that such few opinions 
 as a man does profess he should honestly and con- 
 sistently maintain. But Erasmus may very easily 
 be convicted of shilly-shallying, notoriously so in 
 regard to the sacramental doctrine of Oecolam- 
 padius. Plutarch, in his Life of Nicias, tells of an 
 Athenian politician who gained for himself the 
 nickname of The Buskin, having that eas}^ adapt- 
 ability to whatever might be the dominant power, 
 which characterised our own Vicar of Bray. And 
 the reader of Erasmus is reluctantly forced to the 
 conclusion that his carelessness about doctrinal 
 theology led him sometimes to utter opinions 
 which at other times he disavowed. His error 
 did not consist in his declining to have anything 
 to do with subjects he disliked and for which he 
 felt himself naturally disqualified, but it con- 
 sisted in his denying his own nature, and at 
 length taking up the pen in the very quarrels he 
 had spent his life in denouncing. Few spectacles 
 could have been more useful to that or any age 
 than that of a man of his capacity and learning 
 asserting his right to know nothing but the his- 
 torical data of Christianity, and the simple lines 
 of truth delivered in the Apostles' Creed ; but 
 
EKASMUS 65 
 
 Erasmus terribly disappoints those who look for 
 such a spectacle, when he yields to the badgering 
 of the papists, and at last enters the lists with 
 Luther on one of the most abstruse theologico- 
 philosophical problems. 
 
 The question that results from the considera- 
 tion of Erasmus's neutral attitude is this : Ought a 
 man in every great conflict to take a side ? To 
 say that a man must in every such case take 
 a side, implies that of two sides, one must be 
 right and the other wrong, which is frequently 
 not the case, the truth being almost equally dis- 
 tributed between them. But in the instance 
 before us, it will be said, that one side was right, 
 or so much nearer right than the other, that it 
 was a weakness not to take a side. Certainly it 
 would have been a weakness had Erasmus merely 
 held aloof, to see how the strife would end, and 
 then join the stronger party, or had he vacillated 
 and been unable to make up his mind on the 
 matters in dispute ; but it must be borne in mind, 
 that Erasmus had his own clearly defined view 
 as to reforming the Church, that his method was 
 theoretically the better of the two, that he had 
 been working at it consistently and with all his 
 might for thirty years ; that during tha.t time he 
 had seen considerable results achieved, and that 
 
 F 
 
66 ERASMUS 
 
 his expectation that a complete reform would be 
 carried through was assuredly not unreasonable. 
 The blame must lie, not with him, but with those 
 who, exasperated as Erasmus thought by the 
 violence of Luther, ultimately refused the reforms 
 he sought. They who drove Luther out of the 
 Church, and listened to no remonstrance from 
 within it, are the parties responsible as well for 
 the bloodshed, misery, and revolution which 
 followed the Eeformation, as for the ignorance 
 and superstition Avhich in Catholic countries have 
 become identified with Christianity. Erasmus, as 
 we have said, was mistaken, but his was the error 
 of a man who thought too well of human nature. 
 He expected inveterate abuses to be removed by 
 those whose interest it was to maintain them. 
 He expected that a community, which had grown 
 to be a mighty political institution, would accept 
 the position of the Apostolic Church, and at the 
 voice of his persuasion, meekly return to her 
 youthful and primitive ways. In the idea of 
 some, it might as rationally have been expected 
 that Napoleon, after tasting empire, should have 
 returned to a lieutenancy of artillery. He mis- 
 calculated the strength of his weapon, and 
 omitted to consider that the masses of the people 
 must have an outward movement to quicken and 
 
ERASMUS 67 
 
 fix their inward convictions. And above all, 
 though it might be unwise to say that he over- 
 rated the value of peace, yet he certainly under- 
 rated the use of violence, and had therefore to 
 learn the lesson which has been adequately ex- 
 pressed in the words of a living writer, who has 
 profoundly studied at least one great revolution 
 of opinion; that "those whom temperament or 
 culture has made the partisans of calm order, 
 cannot attune progress to the stately and har- 
 monious march which would best i^lease them, 
 and which they are perhaps right in thinking 
 would lead with most security to the goal." 
 
II 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO i— 
 ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL2 
 
 Our object in this article is to advert to the sub- 
 ject brought under the notice of English readers 
 by this translation of the work of Ackermann. 
 There is another work, however, now issuing from 
 the press, the name and authorship of which will 
 secure for it many readers. We refer to The Pla- 
 tonic Dialogues for English Readers, by William 
 Whewell, D.D. This title means a good deal 
 more than at first reading is suggested by it. The 
 work is not only well written in our vernacular, 
 which so easily and dutifully adapts itself to the 
 exact representation of Greek thought, it is in its 
 whole plan "for English readers." Prolix pas- 
 
 ^ Tlie Cliristian Element in Plato. By Dr. C. Ackermann, 
 Archdeacon at Jena. Translated by S. R. Asbury. Edin- 
 burgh : Clark. 1861. 
 
 - The Platonic Dialogues for English Readers. By Will. 
 Whewell, D.D. 1860. 
 
ACKEEMANN AND WHEWELL 69 
 
 sages, of which, we must confess, there are not a 
 few even in Plato, are abridged out of considera- 
 tion for our impatiently practical ways. The 
 remarks offered on the genuineness of the Dia- 
 logues, while they sufficiently answer the leading 
 objections of the German commentators, do not 
 enter into minute and finical criticisms, but judge 
 rather by the whole production. If this sus- 
 pected dialogue be not Plato's, whose is it 1 
 Where is the rest of that suit of armour of which 
 this detached piece all but fits the Saul of philo- 
 sophy ? For, as Dr. Whewell says, " it seems a 
 very wild process to assume a plurality of Platos 
 without strong reasons." Most will heartily join 
 with the epigram in the Ch'eek Anthology, not 
 only as regards the Phaedo, but many more 
 vehemently contested dialogues : — " If Plato did 
 not write me, then were there two Platos. I 
 exhibit all the flowers of the Socratic discourses, 
 yet Panaetius called me spurious. He who denied 
 the immortality of the soul, denied the genuine- 
 ness of me." 
 
 Another important principle of this translator 
 wiU peculiarly commend itself to English minds. 
 This principle we give in his own words : "In 
 every part my rule has been to take what seemed 
 the direct and natural import of the dialogue as 
 
70 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 its true meaning. Some of the commentators are 
 in the habit of extracting from Plato doctrines 
 obliquely implied rather than directly asserted ; 
 indeed they sometimes seem to ascribe to their 
 Plato an irony so profound, that it makes no 
 difference, in any special case, whether he asserts 
 a proposition or its opposite. I have taken a 
 different course, and have obtained, as I think, a 
 more consistent result." What Plato has suffered 
 at the hands of his disciples is incalculable. The 
 mistiness, the bombast, which have been issued 
 under the professed authority of Plato, are notori- 
 ous. Some will be surprised to learn, what all 
 who for themselves examine will discover, that 
 Plato is never bombastic, and rarely obscure. 
 For the most part his Socrates utters what the 
 simplest may understand, and what the wisest 
 cannot exhaust. 
 
 A suspicion will arise in the mind of every one 
 who intends to spend any time in the company of 
 Plato, whether the subjects discussed are really 
 such as deserve the attention of busy men. What 
 seemed of great interest to lounging, gossiping 
 Athenians, may possibly Avear a very different 
 aspect to those who have too little leisure to 
 tempt them to be careless in its outlay. A very 
 slight knowledge of the character of Plato re- 
 
ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL 71 
 
 assures us, and leaves us in the belief that time 
 spent in such company cannot be misspent. It 
 is not only the massive intellect, the soaring 
 imagination, the vivacious fancy, the irreproach- 
 able taste which promise us noble entertainment. 
 Nor is it, what is even more wonderful than 
 these, the balance and harmony preserved among 
 all his powers by his solid and clear- eyed and 
 healthy common-sense. It is his moral greatness 
 which ensures that we shall profit by intercourse 
 with Plato. There is a certain contagion in his 
 lofty and earnest purpose which kindles and 
 elevates the soul ; and as we stand by his side, 
 can we but desire to share in his loyal defence 
 and service of what is right and good, and to 
 imitate his scorn and keen attack of what, is 
 empty, base, or wrong ? And that man must 
 be far sunk in scepticism indeed, who is not 
 abashed by the humble and believing serenity of 
 this great thinker, acknowledging that he knows 
 nothing, but yet persuaded that there is truth, 
 and that he himself will at length reach it. Of 
 this, we say, a very slight acquaintance will 
 satisfy ; a little further, and we discover that 
 the questions discussed are the very questions we 
 ourselves are daily required to answer. How is 
 false knowledge to be distinguished from the 
 
72 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IX PLATO 
 
 true ? And what hope is there that we shall be 
 able to pass from the one to the other ? Are 
 boys to receive a liberal or a strictly professional 
 education ? And how may a man become good 
 and wise, and be sure of always becoming wiser 
 and better ? How may a man best employ him- 
 self in this life, and what may he expect w^ien 
 this life is done 1 The man who has given such 
 questions as these his serious consideration will 
 surely be better qualified to discharge his own 
 share of duty, and to aid others with his advice. 
 We shall be none the worse, but much the better, 
 of standing for a little where Plato stood. 
 
 The resemblances to Christian sentiment dis- 
 covered in his writings, have as frequently 
 operated against as in favour of his influence. 
 They are viewed by many with jealous dread, as 
 if they were afraid that a little more searching 
 investigation might discover that Christianity had 
 been anticipated, and might now be superseded 
 by Platonism. There have been at all times im- 
 patient and headstrong defenders of Christianity, 
 men whose straightforward and direct opposition 
 to all that is not thoroughly Christian, might be 
 laudable, were it not combined with a narrowness 
 of view which prevents them from seeing any 
 significant mixture of truth in an enemy's posi- 
 
ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL 73 
 
 tion ; men, impatient of delicate discrimination, 
 who can only say with Tertullian, " Quid simile 
 philosophus et Christianus ? " There is some ex- 
 cuse for the indiscriminate hostility of the earlier 
 defenders of Christianity, to all that savoured of 
 heathenism. Philosophy had not yet acknow- 
 ledged . as superior the simple " power of God 
 unto salvation." She had not yet recognised 
 and confined herself to her own province, and 
 left the higher sphere to the unrivalled sway of 
 Christianity. But it is not as a rival to our 
 religion that we can now speak of Platonism, and 
 it does seem a most un-Christian mode of showing 
 our Christianity, to sneer at the efforts of those 
 wise ancients who felt after God if haply they 
 might find him, and on whom the day-star never 
 rose, though their eyes, dim in death, were still 
 turned toward the dawning. Eather should our 
 own enjoyment of the day that God has made, 
 lend tenderness to our admiration of those who 
 spent their lives in unsuccessful but never-flagging 
 toil for that of which we are born the heirs. But 
 while there have been Tertullians to stigmatise 
 Plato as the " condimentarius haereticorum," the 
 seasoning in which every duller heretic might dip 
 his sop, there have not been wanting a Justin 
 professing that " he delights in him " ; a Clement 
 
74 THE CHRISTIAN E;.EMENT in PLATO 
 
 who need profess nothing of the kind ; an Eusebius 
 acknowledging that he is an exceeding admirer of 
 the man, " who alone of the heathen," as he else- 
 where says, "reached the vestibule of truth, and 
 stood upon its threshold." And, above all, there 
 is that perennial tribute to the worth of Plato, 
 which the warm acknowledgments of the revered 
 Augustine continue to draw from each generation ; 
 acknowledgments which are the more command- 
 ing, because they are- intelligent and discriminating, 
 made by one who had earnestly sought for truth 
 and peace in the writings of Plato, and whose 
 intense and expectant search gives him some 
 authority to declare what can and what can not 
 be found in them. And though it might seem 
 that our own judgment in the matter may be 
 fully as valuable as that of one whose knowledge 
 of Plato appears only to have been second-hand, 
 or which at least may have been drawn only 
 through the obscuring medium of commentators, 
 yet we must consider, on the other hand, that 
 Augustine had advantages for deciding in this 
 matter which we can never possess. He had 
 mainly this advantage, that he received his im- 
 pressions of Plato in a mind as yet unimpressed 
 by the truths of Scripture. We cannot but fill 
 the expressions of Plato with the significance the 
 
ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL 75 
 
 same expressions would contain in Scripture, or 
 at least we have to be continually on our guard, 
 lest the words of Plato represent to us notions of 
 our own, rather than introduce us to his thought. 
 With Augustine there was no danger of finding 
 anything liker Scripture, than was really in the 
 mind of Plato, for as yet he was himself ignorant 
 of the contents of Scripture. This advantage he 
 was himself aware of, and highly prized, and, with 
 that clear apprehension of the workings of his 
 inner man, to which his firm persuasion of a 
 special providence incited him, strikingly de- 
 scribes it.^ 
 
 And, since it is the same element in Plato, his 
 agreement with revealed truth, which has pro- 
 duced alike admiration and aversion, it becomes 
 an interesting, and, as many now believe, by no 
 means unimportant matter, to ascertain to what 
 extent this agreement exists, how it may be 
 accounted for, and what is to be made of it. 
 Evidently very little can be made of any agree- 
 
 ^ " Si primo Sanctis tuis literis informatus essem, et in earum 
 familiaritate obdulcuisses mihi, et postea in ilia volumiua in- 
 cidissem, si in adfectii, quern salubrem imbiberam, j)erstitissem, 
 pntarem etiam ex illis libris eum posse concipi, si eos solos 
 quisquam didicisset." Had his judicious remark been duly 
 pondered, some would have been saved from endeavouring to 
 add to the wisdom and repute of Plato, at the expense of their 
 own, by finding truths in Plato that Plato longed to find. 
 
76 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 ment there may be, if that agreement is to be 
 accounted for on the ground of Plato's acquaint- 
 ance with the sacred writings. Unfortunately, 
 this primary question of the sources of Plato's 
 knowledge is involved in much difficulty. The 
 fathers, Lactantius excepted, maintain that he 
 profited by the Jewish Scriptures. Tertullian, 
 indeed, in his summary way, dismisses the 
 question with a " Quis Poetarum, quis Sophist- 
 arum, qui non omnino de prophetarum fonte 
 potaverit ? " But, wild though it may seem in 
 the eyes of the perfervid African to split upon 
 such a question, the ponderous learning of 
 Witsius, Gale, Huet, Grotius, Le Clerc, Spencer, 
 and L'Enfant, is ranged in almost equal masses 
 on either side. The question is indeed lost in 
 almost hopeless obscurity, an obscurity which the 
 persevering research and wakeful criticism of 
 modern scholars have done very little to penetrate. 
 Some pass the subject with a sigh, while some 
 blame others for not having already solved what 
 they themselves can find no solution of. The 
 first thought that occurs to an inquirer is. Would 
 Plato not have acknowledged his obligation were 
 he indebted to what must have so materially 
 modified his system as the Hebrew Scriptures? 
 Might we not expect some more definite reference 
 
ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL 77 
 
 to such valuable sources of information, than is to 
 be found in the one or two somewhat doubtful 
 hints of his reverence for eastern lore ? This 
 silence on his part is, however, possibly to be 
 accounted for by his circumstances, both as a 
 philosopher and as a man. As a philosopher, his 
 position precluded the necessity, and even the 
 possibility, of acknowledging his particular debts ; 
 of definitely stating to whom he owed this 
 stimulus, and to whom that idea. For, in fact, 
 while he stood indebted to all who had preceded 
 him, this debt was not of such a nature as made 
 it very easy for him or very desirable to his 
 creditors that he should acknowledge it. His 
 philosophy was the result, only because it was 
 to a large extent a refutation of preceding 
 philosophies. No man can be less easily separ- 
 ated from his time than Plato, and yet to no man 
 less than to him can we apply Cicero's detraction 
 of Regulus, " Laus non est hominis sed temporum," 
 Influenced by his age, it is needless to say he 
 was ; others suggested to him thoughts which 
 now appear, and very justly appear, as his own ; 
 possibly even lines of argument may be ascribed 
 to him of which he saw the first indication in the 
 reasonings of another. There was nothing of 
 worth in the investigations of preceding thinkers 
 
78 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 which Plato had not made his own, not by 
 disguising it and presenting it in a new shape, 
 but by himself independently rethinking it out, 
 and giving to it its proper connection with other 
 thoughts, till out of the whole mass there rose in 
 his own mind a new and very different system. 
 And was it incumbent on him to analyse this 
 system, and, pointing to each portion, to tell us : 
 " This struck me while listening in wonder to the 
 first words I heard from the lips of Socrates " ; 
 "This again rose in my mind as Archytas ex- 
 plained to me the lofty philosophy of Pythagoras " ; 
 "Just before reaching this thought, the strong 
 wing of Parmenides flagged " ; and " This (shall I 
 tell you ?) is the contradictory of a proposition 
 of Hippias ; so you will not wonder I should here 
 have hit upon the truth 1 " In truth, such a 
 process were impossible, the parts are inextricably 
 interwoven, the whole mass is fused in his mind 
 and presented really original. Also as a man, the 
 position of Plato forbade an open and constant 
 reference to his authorities, if these authorities 
 happened to be Jewish. He had the fate of an 
 innovator written legibly enough in the death of 
 Socrates ; and though the suggestions of timidity 
 seem to have found as cold a welcome with Plato 
 as with his uncompromising master, yet it was 
 
ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL 79 
 
 desirable, both for himself and for the cause to 
 which he was devoted, that some discretion should 
 be mingled with his valour. To excite the 
 suspicion and rouse the easily awakened jealousy 
 of the Athenians, would by no means facilitate 
 the introduction of new ideas, but would almost 
 infallibly secure the silencing of their purveyor. 
 
 But while the supposition that Plato was 
 directly indebted to the Jewish Scriptures, or 
 indebted at the furthest to some more ancient 
 Greek translation than any which now exists, is 
 not contradicted by the fact of his own reticence 
 on the subject, the question still remains, what 
 positive support, or what necessity exists for such 
 a supposition 1 Now, of positive support there 
 is actually none ; the one ascertained fact regard- 
 ing the matter being, that Plato spent some years 
 in Egypt. And why assume any more direct 
 intercourse of Plato with revelation than is 
 implied in this fact 1 For it would be running 
 scepticism into credulity to doubt, that while 
 prosecuting researches in that land of hoary and 
 mysterious lore, he became acquainted with the 
 fragments of Hebrew tradition that floated in that 
 region. We do not suppose that he went to 
 Egypt with expectations of finding a theology 
 surpassing every other ; but neither do we 
 
80 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 suppose that of set purpose he forbore to inquire 
 into a religion that was known to be so peculiar 
 as that of the Hebrews. We do not suppose that 
 he had a rabbi to instruct him in all the learning 
 of the exclusive people ; but it would be hard to 
 believe that the most philosophic spirit of ancient 
 or modern times felt no interest in the hints 
 which any Hebrew stranger might have given. 
 That these hints were many, or to ordinary minds 
 very significant, we can scarcely believe ; for the 
 example of Herodotus warns us not to attach too 
 much importance to information received through 
 the medium of Egyptian priests. But what 
 might be insignificant to most would mean a 
 great deal to Plato, and a hint or two received 
 from an Egyptian, or rather from a sojourning 
 Jew, may have, and probably did preserve Plato 
 from some errors, and sow in his fertile mind the 
 seeds of truth.^ But of any actual transference 
 of doctrines from the sacred writings of the Jews 
 to the system of Plato we find no trace. There 
 
 ^ Those who wish to ]mrsue this q^^estion further will find 
 abundant material for so doing in Brucker's History of 
 Pldlomphy ^ vol. iii. p. 332 ; also vol. i. p. G35 ; also in J. M. 
 Langii Dissertatio de Genealogiis, to be found in the Thesaurus 
 Theolorjico-Philologicris, appended to the Critici Sacri. In the 
 Eyypliaca of Witsius there is also some information on the 
 same topic. 
 
ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL 81 
 
 was a time when the admirers of Plato would 
 almost have undertaken to draw up out of his 
 writings a confession which a Westminster divine 
 might have signed. There was a time when such 
 a sentence as the following could be penned by 
 one of the most learned men of his day, and 
 received with applause by others : — " This, I say, 
 our Christian Platonist supposes to be much more 
 wonderful, that this so great and abstruse a 
 mystery, of three eternal hypostases in the Deity, 
 should thus by Pagan philosophers, so long before 
 Christianity, have been asserted as the principal 
 and original of the whole world ; it being more, 
 indeed, than was acknowledged by the Nicene 
 fathers themselves." ^ As Mosheim remarks on 
 this passage, "Many, I fear, will consider this as 
 a great injustice done to the Nicene fathers." 
 Brucker marvels that any one of the poorest 
 philosophical perception could see the Trinity in 
 the Platonic philosophy. And what is true of 
 the doctrine of the Trinity is true also of the 
 essential doctrines of revelation ; they do not 
 appear as transplants in the writings of Plato. 
 In fact it is not in certain points that the agree- 
 ment of Christianity with Platonism appears so 
 striking as in the consent of the two systems as 
 
 ■^ Cudworth. 
 G 
 
82 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 systems ; a consent that might have been derived 
 from the New Testament had Plato lived to be 
 enlightened by it, but which could never have 
 been attained from the Mosaic books. 
 
 And this brings us to mention with approval 
 the work by Ackermann, on the Christian element 
 in Plato. The chief merit of this investigator is, 
 that he has not been satisfied with quoting from 
 the republic a few passages reminding us of the 
 Christian kingdom of heaven, or one or two 
 expressions from the Phaedo . or the Apology 
 which coincide with the utterance of Christian 
 hope, but has compared the characteristics of 
 Plato, the essence of his system, with Christianity. 
 Or to use his own terminology, he has not merely 
 viewed the subject empirically, but has also 
 develoj^ed it genetically. Proceeding with scien- 
 tific calmness, he does not show us a collection of 
 passages such as we might not notice to be out of 
 place if we found them in our Bibles, and at once 
 demand that we should proclaim Plato a 
 Christian ; he goes a little deeper and searches 
 for the cause of this resemblance, the principle in 
 Plato's system and way of thinking which secures 
 and predicts tlie continual occurrence of such 
 passages. To do him justice, let him explain 
 himself. He says (p. (J6): 
 
ACKERMAXN AND WHEWELL 83 
 
 " We should err if we thought that the asserted 
 Christianity of Plato is or can be proved by such 
 passages. They really prove nothing but the 
 highest probability that the Christian element in 
 Plato's philosophy will actually be found on 
 closer examination ; they are not the fruits of 
 the examination itself, but only a layer cropping 
 out into the daylight, which incites us to scraping 
 and digging, by giving reason to the supposition, 
 that if we follow its lead, we shall meet with a 
 rich bed of ore." 
 
 And, however we may refuse to admit the con- 
 clusions at which he arrives, we cannot but approve 
 of his method. His merit is, that he has handled 
 the subject with scientific accuracy, and yet in so 
 lively a manner that any one may read his book ; 
 and whoever reads it will read it with interest. 
 It is a final book, not because his conclusions are 
 unassailable, but because the subject is treated so 
 fully, and yet so lucidly, that few will read it 
 without coming to some conclusion for themselves. 
 And praise is due to the translator for preserving 
 the interesting and easy style of his author, and 
 giving us really an English book, and not a hybrid, 
 as hard to understand as the original German. 
 We are glad, too, to find prefixed to the work a 
 corrective of its main error, extracted from the 
 
84 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 Lectures on Ancient Philosophi/, by W. Archer 
 Butler. We regret to find that this is needful, for 
 in every point but the one this extract is designed 
 to correct, Ackermann is thoroughly satisfactor}^ 
 Unfortunately, this is the most important point in 
 the book, and while it is easy for the reader to 
 correct the author's error, the beauty, completeness, 
 and usefulness of the work are marred. And it 
 is with considerable regret we part company with 
 a guide who has so intelligently pointed the way ; 
 the more so as we leave him because he stops 
 before reaching the truth, which is as important 
 for his own welfare as for the complete exhibition 
 of the subject he treats. The truth he ignores is 
 one essential to the understanding of the relative 
 position of heathen and Christian, that Jesus 
 Christ was the sacrifice for the sin of the world. 
 It is inexpressibly disappointing to reach the end 
 of a chapter entitled " Definition of the Christian 
 Element," without finding any allusion to this 
 cardinal truth of Christianity ; the more so, as 
 that same chapter opens with a singularly power- 
 ful and eloquent description of the misery and sin- 
 fulness of human life, and goes on to eliminate all 
 professed saviours, showing wherein art, morality, 
 and all else but Christ, fail to save. But in 
 what is Christ better qualified than all else 
 
ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL 85 
 
 that tries to save from sin ? How is it that He 
 succeeds where all others fail 1 What, in short, is 
 the Christian element 1 " The Christian Element/' 
 says Ackermann, " is that which has power to save." 
 But what, according to him, is this saving power 1 
 It is " the historical life-form, whose kernel, con- 
 tents and soul, is the life of Christ." And how 
 does this operate *? Ackermann continues to speak 
 clearly, even when wrong. He tells us that what 
 the life of Christ is it also produces (p. 215). He 
 himself lives a life free from sin, different from the 
 rest of the world ; he does this by his uninter- 
 rupted connection with God, by his continued 
 subjection to him. Then this life attracts ad- 
 mirers, friends, at first a little compan}", but 
 gradually increasing ; each receiving and giving, 
 " roused and filled by the Lord, each rouses others, 
 and communicates to them the fulness of His 
 inner life." We understand this because it is a 
 most important part of what we ourselves believe. 
 But what is it that begins this sanctifying love to 
 Christ ? " The love of Christ constraineth us," 
 says the apostle ; and why 1 " because we thus 
 judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead : 
 and that He died for all, that they which live 
 should not henceforth live unto themselves, but 
 unto Him which died for them and rose again." 
 
86 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 It is useless to be repeating that men will admire 
 to imitation the life of Christ, a life wholly unlike 
 their oAvn, and grievousl}^ hard to imitate. Men 
 do not do so. This is no gospel to preach to 
 such a world as Ackermann himself represents this 
 to be. It does not take hold. The truth asserts 
 itself in fact ; men cleave to Christ because He has 
 redeemed them from the lowest hell — from the 
 curse of the law. 
 
 It is not, however, our business to enter upon 
 this point at large, but only to show how it affects 
 Ackermann's estimate of Plato. And, as might be 
 expected, it operates in bringing Christianity and 
 Platonism very near each other. Leave out of 
 account the defective view of sin, and of God's 
 justice, and of the relation betwixt these two, 
 which Plato shared with all other heathen, and 
 you leave out of account one of the principal ele- 
 ments which keeps revealed religion distinct from 
 natural religion. We are not surprised, then, to 
 find Ackermann speaking of Plato's Christianity 
 in terms which want that precise accuracy which 
 would have made his book unexceptionable, and a 
 still more valuable contribution to our literature 
 than it is. He tells us that Platonism resembles 
 Christianity in the earnest sadness with which it 
 views the sin of the world, and in the view of sin, 
 
ACKEEMANN AND WHEWELL 87 
 
 V 
 
 that it is done against God, but he does not tell 
 us, though he enumerates the " non-Christian and 
 un-Christian elements of Plato," that Christianity 
 considers sin with respect to an inflexible law. 
 And so in other instances it is easy to mark the 
 taint of this central blemish. But of course 
 Ackermann very clearly maintains the essential 
 difference between Platonism and Christianity. 
 The one does not possess that which is the very 
 essence of the other — the saving power of the 
 work and person of Christ. For though he does 
 not consider that person a sacrifice, nor that work 
 atoning (in the ordinary sense we attach to these 
 words), he does see that salvation from sin is only 
 attainable through Jesus Christ. He is far indeed 
 from bringing Platonism into anything at all 
 approaching a rivalry with Christianity ; for 
 though he is not accurate in his statement of the 
 mode in which Christianity achieves salvation, he 
 is very well aware that it can never be done by 
 Platonism. We may therefore cover his error, 
 and yet teach all that he teaches, by stating the 
 matter thus : — That Platonism resembles Chris- 
 tianity in its prevading and poignant sense of man's 
 need of salvation from sin, and also in its belief 
 that salvation may be attained ; that it differs 
 from Christianity in this, that it does not know 
 
88 THE CHRISTIAX ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 the Saviour actually provided. " The essence of 
 Christianity consists in saving power ; that of 
 Platonism in saving purpose. In Christianity, 
 therefore, salvation is present in deed and reality ; 
 in Platonism, only in thought, and as the end of 
 its striving." 
 
 There is onl}^ one passage in which a higher 
 position than the true is assigned to Plato, which 
 seems to call for remark. At page 250 it is 
 said " that he felt in his soul the presence of 
 Christ in history." At first sight this seems to 
 indicate that Plato had passed from the heathen 
 contriving of salvation to the Jewish expecting 
 of salvation from God. Now while nothing is 
 more striking in Plato than his belief that God is 
 on the side of all who strive against sin, and that 
 man is made not to be as now the slave of sin, 
 but to be fit for communion with God, and that 
 this purpose of man's being will be effected ; yet 
 he expected that this would be accomplished, not 
 by the coming of a future deliverer, but by his 
 philosophy. To anticipate the coming of a de- 
 liverer from sin is what no power of speculation 
 could reach, nor what any depth of faith could 
 lead a man to, so that possibly all that Ackcr- 
 mann intends by this rather dou1)tful-sounding 
 clause is, that Plato believed that God would at 
 
ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL 89 
 
 length bring good out of evil, and manifest in 
 history, in outward acts and effects, that right- 
 eousness, and not sin, is the life designed for 
 man. Here, indeed, God's prerogative of reveal- 
 ing himself asserts its unrivalled sovereignty ; no 
 power of speculation can absolutely predict his- 
 torical truth, but when the manifestation of God 
 has become historical, the poorest intellect can 
 apprehend it. The faith of Plato needed the 
 promise of God to withdraw him from scheming 
 and working his own salvation, and to point his 
 hopes to a coming Saviour. He can never step 
 over the line made by God's word of promise, 
 which separated Jew from Gentile. " The Jews 
 j^earned and knew what they yearned for, the 
 nations yearned, and knew not for what " ; or, as 
 Augustine has it {Conf. vii. 20), "The heathen 
 saw whither they were to go, but saw not the 
 way." In no writings more steadily than in 
 those of Plato, is there held before us the view of 
 man's ultimate destiny and the vast capability of 
 his nature ; but it is simply impossible for Plato, 
 and therefore for any other to whom the word of 
 God has not been spoken, to know how this 
 destiny is to be achieved, and this capability 
 developed. And it is the contrast between his 
 firm persuasion that God has not made all men in 
 
90 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 vain, and the plaintive wavering of his tone when 
 he speaks of the mode by which the purpose of 
 God is to be accomplished, which invests his 
 writings with so melancholy an interest, and be- 
 gets pity for the philosopher as well as admira- 
 tion of the philosophy. He knew that without a 
 divine revelation, certain knowledge on the most 
 important jDoints could not be attained (Fhaedo, 
 85 D), and while, in lack of that revelation, he 
 pressed the duty of persevering investigation, he 
 yet looked forward to death as the solemn but 
 desirable entrance into the light of the presence 
 of " the good God." It was this same conviction, 
 that the darkness of this life was exceptional, 
 that ignorance of God and all the results of such 
 ignorance was not the right, the normal condition 
 of man ; it was this which prompted him to 
 believe in the pre-existence of souls, that he 
 might have the consolation of believing that if 
 light was not to be enjoyed in this present life, it 
 shone everywhere besides, that this state was but 
 a parenthesis of obscurity, a short Arctic night 
 which one strange revolution had brought him 
 into, and which another would speedily deliver 
 him from. As Culver well with his usual beauty 
 expresses it, " You may see Socrates in the twi- 
 light lamenting his obscure and benighted condi- 
 
ACKEEMANN AND WHEWELL 91 
 
 tion, and telling you that his lamp will show him 
 nothing but his own darkness. You may see 
 Plato sitting down by the water of Lethe, and 
 weeping because he could not remember his 
 former notions." The words which are scarcely 
 allowable to one on whom the Sun of righteous- 
 ness has shed his beams find an excusable mouth- 
 piece in Plato — 
 
 " Behold we know not anything ; 
 
 I can but trust that good shall fall 
 At last — far off — at last, to all, 
 And every winter change to spring." 
 
 We are not, then, to suppose that the resem- 
 blance between Platonism and Christianity con- 
 sists merely of a larger number of those justly- 
 conceived and well -expressed maxims regarding 
 human life, which may be found sprinkled among 
 the classical writers of antiquity. It is in the 
 principles, and particularly in the purpose, of 
 Plato's philosophy that the resemblance is found. 
 It was a system of moral discipline, having 
 for its object the redemption of man from the 
 slavery of the false and the vicious, or (to use his 
 own Scripture-like expression), the loosing of his 
 bonds, and the turning him from shadows and 
 from a nocturnal kind of day, to the truth and 
 the light. It was a system which taught men to 
 
92 THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN PLATO 
 
 seek for a higher, more enduring, more real satis- 
 faction of the wants and longings of their natures, 
 than anything which was not God could give. 
 Ackermann says : 
 
 " The Phaedrus, Gorgias, and Protagoras make 
 their appearance, like steady workmen provided with 
 the necessary apparatus to demolish the apparitions of 
 the Sophists, to clear the ground and dig the founda- 
 tions ; the Phaedrus allows us at the same time to 
 cast a glance, though but a fleeting one, at the beauti- 
 ful draft of the whole ; in the Theaetetus, Parmenides, 
 and So^jhist, rise the firm buttresses and arches ; 
 the Cratylus provides for the acoustic relations ; 
 by the Philehus and Banquet the inner spaces are 
 properly divided and ornamented ; the Phaedo arranges 
 the sacrificial services ; the Republic collects the com- 
 munity into the sanctuary ; in the Timaeus and Critias 
 the whole rises finished and concluded heavenwards, — 
 and not till then does the beholder perceive the true 
 meaning and idea of the whole, and see that it is, and 
 is intended to be, nothing but a copy in miniature of 
 the great edifice of the universe." 
 
 Now, if Christianity be so exactly what the 
 mind of Plato would have accepted as the true 
 religion, that already some of its fundamentals 
 were anticipated by the inventive necessities of 
 his own spirit, then this is strong evidence that 
 Christianity is the religion fit for man. This 
 certainly ought to be some evidence in its favour 
 
ACKERMANN AND WHEWELL 93 
 
 to those with whom Plato is as yet more than 
 Christ. This " high priest of reason " has in fact 
 become to many who worshipped in the temple of 
 reason the first Christian Apologist, and led them 
 to recognise Jesus of Nazareth as Him who can 
 alone satisfy, and has satisfied, " the baffled 
 aspirations of four thousand years of suffering 
 men." 
 
 A2)ril, 1861. 
 
Ill 
 
 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST 
 NOETUS 
 
 Our readers may have seen the celebrated paint- 
 ing in which Orpheus is depicted at that bitterest 
 moment of his history, when he turned towards 
 his all but recovered Eurydice, only to see her 
 swept from his embrace to the implacable realms 
 below. The sympathetic pang which they may 
 have felt in looking at this ideal work, will be 
 changed into a pang more sensible and im- 
 mediately personal, if they engage in the attempt 
 to reconstruct a complete likeness of Hippolytus, 
 After countless and mazy wanderings toward the 
 supposed place of his entombment, and after 
 weary expenditure of the delicate manipulation 
 of historical criticism, we turn to embrace a 
 perfectly restored Hippolytus, when the very 
 motion of turning seems to shake out of equili- 
 brium the subtle elements, and down from the 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 95 
 
 clear day of ascertained fact, a resistless hand 
 drags him to the mists of the region of the shades. 
 The silence of ancient chroniclers concerning one 
 who was among the most stirring rulers and 
 instructive writers of the early church, is at once 
 remarkable and tantalising. While every one is 
 ready to say something in his praise, no one gives 
 us such details of his history as enable us clearly 
 to see the man, and thoroughly to understand the 
 grounds of his celebrity. With one he is "vir 
 disertissimus " ; with another he is "yAi^KiVaros 
 Ktti evvova-Taros " ; but all the magniloquent lauda- 
 tion on record, we would gladly exchange for the 
 simple intimation of the year of his death and the 
 place of his abode. The accuracy of the informa- 
 tion that is occasionally dropped from early 
 writers regarding this celebrated but little known 
 individual, is rendered suspicious by the silence of 
 others whom we exj^ect to be better informed ; ' 
 and when we find that even in the age of 
 Eusebius ^ it was not so much as known in what 
 
 ^ Eusebius has been charged with wilful suppression of facts 
 in the case of Hippolytus. We think that this charge is 
 sufficiently refuted by the words of Eusebius {erepas ttov), in 
 si^eakiug of the church in which he ruled, showing, as they do, 
 that there was uncertainty in the writer's own mind. The 
 charge, however, shows how natural it is to believe that more 
 must have been knoAvn than is found recorded. 
 
96 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST XOETUS 
 
 part of the world he had lived, we are thrown 
 upon the writings of Hippolytus himself for all 
 the information we possess regarding him. And 
 it is satisfactory to find that these writings, and 
 especially his recently discovered work " against 
 all the heresies," are unusually instructive in 
 personal detail. From these writings, and avail- 
 ing ourselves of the learned though not always 
 sufficiently circumspect and deliberate labours of 
 Bunsen, we propose to give, in as few words as 
 possible, a sketch of Hij^polytus. 
 
 Born during the reign of the last of the good 
 emperors, Hippolytus from the first enjoyed every 
 advantage for the education and exercise of his 
 natural ability. The Roman world was open to 
 him as his school, and out to that school he went, 
 like Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, 
 determined to find some truth in the wide sea of 
 o2:)inion. Viewing with a wise eclecticism all 
 wisdom as existing for his use, he went from 
 place to place, sitting now at the feet of a teacher 
 of Greek philosophy, and now lingering fondly in 
 the school of the aged and attractive Irenaeus. 
 The saying of Tertullian, " Peregrinandum nobis 
 in literas orbis," was amply fulfilled by Hippolytus. 
 With enough of the Roman in his nature to 
 mingle frankly with all, and appropriate freely 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 97 
 
 "quod usquam egregium fuerit,"^ he was so much 
 of a Greek as to see all for his own personal 
 development and culture. To him nothing came 
 foreign, because all was Eoman ; and as he 
 journeyed from land to land and from one centre 
 of influence to another, and found everywhere the 
 same faith and worship, one Christ held to and 
 confessed by all tongues and peoples, his cosmo- 
 politan spirit was gradually ripened to the Christian 
 consciousness of universal brotherhood, and what 
 Hippolytus the Roman might have tolerated 
 through policy or adopted through pride, Hip- 
 polytus the Christian sympathised with as human 
 and valued with respect as belonging to Christ. 
 And never was a man's power to sift, select, and 
 adopt, more severely tried than in that very age, 
 when the worn-out philosophies seemed to kindle 
 anew and shoot up an expiring flame, when every 
 absurd system could find willing advocates, when 
 every fanatical leader could number his followers 
 by thousands, and when orthodoxy was but slowly 
 and precariously advancing towards an instructive 
 and defensive form of sound words. Sects in- 
 numerable, maintaining every shade of error, from 
 the most obvious misapprehensions of the truth 
 
 ^ Tlie Roman state maxim, " Transferendo Irnc quod usquam 
 egregium fuerit." — Tacit. Annal. xi. 24. 
 
 H 
 
98 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 to the wildest, most fantastic, and deplorable 
 perversions of it, sprang up wherever a church 
 was formed. It was a time cajjable in the highest 
 degree of Avrecking a weak spirit or of maturing a 
 strong one. What strange and dreamy theories 
 Hippolytus heard propounded by the sages of 
 Greece, what impossible cosmogonies were given 
 to him by the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria when 
 he asked for science, and what mystic theosophy 
 when he begged religious truth, it is impossible to 
 relate ; and were it possible to relate, it would be 
 impossible to believe. That any one ever passed 
 through such a pleasant but dangerous education 
 with perfect safety, we are not prepared to assert. 
 That when all wisdom and truth, along with all 
 folly and error, backed by names synonymous 
 with genius and eloquence, and by associations 
 the most attractive and brilliant, were presented 
 at once to an eager mind, this mind should have 
 chosen only what was true and useful, and 
 rejected, as if by an innate and instinctive power 
 of repulsion, whatever was unreal and deceptive, 
 is a conclusion certainly not warranted by any- 
 thing we have yet learned of the youthful mind, 
 or observed in the search after truth. And it 
 will scarcely be wondered at, that the young 
 Hippolytus should not have shown a sagacity of 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 99 
 
 judgment far beyond his years, and a power of 
 rejecting error far ahead of the age on which he 
 was thrown. But whatever confusion and mis- 
 take may have been introduced into his mind 
 during his years of pursuit and acquisition, he 
 returned from his travels with his critical and 
 dialectic ability certainly whetted ; with a vast 
 store of information already laid up, and with 
 formed habits of industry, which gave promise of 
 still greater wealth ; with a culture of mind which 
 was rare even in an age which strove, by extra 
 refinement and cultivation, to hide a rapidly 
 diminishing originality and strength ; with his 
 native humour broadened, and his knowledge of 
 man enlightened and matured by his knowledge 
 of men ; with his religious sentiments undisturbed 
 in their practical operation, and his strict integrity 
 and purity of character confirmed rather than 
 relaxed by his frequent change of circumstance, 
 and various opportunity and temptation ; a man 
 of a cheerful, active, and manly spirit, void of all 
 bitterness and hate, but all the rather capable of 
 vehement indignation — the man of all others fit 
 for the place and the work in which he w^as to 
 spend what he had acquired and become. 
 
 A few years before the close of the second 
 century, Hippolytus is acknow^ledged by the 
 
100 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 church as a man of worth and influence, and is 
 elected Bishop of Portus. His residence in this 
 town, which had superseded Ostia as the harbour 
 of Rome, proved an effectual restraint upon the 
 usurping, heretical, and immoral tendencies of 
 the Roman bishops. In this town he was near 
 enough to the great centre of action to be in- 
 timately acquainted with every turn of events, 
 and yet was fortified, as in a citadel of his own, 
 from all interference, and maintained here his 
 presbytery unswayed by Roman influence, and 
 his flock uncontaminated. From the death of 
 Victor, in the year 198, to the termination of the 
 government of Callistus in 222 a.d., Hippolytus 
 was almost solely occupied in maintaining the 
 forms of ecclesiastical government against the 
 innovations, and the orthodox doctrine against 
 the heresies of Rome. And had there been no 
 such man as Hippolytus provided, a man of 
 thorough intellectual culture and wide informa- 
 tion, of calm and commanding spirit and sincere 
 love of the truth, the diseased condition of the 
 metropolitan church would undoubtedly have in- 
 fected the provinces, and the submission to her 
 proud claim of supremacy would have been antici- 
 pated by several ages. 
 
 The eloquence with which Hippolytus ex- 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 101 
 
 pounded the great doctrine of the incarnation, 
 and inculcated the benefits resulting from it in 
 an age when Docetism was wide spread, will appear 
 from the following passage of his homily : 
 
 " In this person, God was manifest in the body, 
 going forth perfect man ; for not in mere appearance 
 {<j>avra(TLa\ nor by change, but truly, did he become 
 man. 
 
 "And so, though he were God, yet did he not 
 refuse any conditions of the humanity he bore. He 
 hungers, and toils, and wearies, and thirsts in his 
 weariness ; he flees through fear, and prays out of 
 tribulation, and he who as God has a sleepless nature, 
 slumbers on a pillow ; he shudders at the cup of his 
 passion, though for this end he was present in the 
 world, and in his agony he sweats blood, and is 
 strengthened by an angel, himself strengthening all 
 that believe in him, and by his example he teaches 
 us to overcome the fear of death. He who knew 
 Judas, and what was in him, is betrayed by Judas. 
 By Caiaphas he is dishonoured, who as God had been 
 honoured with sacrifice and offering at the hand of 
 Caiaphas. By Herod he is set at nought who cometh 
 to judge all the earth ; and by Pilate he who took 
 on him our diseases is cruelly scoiu'ged. By the 
 soldiers he is mocked at whose word thousands of 
 thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand of 
 angels and archangels stand obedient. By the Jews 
 he who stretched out the heaven as a curtain is 
 stretched on the accursed tree. And the Inseparable 
 from the Father cries to the Father, and commends 
 
102 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 to liim Lis spirit, and, bowing his head, he gives up 
 the ghost — he who had said, and said truly, ' I have 
 power to la}'' down my life, and I have j)ower to take 
 it again.' And because he was not subdued by death, 
 he said, as being himself the Life, ' I lay it down of 
 myself.' The bountiful Giver of all life has his side 
 pierced with a spear, and the Raiser of the dead is 
 wrapped in linen cloth, and laid in a sepulchre, and 
 the third day is raised by the Father, though himself 
 ' the resurrection and the life.' All these things has 
 he accomplished for us, who for our sakes became as 
 we are. For himself hath borne our griefs and carried 
 our sorrows, and for us he was afflicted, as saith the 
 prophet Esaias. This is he who was lauded in the 
 hymns of the angels, seen of the shepherds, waited for 
 by Simeon, and witnessed to by Anna. This is he 
 who was sought after by the Magi, and discovered by 
 the star. This is he who lingered in his Father's 
 house, and was pointed out by John, and was wit- 
 nessed to by the Father from above in these words, 
 ' This is my beloved Son, hear ye him.' This is he 
 who is crowned as the conqueror of the devil. This 
 is Jesus of Nazareth, who was invited to the marriage 
 in Cana, and changed the water into wine, and re- 
 buked the sea when it raged under the violence of 
 the winds, and walked, upon the sea as on the dry 
 land, and gave sight to him that was born blind, and 
 raised up Lazarus, four days dead, and performed 
 manifold mighty works, and forgave sins, and gave 
 power to his disciples. Blood and water flowed from 
 his holy side when pierced with the spear. For his 
 sake the sun is darkened, and the day has no light. 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 103 
 
 the rocks are cleft, and the veil is rent. The founda- 
 tions of tlie earth are shaken, the graves are opened, 
 and the dead arise, and the rulers are ashamed when 
 they see upon the cross the controller of all nature 
 drooping his head and yielding up the ghost. Creation 
 sees and is troubled, and unable to approach and view 
 his exceeding glory, shrinks into darkness. This is he 
 who breathed the SjDirit upon the disciples, and enters 
 among them, the doors being shut ; who is taken up 
 into the heavens, a cloud receiving him out of their 
 sight ; who is set down at the right hand of the 
 Father, and comes as judge of quick and dead. This 
 is God, who for our sakes became man, and to whom 
 the Father hath made all things subject. To him be 
 glory and might, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, 
 in the holy church, both now and always, even for 
 evermore. Amen." 
 
 Hippolytus was the great champion of the 
 truth at a very critical epoch. In Eome every 
 heresiarch was sure of finding followers ; and 
 wherever heresy arose, it was pretty certain ere 
 very long to find its way to this common centre 
 of influence, and here to make its stronghold. 
 Valentinus and Marcion, Praxeas, Theodotus, and 
 Noetus, Avere all known by sight on the streets of 
 the city, as well as in their distant native towns. 
 Consequently the revolution of opinion was rapid 
 and extreme, the variety of teachers confusing in 
 the highest degree, and many seem to have been 
 
104 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 driven, or at least strongly tempted to attach far 
 less value to Christian truth than to diplomatic 
 maxims, which would secure their own aggrandise- 
 ment. " Omnia fui, et nihil expedit " was the sad 
 conclusion of the contemporary emperor Severus, 
 a conclusion which has something of the pathos of 
 Solomon's reiterated " Vanity of vanities ; all is 
 vanity " ; and many a presbyter of the church, 
 who could mark the periods of his life by the 
 several systems he had believed in, must have 
 only reached at the last the same melancholy 
 conclusion, and sighed from dying lips, " Omnia 
 fui, et nihil expedit." In Portus, at least, so long- 
 as Hippolytus lived, there was a safe harbour, 
 where, if the long swell of controversy still rolled 
 in and was heard murmuring, there was, at least, 
 a safe mooring and shelter from the violent per- 
 sonal assault either of tyranny or heresy. It is 
 quite true that the catechumens at the mouth of 
 the Tiber may not have been instructed in just 
 those points we think most important, but had 
 our choice been to be made of either of two in- 
 fallibilities, we would not long have hesitated 
 between the stupid, worldly, and immoral Cal- 
 listus and the thoroughly Christian, if somewhat 
 too philosophical, bishop of Portus. 
 
 To enter into the details of the protracted and 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 105 
 
 somewhat scandalous contest which the Eoman 
 bishop gave rise to, is beside our present purpose. 
 Happily there were, towards the end of Hippoly- 
 tus's life, some quiet years left, which he devoted 
 to the more congenial labour of writing most of 
 those " very many " books which Eusebius ascribes 
 to him. By means of these writings he extended 
 his w^holesome influence far and near. His writ- 
 ings were in the hands of many, and his clear 
 statements, in good scholarly Greek, made them 
 everywhere valuable and attractive. He has the 
 merit also of introducing to the western church 
 the mode of teaching by Homily, which had been 
 practised with great effect at Alexandria. Eeady 
 in everything to follow the teachers he had there 
 become acquainted with, he instructed the assem- 
 bled church at Portus upon the points of doctrine 
 regarding which there was most doubt and dis- 
 cussion at the time. How useful such addresses 
 must have been to those who had not ability to 
 solve difficult questions or examine the truth for 
 themselves, nor opportunity to read the written 
 works of other men, will be learned from the 
 specimen given above of the homiletic style of 
 Hippolytus. Its distinctness of statement, its 
 confident appeal to Scripture, and its eloquence, 
 show us very plainly how so short a fragment has 
 
106 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 come to be so long preserved. If his homilies 
 were often like this one, we do not wonder that 
 Origen should sometimes have been seen among 
 the congregation, nor that the Greek teachers in 
 Egypt should have recommended Christians trading 
 to the Tiber to seek the acquaintance and instruc- 
 tions of this widely read and judicious presbyter. 
 It was first published in the edition of Hippolytus 
 by Fabricius, who received from Montfaucon a 
 copy of the Vatican MS. The Latin version of 
 Turrianus had been previously published under 
 the title, Homilia de Deo trino et uno, et cle mysterio 
 Incarnationis contra haeresin Noeii. In the Vatican 
 MS. the title runs, A Homily of Hippolytus against 
 the heresy of one Noetus. Noetus had affirmed 
 that the Father himself was Christ, and that the 
 Father himself was born, suffered, and died ; and 
 'Hippolytus, after stating the historical circum- 
 stances under which Noetus propounded his 
 heresy, and the faithful exercise of discipline 
 which ended in the casting out of the heretic 
 from the church, proceeds with his refutation as 
 follows : 
 
 " And this is what Christ himself said when in tlie 
 gospel he confessed both his Father and liis God, say- 
 ing, ' I go away to my Father and your Father, and 
 my God and your God.' If, therefore, Noetus dares to 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 107 
 
 say that Christ Himself is the Father, let him tell us 
 to what Father Christ was going away according to this 
 saying in the gospel. But if he thinks that we should 
 abandon the gospel and listen to his folly, he labours 
 in vain, ' for we ought to obey God rather than men.' 
 " And if he should say, ' Christ himself said, I and 
 the Father are one,' let him attend to the expression, 
 and consider that he did not say, ' I and the Father 
 am one,' but ' are ' one. For ' are ' is not used of one, 
 but he uses it to point out two persons and one power, 
 he explained this himself when he said to the Father 
 concerning his disciples, ' The glory which thou 
 gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, 
 even as we are one : I in them, and Thou in me ; 
 that they may be made perfect in one, that the world 
 may know that thou hast sent me.' What have the 
 Noetians to say to these things ? Are all one body 
 according to substance ? Or do we become one by the 
 power and disposition of like-mindedness ? In the 
 very same manner the Son (Trats) who was sent pro- 
 claimed to them that were in the world, and knew 
 him not, that he was in the Father by power and 
 disposition. For the Son is the mind of the Father. 
 Those who have the mind of the Father accordingly 
 receive Christ ; but they who have not the mind of the 
 Father reject him. And if they cite the case of 
 Philip, who said, ' Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth 
 us,' and to whom our Lord answered saying, ' Have I 
 been so long time with you, Philip, and yet hast thou 
 not known me ? he that hath seen me hath seen the 
 Father. Belie vest thou not that I am in the Father, 
 and the Father in me ? ' — if they cite this as proof 
 
108 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 that Christ calls himself the Father, let them know 
 that they herein adduce the most direct contradiction 
 to their own dogma, and convict themselves by the 
 very Scripture they bring forward ; for when Christ, 
 by very deed and word, had declared himself the Son, 
 they yet did not know him, and were unable to com- 
 prehend or perceive his power, and Philip, not under- 
 standing how far it was jDossible to see, asked that he 
 might look upon the Father, and so our Lord answered 
 him, ' He that hath seen me hath seen the Father' ; that 
 is, if thou hast seen me, through me you may know 
 the Father ; for the Father is brought within easy 
 reach of our knowledge through the image which bears 
 his likeness ; but if thou hast not known the image, 
 that is, the Son, how think you to see the Father ? 
 And that these things are as we have stated them, the 
 context evinces, shewing that the Son, being set forth, 
 was sent from the Father and went to the Father. 
 
 '' And many other j)assages, or rather, all others, 
 bear witness to this truth. So evidently, too, is their 
 testimony borne, that a man is forced, even though un- 
 willing, to confess God the Father Almighty and Christ 
 Jesus the Son of God, God become man, to whom the 
 Father hath made subject all things save himself and 
 the Holy Sj)irit, and that these are truly three. And 
 if he desires further to know how the unity of God is 
 proved, let him know that his power is one, and that 
 so far as concerns his power God is one ; but so far as 
 concerns the incarnation, there is a threefold exhibition 
 (eVtSet^ts), as shall shortly be proved when we come to 
 the positive side of our argument, and deliver the true 
 doctrine. The things which we have said are the 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 109 
 
 articles of our common faith, for tliere is one God in 
 whom we must believe, but unbegotten, impassible, 
 immortal, doing all that he willeth, as he willeth, 
 when he willeth. What, then, will this nothing- 
 knowing Noetus dare to reply to these things ? 
 [No7;to5 firj voMv]. Since, therefore, Noetus is thus 
 speedily confuted, let us pass to the demonstration of 
 the truth ; that, as he has endeavoured to disseminate 
 his error, we may establish the truth against which all 
 these so great heresies have arisen, and yet say nothing 
 to the purpose. 
 
 " One God there is, my brethren, and the know- 
 ledge of him we receive from the Holy Scriptures, and 
 from no other source. For, just as any person wishing 
 to be skilled in the wisdom of this world will find no 
 other means of attaining his desire than by studying 
 the writings of philosophers, so as many of us as resolve 
 to practise godliness must draw our information from 
 no other source than from the oracles of God. What- 
 ever, therefore, the Holy Scriptures declare, let us 
 observe ; and whatever they teach, let us understand ; 
 and as the Father wills that we believe in him, let us 
 believe ; and as he wills that the Son be honoured, let 
 us honour him ; and as he wills that the Holy Spirit 
 be given, let us receive him, — not after our own 
 understanding, not after our private prejudices and 
 preconceptions, nor using violence towards the things 
 given us of God, but as he himself intended to teach 
 by the Holy Scriptures, so let us mark and understand." 
 
 These instructions were suddenly interrupted in 
 the first year of Maximin the Thracian (a.d. 235). 
 
110 HIPrOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 Worthy, as his contemporaries might have said, of 
 a more glorious death than mere decay or disease 
 could inflict, Hippolytus won the two-fold honour 
 of a long and useful life, and a martyr's death. 
 AVhen he had already spent his life in the service 
 of his master, he was called upon to give up for 
 his sake the remnant he yet held. Prudentius, in 
 the verses he has written in celebration of this 
 martyr, assures us that the heathen magistrate 
 found in the name of Hippolytus a sufficient war- 
 rant for the manner of his death, and ordered him 
 to be torn asunder by horses, that he might in his 
 death resemble the chaste but slandered son of 
 Theseus, whose name he had borne through life. 
 This we may happily be spared believing. The 
 numerous calls upon feeling which fact makes, 
 oblige us to adopt a strict economy of emotion, 
 and forbid that we should waste, upon what may 
 be only fiction, the sentiments of pity or regret 
 which are so abundantly demanded by actual 
 events. In the case of Hippolytus, there is little 
 need to resort to fiction, for we read that he was 
 banished "in insulam nocivam Sardinian! "; and 
 it is not likely that an old man, spent with 
 anxiety, study, and manifold labours, would long 
 resist the influence of the unwholesome climate, 
 unusual habits of life, and harsh treatment, or 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 111 
 
 would long disappoint the intention of his perse- 
 cutors. "Feminis lugere honestum est, viris 
 meminisse." 
 
 Rather than attempt to detail the theological 
 opinions of Hippolytus, we would recall one or 
 two of the characteristics of the theology of his 
 time. We appreciate the service rendered by the 
 early theologians, and are put in a position from 
 which we see the whole bulk and symmetry of 
 their intellects only when we stand so as to see 
 at the same time the work they had to perform. 
 The men whom, for the prospects of Christianity, 
 it was chiefly important to win over, were those 
 of active and disciplined mind, who were dissatis- 
 fied with the philosophical systems in vogue, but 
 who could not, and would not, divest themselves 
 of the mental habits, nor discard all the modes of 
 thought to which, throughout their thinking lives, 
 these systems had accustomed them. The philo- 
 sophical inquiries of these men were to be met by 
 philosophical explanations. An exposition of the 
 faith was called for, which should appeal to the 
 learned through all that was good in their previous 
 learning. A method and range of instruction was 
 required which should at once defend Christianity 
 from the attacks of philosophy, and should invite 
 the attention of all who were thirsting for the 
 
112 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 truth. To present Christianity in such a form 
 was a very difficult task. It required that the 
 Christian theologian should have thorough sym- 
 pathy with the intellectual culture of Greece, and 
 yet should at the same time be wholly obedient 
 to the teacher of Nazareth. When a modern 
 reader finds so much philosophical terminology 
 mingling with the words of Scripture in ancient 
 expositions of the faith, he is to remember that, in 
 their day, these forms of expression were intelli- 
 gible and pregnant, and that throughout the 
 educated world they were familiarly used. There 
 were certain ideas current which, however incom- 
 prehensible or absurd to us, were not then the 
 guilt of individuals, but the common inheritance of 
 all thinking persons. These ideas were part of 
 the property of every mind, and with them, what- 
 ever the mind received, had to be harmonised. 
 Now, this was so different a juncture from that 
 which Christian sentiments and ideas have to 
 effect when they enter the modern mind, that we 
 are very apt to underrate the efforts of the early 
 theologians, not understanding the union which 
 they had to bring about. An educated and 
 speculative heathenism is a very different thing to 
 deal with from that state of mind to which modern 
 theology has to introduce itself; and few, if any, 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 113 
 
 periods of the church's history have required from 
 her leaders a more generous breadth of sympathy, 
 or a more genuine culture, or a more judicious 
 treatment of opinions. 
 
 Moreover, in judging of the value of early 
 documents, we are to bear in mind that the truth 
 delivered in Scripture was not discovered all at 
 once, and that Avhat is to us obvious and trite, was 
 only slowly developed by the labour and repeated 
 mistakes of the fathers of Christian theology. 
 Instead, therefore, of summarily condemning as 
 heretical every Avriter who does not distinctly and 
 fully declare the truth according to our light, we 
 are to inquire whether he spoke in denial of, or 
 only in ignorance of, the whole truth. We are 
 not to blame him for having come so short a dis- 
 tance on the road, but to consider whether his 
 face be turned in the right direction, and what 
 willingness and ability he manifests for prosecuting 
 the journey. And we will also learn to distin- 
 guish between " the first principles of the oracles 
 of God," and " the things hard to be understood." 
 Of the latter, there is one which falls under the 
 notice of Hippolytus in this homily ; it is the 
 doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. 
 The difficulties connected with this doctrine are 
 known best by those who have longest examined 
 
 I 
 
114 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 it, and no one who does not expect a miraculous 
 unanimity of consent among the fathers is aston- 
 ished to discover that the church lived till the 
 time of Origen without possessing any exact 
 statement of this doctrine, while it abounded in 
 statements quite inconsistent with it. The truth 
 is, that it was the difficulties and obvious errors 
 of Hippoly tus himself that drew Origen to consider 
 the matter, and to deliver that statement of the 
 truth which has ever since been generally received 
 as the orthodox doctrine. Justin Martyr, and, 
 perhaps, Theophilus of Antioch (though even such 
 authorities as Lumper and Dorner disagree as 
 to his opinion), did not grasp the truth on this 
 point, though they avoided the common error. 
 They did not say with Tatian and Athenagoras, 
 that the Word in the beginning of the world be- 
 comes the first-born work of the Father, but much 
 further were they from saying with Bishop 
 Pearson, "The essence which God always had 
 without beginning, without beginning he did com- 
 municate, being always Father as always God." 
 They did not with Tertullian maintain that there 
 was a time when there was no Son ("Fuit autem 
 tempus, cum ei filius non fuit." — Adv. Hermog. 
 3) ; but neither do they with Dionysius of 
 Alexandria distinctly aver that " there never was 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAIXST NOETUS 115 
 
 (a time) when God was not a Father." Hippolytus 
 views the generation of the Son as dependent on 
 the will of the Father, and thinks of his pro- 
 duction as merely for purposes of creation. On 
 this point Hippolytus thus expresses himself : 
 
 "But as the author, and fellow -counsellor, and 
 maker of all that is made, he begot the Word ; which 
 Word, retained within himself and unseen by the 
 created world, he makes visible ; uttering the first 
 creating word (cfnovi]),^ and begetting light of light, he 
 sent forth the Lord to the creation ; the Lord, his own 
 reason (vovs), formerly visible to himself alone, and 
 unseen by that which was made, he now makes 
 visible, that through his appearing the world might 
 see him and be saved. 
 
 " And in this way beside himself there existed 
 another.2 Another, I say, not meaning that there are 
 
 ^ In this chapter, and especially in this exi^ression, Hippoly- 
 tus evinces his belief that the prolation of the Son was 
 contingent upon the Father's purpose of creation. The 
 similarity of this doctrine to that of Tertullian may be seen 
 from many passages in the tract Adv. Praxean, e.g. in c. 6, 
 he says : " Ut primum deus voluit ea, quae cum Soiihiae 
 ratione et sermone disposuerat intra se, in substantias et 
 species suas edere, ipsum primum protulit sermonem habentem 
 in se individuas suas rationem et Sophiam, ut per ipsum fierent 
 universa, per quem eraut cogitata atque disj)Osita, imo et facta 
 jam, quantum in dei sensu. " 
 
 ^ ovTcas irapicfTaTO avrcp erepos. This expression certainly 
 forces us to conclude that Hippolytus did not consider the Son 
 to exist as a person until thus sent forth by the Father to 
 create. Bull feels that some defence of this passage is needed, 
 
116 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 two Gods, but as light of light, or as water flowing 
 out of its fountain, or as a ray from the sun. For 
 there is but one power which proceedeth from the 
 whole (cK Tov TravTos), and the whole is the Father, 
 from wliom proceedeth this Power, the Word. This 
 is the reason which came forth in the world, and was 
 manifested the Son of God (vrats). All things exist by 
 him, and he alone is of the Father. Who then intro- 
 duces a multitude of Gods increasing through the 
 ages ? For all, however unwilling, are shut up to thi 
 creed, that the whole runs up to one (to ttolv ds eVa 
 avarpeyjei). If, therefore, all things run up into one, 
 even according to Valentinus, and Marcion, and 
 Cerinthus, and all their silly talk, they are forced 
 unwillingly to confess that the one is the cause of all, 
 and thus bear their extorted testimony to the truth 
 that one God made all things according to his own 
 will. And the same gave the law and the prophets ; 
 and gifting them with the Holy Spirit, he caused 
 them so to speak that, receiving the inspiration of the 
 
 and says {Defensio Fid. Nic. 2d ed. p. 368) : "Aguosco 
 qiiidem hie ab Hippolyto generationem quandam Verbo, sive 
 Filio Dei tribui, quae mundi creationem proxime antecesserit. 
 Sed onmino uego de generatione loqui Hippolytum proprie 
 dicta, quae scilicet Verbi fuerit productio, qiiave Verbum 
 il^sum, cum prius non existeret, existere coej^erit." This 
 defence is invalid. The generation here spoken of is the only 
 generation Hippolytus knows anything about, and is that 
 generation whereby the Son " becomes the first-begotten of the 
 Father" (v. c. 15). At all events, if he and the others who 
 use similar langTiage intend to intimate that before this mani- 
 festation or probation the Word existed as a person eternally in 
 the Father, they are, as Goode has convincingly shown, equally 
 heterodox. 
 
HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 117 
 
 Father's j)ower, they should declare the counsel and 
 will of the Father." 
 
 What these fathers held was not Sabellianism, 
 for they maintained the distinction of the persons ; 
 neither was it Arianism, for they maintained the 
 sameness of the essence ; but neither was it the 
 orthodox doctrine, for they held that the genera- 
 tion or the prolation of the Son was contingent 
 on the purpose of God to create, and that while 
 he was, as the word or reason of the Father, 
 co-eternal with him, he was only subsequently to 
 the purpose and will of the Father sent forth 
 as a personal agent. In fact, they felt the 
 difficulty involved in their position. They must 
 have seen that it was something very like a con- 
 tradiction to maintain the existence of a person 
 possessed of the eternal divine substance, un- 
 created, and yet who does not come forth till a 
 period that at least bears relation to time. They 
 saw that to the Son two things were to be 
 attributed, eternal divine nature and personal 
 genesis ; but how these two were to be reconciled, 
 Origen was the first to see. His philosophical 
 mind gave the solution which does not lose the 
 eternity in the genesis, nor the personality in the 
 one divine essence, but seeing God the eternal 
 Father, sees the Son as therefore eternal, though 
 
118 HIPPOLYTUS'S HOMILY AGAINST NOETUS 
 
 begotten, and as therefore divine, though distinct. 
 These remarks may help to an understanding of 
 some of the statements which occur in the 
 homily. 
 
 Jamuiry 1863. 
 
IV 
 
 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA AND HIS 
 APOLOGETIC 
 
 No writer of antiquity has left us a more com- 
 plete picture of the ancient world than Clement 
 of Alexandria. If we were required to reproduce 
 the philosophy, the religion, the literature, the 
 manners of the most illustrious representatives of 
 heathenism, and if we were confined to a single 
 author as our source of information, the author 
 we should choose would undoubtedly be Clement. 
 The age he lived in was one which had little life 
 of its own, and whose hope it was to resuscitate 
 the past. It was a learned age and a critical age, 
 though its learning and its criticism were alike 
 superficial. It gathered up all the treasures of 
 the past; and the eclectic spirit which had 
 characterised Alexandria since its foundation, and 
 which its position seemed to destine it to mature, 
 was never more vigorous than when Clement took 
 
120 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 Up his abode in the Greek quarter. The character 
 of the age, and the character of the city in which 
 he lived, were well represented in his own up- 
 bringing and disposition. By birth a pagan, and 
 by conversion a Christian, he understood the 
 position of the two great parties in the world of 
 religion. Born in Athens, personally acquainted 
 with Italy, Syria, and Asia Minor, and finally 
 settling in Alexandria, he combined in his own 
 person the erudition and system of the West 
 with the profundity and warmth of the East. In 
 his boyhood he may have seen the keen eye and 
 humorous play of feature in the face of Lucian, 
 Pausanias investigating antiquities, and Diogenes 
 Laertius collecting his anecdotes ; in his manhood 
 he must have seen Ammonius bending under his 
 sacks of grain, and venting scraps of philosophy 
 to his fellow-porters as he recovered his breath ; 
 and when he found that the two Philostrati and 
 Sextus Empiricus were to be the leaders of his 
 age, he may have thought that Diogenes Laertius 
 had not lived too soon to write the lives of all 
 the philosophers. In his boyhood he had heard 
 the regrets of the old men who had seen the 
 glory and prosperity of the golden age of the 
 empire ; during his travels he may have been one 
 of the crowd which crushed into the Roman 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 121 
 
 amphitheatre that day when Commodus, as the 
 " Roman Hercules," slew with his own bow one 
 hundred lions, and prostituted the imperial rank 
 to a service which had been prohibited as 
 scandalous to the senators and knights ; and in 
 his prime he felt the persecuting rage of Severus, 
 and was forced to flee from his pupils to a 
 safe obscurity in Cappadocia. He had the 
 best opportunity, therefore, of judging what 
 the real condition of the world was and was 
 likely to be. 
 
 It is impossible to ascertain the exact date of 
 his settlement in Alexandria. It was probably 
 about the year 190 ;i and in a year or two after- 
 wards he was ordained a presbyter of the church, 
 and succeeded Pantaenus in the catechetical school. 
 It was to Pantaenus that he owed the first satis- 
 factory instruction he received ; for all that he 
 had acquired hitherto was a distaste for everything 
 but the Stoic philosophy, which, as Brucker says, 
 "ambabus amplexus est manibus," and the ter- 
 minology of which he used to the last. Alex- 
 andria was at this time perhaps the greatest 
 emporium in the world ; allowed by the Romans 
 to hold the second place. Every known race had 
 
 ^ Cave, wlio gives the opinions of the learned on this point, 
 puts it somewhat later. 
 
122 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 its representatives on the quays which Alexander 
 had founded to be the exchange of the Eastern 
 and Western worlds. Its climate was counted 
 the most salubrious, and its natural beauty of 
 position was equalled by the magnificence of its 
 buildings. In the words of a traveller^ who saw 
 it two centuries after Clement, "I could neither 
 satisfy myself with gazing, nor could I overtake 
 all that was worthy of observation ; whatever I 
 looked at seemed to be unique and unrivalled, 
 yet other sights pressed their claims, and could 
 not be passed by. The extent of the city so 
 strove with its beauty, and its size with the 
 number of its inhabitants, that neither seemed to 
 yield to the other. The size seemed greater than 
 measure could include, and the population too 
 great for number to overtake. As I continued to 
 look around me, the city appeared too large to be 
 filled by any number of inhabitants, and yet the 
 number of men appeared so enormous that I was 
 forced to doubt whether any city could be large 
 enough to contain them." In this beautiful, busy, 
 and dissipated city, every vice of heathenism, and 
 the most sumptuous pomp of idolatry, were con- 
 stantly before the eyes of Clement. He had 
 
 ^ Achilles Tatius, in the beginning of the fifth book of his 
 romance. 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 123 
 
 witnessed the most impressive worship of nature 
 in the gorgeous feast of the sun^ when the city 
 rivalled the sky in brilliance of illumination. 
 Autumn after autumn, as the nights grew longer, 
 and as the gay colours died away from the earth, 
 he had seen the venerable priests of Isis lead out 
 the sacred bull, with his horns gilt and his body 
 veiled in black silk, to testify " their sadness and 
 heavy cheer." And he had seen the same priests 
 go forth by night to the seaside, clad in their 
 sacred vestments, and carrying the consecrated 
 ark and the vessels of gold, celebrating with 
 shouts of triumph the finding of Osiris, and the 
 restoration of life and fertility to the earth. 
 Everything that paganism had to attract, to 
 deceive, to bind, was matter of daily observation 
 to the man who was destined to become not only 
 the most voluminous, but in many respects the 
 most sagacious of Christian apologists. 
 
 In Alexandria, Clement had also opportunity 
 to acquire that learning which was essential to 
 qualify him to meet the mental condition of 
 religious inquirers in the second century. It was 
 at least as important to gain the philosophers and 
 scholars of the museum as the mechanics of the 
 docks and building-yards, or the porters of the 
 warehouses. It was not enough that he should 
 
124 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 be sufficiently acquainted with Homer and the 
 other sources of Greek mythology to expose the 
 infamy of the history of the gods ; it was not 
 enough that he should have sufficient acuteness 
 and dialectic skill to divest the mysteries of their 
 pretensions to bestow immortality on the initi- 
 ated. His office as teacher of the Christian 
 school exposed him to the interrogation of all 
 who had difficulties about the new religion. The 
 cavils which were concocted by the wits of the 
 museum, the theories which were broached in the 
 dining -hall of the professors, would naturally 
 find their way to the ears of Clement. To gain 
 a victory over the Christian teacher would be 
 enough to make the reputation of an aspirant to 
 the degree of the pagan doctors. And so Clement 
 drew around the young plants which were under 
 his charge the hedge, as he calls it, of a learning 
 at least equal to, and probably very far superior 
 to that of any who was likely to attack them. 
 In the library of the Serapeion, doomed to be 
 destroyed in another century by fanatics profess- 
 ing the same religion as himself, he found all that 
 was needful to furnish him against the most 
 erudite of his antagonists. That he made abund- 
 ant use of the valuable stores here laid up, is 
 sufficiently evident from the number and facility 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 125 
 
 of his quotations. Excepting Athenaeus, prob- 
 ably no ancient writer could be named who cites 
 400 authors ; but if we are to reckon second- 
 hand quotations and sayings of the philosophers, 
 a much larger number than this must measure 
 the reading of Clement. Where so much time 
 has been spent upon reading, we do not expect to 
 find evidence of much time spent in reflection ; 
 where the mass acquired is so great, we anticipate 
 that it has not all been assimilated, and that 
 much of it is carried as a burden, making the 
 movements of the mind heavy and uncertain. 
 Yet it is scarcely fair to say with Brucker,^ — 
 " Suffocaverat vir eruditissimus immensae lectionis 
 copia judicium." He had, at least, a decided 
 aversion to foolish or useless learning, and would 
 have joined in the regret of our modern utili- 
 tarian — 
 
 ^ Every one who desires to itnderstand the position, and to 
 estimate the teaching of the Alexandrine writers, will natur- 
 ally turn to Brucker, and will be amply rewarded by the 
 dissertations in his third volume devoted to this subject. The 
 Dissertations of Le Nourry are long, but contain much useful 
 information. They are reprinted in Migne's edition of 
 Clement, which is very complete, and worthy of all j^raise. 
 An interesting, original, and satisfactory account of Clement is 
 given in Pressense's Histoire cle VEglise Chretienne. To those 
 who merely desire a faithful rendering in English of large 
 portions of Clement's writings. Bishop Kaye's work will be 
 acceptable. 
 
126 CLEMENT OF ALEXA.NDRIA 
 
 " What numbers sheatli'd in erudition lie, 
 Plung'd to the hilts in venerable tomes, 
 And rusted in ; who might have borne an edge, 
 And played a sprightly beam, if born to speech." 
 
 Indeed, Clement expresses the same sentiment 
 under what some may deem a prettier figure. 
 "The wells," he says, "which are unused stag- 
 nate, but clear waters gush from those that are 
 used. What profit is there in wisdom if it do 
 not instruct the hearer 1 " There were many in 
 his own day who told him that no good thing 
 could by any alchemy be extracted out of pagan 
 writings, but at the utmost he can only be 
 accused of not being always judicious and logical 
 in his use of pagan ideas. He might, perhaps, 
 have been the better of the advice given after- 
 wards by Gregory Nazianzen — 
 
 "At ista, quaeso, cuncta fac cautus legas, 
 Prudenter ex his colligens quid utile, 
 Fugiensque quicquid noxium est et pestilens. 
 Apis aemulari cura sit sapientiam. 
 Quae flore in omni sessitans, ex singulis 
 Idonee carpit esse quod videt utile." 
 
 However, no one will deny that it was proper 
 that a man in Clement's position at Alex- 
 andria should be a man of thorough culture, 
 should understand his adversaries' position — 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 127 
 
 should be able to use against them suitable 
 weapons, and should strengthen the catechumens 
 with such instruction as would be of practical 
 value to them. The question which lies so close 
 to this, — How far the Christian teachers of Alex- 
 andria were justifiable in introducing Christian 
 ideas to the cultivated minds around them, under 
 philosophical garb and in philosophical forms — 
 how far they were right in Platonising — is a more 
 difficult question to answer. Much historical 
 investigation, much philosophical ability, and 
 much plausible argumentation have been ex- 
 pended by accusers and defenders. And prob- 
 ably the question will continue to be settled by 
 each investigator, in the same manner as it was 
 settled by the Fathers themselves : those who 
 had studied and admired the Platonic philosophy 
 making liberal use of it, and those who had not 
 done so condemning its use as profane. There is 
 no doubt, however, that even the fundamentals of 
 the Christian faith are obscured in the writings 
 of Clement, by the philosophic clothing in which 
 they are presented. It would be easy to select 
 passages from the Stromata, which would be 
 quite in their place in the Pliaedo or the Theae- 
 tetus, not so easy to collect passages which would 
 fully exhibit the Scriptural doctrine of redemp- 
 
128 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 tion. Yet, there is no mistaking the piety of 
 Clement ; his reverence for Scripture is equally 
 unmistakable, and his anxiety to bring all men 
 under its influence is patent on every page. And 
 it cannot but occur to one who enters at all into 
 the spirit, of his writings, that there must have 
 been some real efficacy in the mode of persuasion 
 adopted by one who had himself been won from 
 the same position as those to whom he appealed 
 now occupied. He had been a highly educated 
 pagan, he was now a sincere and devoted Chris- 
 tian ; surely he must have had some knowledge 
 of the path which led from the one position to 
 the other. Is it likely, that when inducing others 
 to the same transition as he had himself accom- 
 plished, he should have forgotten or omitted to 
 use those inducements which had been effectual in 
 his own case 1 Or is it likely that those induce- 
 ments which had proved effectual with him, would 
 be of no avail with others of the same cast of 
 mind, and of the same habits of thought ? 
 
 In estimating the service done by Clement, it 
 has, perhaps, been too little considered that his 
 position in Alexandria gave an apologetic cast to 
 the whole of his teaching. We do not suspect 
 Paley of Arianism because his Evidences contain 
 no ex^^licit teaching on the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 129 
 
 We do not consider the speech of Paul on Mars' 
 Hill defective, because it does not enounce the 
 doctrine of the Atonement. The writings of 
 Clement are not all professedly apologetic, yet 
 he has read them very carelessly who does not 
 feel that tliis is the character of the whole, and 
 that, if Clement is to be fairly estimated, he 
 must be judged by an apologetic, and not by a 
 systematic standard. What he would have done 
 in those numerous works he promised to write, 
 what he did in those nine which the old world 
 saw and lost, we cannot tell ; but his extant writ- 
 ings clearly show that if he was to teach in Alex- 
 andria at all, he must do so apologetically. Two 
 of his three great works are professedly to the 
 heathen ; and the Stromata seem to be little more 
 than a collection of such discourses as he held 
 from time to time with his pupils, and with pagan 
 inquirers. They bear all the characteristics of such 
 a compilation. There is a great deal of repetition, 
 and a want of order scarcely conceivable, excejjt 
 on the supposition that the work was written at 
 intervals, as he had occasion to explain matters to 
 his pupils. There is also a vivacity and animation 
 which brings us into the presence of the author, 
 and we seem rather to listen to one who speaks, 
 than to read the Avords of a writer. Now, if this 
 
 K 
 
130 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 be the origin of the Stromata, its excellence varies 
 with its fitness to meet the questions and doubts 
 of the most highly educated class in Alexandria 
 at the close of the second century. These ques- 
 tions were of the same kind as had exercised the 
 mind of Plato centuries before : — How are the 
 finite and the infinite connected ; or, what is the 
 world, and how is it related to God 1 Has man 
 any special connection with God, and how may 
 this be realised and confirmed ? What is the soul 
 of man, and what may it become ? And how is it 
 to achieve its destiny ; especially, is it by some 
 kind, and what kind, of liberation from the body 1 
 If Clement did not answer these questions, he had 
 no chance of being heard by the class among 
 which his lot was cast. Christianity, by giving 
 the real answers to these questions, and by putting 
 the answers in the hearts of many whose ears 
 were unused to philosophic diction, had excited 
 an almost universal attention to the questions 
 themselves. What had been interesting to the 
 few, became important to the many. The appetite 
 which had been dormant was excited as soon as 
 the proper food was presented. Christianity no 
 sooner put within men's reach communion with 
 God, than men who had till now been content 
 with the world thirsted after God. But at this 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 131 
 
 juncture, paganism made a last stand. It saw 
 now what the nature of man required ; Christianity 
 had developed the wants of the soul, as paganism 
 had never done. But could paganism not satisfy 
 these wants as plausibly as Christianity ? Saga- 
 cious men began to see that there could be no 
 going back now to the old state of things ; but 
 might not a pagan philosophy be framed which 
 should satisfy these new demands ? After all, 
 had not Plato anticipated these very demands, and 
 might not something yet be made of what he had 
 done towards practically satisfying the craving of 
 men after a higher life ? It should at least be tried. 
 It was, therefore, with the beginnings of Neo- 
 Platonism, which professed to be a saving religion 
 as well as a philosophy, that Clement had in the 
 first instance to do. He constantly endeavours 
 to persuade men that Christ is the only teacher 
 who has the truth to give. He does not deny 
 that the ancient philosophers had some light, but 
 maintains that they borrowed a great deal from 
 the Jews, and that all that they had was given 
 them only as a preparation for the fuller truth of 
 Christianity. These are the ideas to which he 
 devotes whole books of the Stromata, and which 
 recur again and again throughout the whole. The 
 attitude he maintains towards philosophers is that 
 
132 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 of an inquirer in the same path, but farther on. 
 They are below, striving upwards ; he stands 
 above, where the dawn has struck. He con- 
 tinually assures philosophers that they are right 
 so far — that there is a divine element in man — 
 that men are capable of holding fellowship with 
 God — that there is a life for the soul of man pure 
 from sin. All this philosophy had taught, and all 
 this, Clement insists, philosophy was right in 
 teaching, and delights to recall the beautiful forms 
 in which this teaching had often been embodied. 
 But here, he says, is the difference between Chris- 
 tianity and philosophy, that Christianity has re- 
 ceived the truth which philosophy was only groping 
 after ; that there is only One whose teaching can 
 develop that divine element in man, only One who 
 can bring man to God, only One who can heal, 
 purify, and strengthen the soul. He comes even 
 nearer to the philosophers still, by granting that 
 this one teacher had been their teacher also, 
 though he had not given to them the fulness of 
 the truth. The Word, he says, who now en- 
 lightens Christians, has been in all antiquity the 
 instructor of philosophers. All this is true, and 
 may have induced men of philosophic leanings to 
 look with a kindlier eye upon Christianity. Yet 
 this uniform presentation of Christ in the one 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 133 
 
 character of a teacher is not merely defective, 
 but deceptive. Eedemption comes to be nothing 
 more than the reception of Christ's teaching, the 
 soul being purified, and, in the Platonic sense, re- 
 deemed by the truth. Faith comes to be nothing 
 more than the mental belief of the revelation of 
 Christ, and this is placed as the foundation of 
 all spiritual progress, in the same sense in which 
 the older philosophers had postulated intuition as 
 the basis of knowledge. Any other view of re- 
 demption will be found with difficulty in Clement's 
 writings ; yet the occasional passages in which the 
 correct view is found are satisfactory in regard 
 to Clement's personal belief. 
 
 While, therefore, Clement can scarcely be said 
 to have brought forward the characteristic differ- 
 ences of Christianity, he adopts the method which 
 he judged most suitable for winning the attention 
 of philosophers. And further, it is probably true 
 that what Clement had both originally and 
 habitually prized in Christianity was the solution 
 which it afforded of the highest problems of 
 philosophy, and the practical aid he received from 
 it for leading a holy and godly life. He felt 
 more keenly the distance to which sin had ban- 
 ished man from God, and the blindness and 
 weakness it had begotten in the soul, than the 
 
134 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 guilt or danger of it. Having to do with men 
 whose souls were aspiring, rather than with those 
 whose consciences were condemning them, he 
 took them as they were, and showed what there 
 was in Christianity suitable for them. He was 
 perfectly aware that his position was a doubtful 
 one, and he maintained it, on the conviction that 
 it was the most useful he could take up. That 
 he had carefully considered the course he should 
 adopt in dealing with incipient Neo-Platonists, is 
 proved by the pregnancy of his sentences when 
 he defends his position. He meets his assailants 
 at three different levels, first maintaining that 
 philoso23hy is a good thing (Oeiav Soipeav "EXXrja-i 
 SeSojxevTjv), meaning, however, by philosophy, 
 "not the Stoic, nor the Platonic, nor the Epi- 
 curean, nor the Aristotelian, but an eclectic philo- 
 sophy, compounded of all the good and wise things 
 that have been found in any of these." Again, 
 descending from the highest position, he main- 
 tains that " though philosophy were useless, yet if 
 it be useful to establish its uselessness, it is use- 
 ful." This is something more than a sophism, 
 and would probably give pause to his assailants. 
 But his favourite argument is drawn from 
 necessity. He must become a Greek to the 
 Greeks (rw yap ofiouo TO ofxoLov eSiSaaKo/xe^a), he 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 135 
 
 must fully appreciate their difficulties before he 
 can remove them, recognise the truth they hold 
 before he can add to it, and see their error from 
 their own point of view (ttio-tos 6 fxer ifxTreipias 
 ckeyxos). ^ But in every defence which Clement 
 makes of philosophy, it is implied that there is 
 a better thing than philosophy, the dhjOeia KaO' 
 Tjixas. With all that he grants to the philosopher 
 there comes the appeal, Submit yourself to Him 
 from whom all truth in every age has proceeded. 
 Perhaps Clement had reason to be persuaded that 
 the men to whom he was sent would not think of 
 Christ at all, unless He were presented in this 
 light. Perhaps the terminology, which to us 
 appears defective and deceptive, may have 
 admitted of a wider interpretation than we can 
 now discover. While it touched philosophy on 
 the one side, it may have comprehended more of 
 the Christian idea than appears to us. If we 
 take Clement's writings as we have and under- 
 stand them ; if we say, " This, and nothing more 
 than this, is what Clement taught as Christianity, 
 and would have men to live by " ; if we form 
 Clement's creed out of his extant works, and give 
 to each article a higher or a lower place, according 
 
 1 See the Paedagogue, tlirougliout ; and the Stromata, lib. 
 i. c. 2-7, and lib. v. c. 3. 
 
136 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 as it has a larger or a smaller place allotted 
 to it in . his discussions : then we must conclude 
 that his views of Christianity were too much 
 coloured by his philosophic upbringing and habit 
 of thought, and that his hearers must have 
 received a false impression of his religion. But 
 if we conceive that what we have of Clement's 
 teaching is only preliminary, if we look upon him 
 simj^ly as a guide to, and not as an expositor of, 
 the truth; if we believe that he expected that 
 those whom he won to Christ as his pupils, if not 
 yet as his disciples, would go on to learn much 
 more than he had led them to anticipate : our 
 conclusions must be somewhat modified. " Cum 
 enim banc eclecticam philosophandi rationem non 
 Alexandrian! modo, sed et omnem fere orbem 
 literatum atque philosophicum, occupasse cerneret, 
 multaque passim adduci videret, quibus commen- 
 dari posse gentilibus philosophis Christianam 
 religionern credebat, eandem viam sibi ingredi- 
 endam statuit, ut rem Christianam juvaret" 
 (Brucker, iii. 422). The redemption of which 
 he generally speaks is certainly, in its mode, 
 little more than the Platonic enlightenment and 
 purification of the soul, j'-et without this there is 
 no Christian redemption. The faith he argues 
 for is short of the Westminster idea of saving 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 137 
 
 faith ; yet without the belief of the revelation of 
 Christ, and the surrender of the mind to His 
 teaching, there is no reliance of the soul upon 
 Him. To have spoken of redemption and faith 
 as we speak of them might have been unintel- 
 ligible to those men out of whose speculations 
 Neo - Platonism was rapidly taking shape ; to 
 speak of them as Clement spoke might introduce 
 the Scriptural idea.^ 
 
 The apologetic of Clement has, of course, a 
 destructive as well as a conciliatory side. He is 
 unsparing in his exposure of the folly and wicked- 
 ness of the pagan worship and practices. As 
 might be expected, his Logos Protreptikos, or 
 hortatory address to the Greeks, differs consider- 
 ably from the Apologies of Minucius, Justin, or 
 TertulliarK He has not the advantage of Justin's 
 hazardous position, nor does his fearlessness, 
 though unsurpassed by any of the apologists, 
 appear in so interesting a light as if he had been 
 pleading at the tribunal of Caesar. His address 
 does not possess the picturesque and dramatic 
 
 ^ Pressense thus describes Clement's position : " II est 
 I'apologiste des geutils, I'apotre de la Grece cultivee, et il 
 plaide la cause du Christ devant un areopage ideal ou siegent 
 comme juges tons les grands philosophes de I'antiquite. II 
 parle lei;r langue, il les prend au point de developpement moral 
 et religienx on il les trouve pour les amener a la verite 
 complete." 
 
138 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 attractions of the OdaviuSj but his impassioned 
 earnestness, which throughout breaks through his 
 reasoning in loving and pointed appeal, raises him 
 above all his predecessors and contemporaries. 
 His assault upon the heathen position is con- 
 ducted with all the vigour of TertuUian, but with 
 far more than his love, care, and skill. What- 
 ever he says of idolatry is sensible and convinc- 
 ing, is based upon an unusually extensive 
 acquaintance with the mythology and literature 
 of the Greeks, and reminds us, by its animated 
 and cogent reasoning, of the Epistle to Diognetus. 
 ''The Parian stone," he says (pp. 50 and 78),^ 
 "is beautiful, but it is not Neptune; the ivory is 
 pleasant to the eye, but it is not Olympian Jove. 
 Let your Phidias and Polycletus, your Praxiteles 
 and Apelles come, and let them say which of 
 them has made a breathing image, or out of earth 
 moulded the soft flesh. Who liquefies the mar- 
 row 1 Who set and jointed the bones ? Who 
 strung the sinews 1 Who inflated the veins, and 
 poured blood into them ? Who stretched the 
 skin around 1 AVhere is he who made the eye to 
 see ? Who breathed into the body the breath of 
 life 1 Who endowed man with righteousness, 
 
 ^ The references are to the pages of Potter's edition, Avhicli 
 are given in the other editions. 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 139 
 
 and promised him immortality 1 The Creator of 
 all things, the supreme Artificer and Father. He 
 alone made such a living image when he made us. 
 But your Olympian Jove, the image of an image, 
 widely differing from the reality, is the dumb 
 work of Attic hands. Why, then, ye foolish and 
 vain, have ye forsaken heaven to pay honour to 
 earth ? For is not this image of earth, and does 
 it not receive the form which ye worship from 
 the idea and hand of an earthly workman ? I 
 have learned to tread earth, and not to worship 
 it." The characters of the gods are elaborately 
 exposed, and their shameful histories brought 
 forward from the most received authorities, poets, 
 historians, and philosophers. " These gods," says 
 Clement (p. 28), "let your wives worship, and 
 bid them pray that their own husbands become 
 like their gods in temperance. Let your boys be 
 brought up to reverence these characters, that 
 they may themselves become such men, and show 
 in their own persons the image of the divine 
 impurity." He dwells also upon the folly and 
 immorality of many superstitions to which the 
 heathen clung, for no better reason than that 
 their fathers had sanctioned them by their 
 practice. He rebukes (p. 82) "the pitiable and 
 paltry superstition of the men who think that 
 
UO CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 God speaks through crows and jackdaws, but is 
 silent through man ; who honour the crow as 
 God's messenger, but persecute the man of God, 
 though he comes not croaking and cawing, but 
 speaking articulately, and communicating reason- 
 able and profitable instruction ; him, alas ! they 
 seek to slay w^hen he calls to righteousness, for 
 they neither accept heaven's grace nor evade its 
 punishment. For they believe not God, nor 
 understand his might. But his hatred of wicked- 
 ness is incomprehensible, whose love of man is 
 ineffable. His wrath cherishes punishment for 
 sin, while his love blesses the penitent." 
 
 Clement has also much to say regarding the 
 narrowness of any philosophical religion. He 
 presses the arguments that have since become 
 common. " The teaching of our Master has not 
 been confined to Judea, as philosophy to Greece. 
 It has poured itself through the whole world, 
 persuading Greeks and barbarians of every race, 
 in all cities and villages, instructing whole families 
 together, and enlightening individual believers 
 wherever one was found hearkening to the truth ; 
 and having already won to the truth not a few 
 even of the philosophers themselves." And not 
 only has the truth thus an inherent property 
 which secures its spread, it is also indestructible. 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 141 
 
 It is available for all kinds of men, and if crushed 
 out of one region springs up in another. " Greek 
 philosophy, if the ruler happens to prohibit it, 
 there and then perishes ; our doctrine has, from 
 its first enouncement, been opposed and denounced 
 by kings and princes, by governors and rulers, 
 usine ao^ainst it armies of satellites and countless 
 hosts of assailants, exerting their whole force to 
 cut us off from the earth. Yet our doctrine 
 flourishes but the more ; for it does not perish 
 like human teaching, nor fade like a powerless 
 gift — for no gift of God is powerless, but remains 
 unrebuked and undestroyed, since it is written 
 that to the end it will be persecuted" (p. 828). 
 He brings forward as a further distinction of 
 Christianity, its applicability to women as well as 
 to men. This distinguishes it from philosophy, 
 and asserts its claim to universal reception. " If 
 men and women have the same God, then one 
 ' Paedagogue ' belongs to both, and both have 
 the same virtue. There is one church, one tem- 
 perance, one modesty, common food, conjugal 
 marriage, breathing, seeing, hearing, knowing, 
 hoping, obedience, love, — all are alike to both. 
 They whose life is thus common have also a 
 common salvation" (p. 103). These words are 
 sufficient evidence that Clement was thoroughly 
 
142 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDEIA 
 
 aware of the mission of Christianity, and confident 
 in its power as the revelation of the true God. 
 It is interesting, too, to find this early and distinct 
 appreciation of the dignity of woman followed up 
 in the Paedagogue by such precepts and counsels 
 as would enable the gay and luxurious women of 
 Alexandria to forsake the vicious and dissolute 
 habits in which they had been reared, and become 
 patterns in all modest, matronly, and Christian 
 conversation. 
 
 From these passages it will already be con- 
 jectured what is the positive evidence on which 
 Clement mainly depends for the proof of Christi- 
 anity. From these it will already be seen that 
 Clement trusts mainly to the truth being its own 
 evidence. He views the heathen as "feeling 
 after, if haply they might find God." His work 
 is done when he has presented Christ to them. 
 He starts from the truth received in common by 
 himself and the heathen, that man is made to 
 know, worship, and imitate God ; he goes on to 
 show that the gods whom they and their fathers 
 have been worshipping deserve neither worship 
 nor imitation ; and this apology is complete when 
 he has shown the true God revealed in the Word. 
 Not that he follows this or any other order, but 
 that these are the elements of his task. He 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 143 
 
 believes that if Christ be set fairly before the soul 
 of man, the soul will recognise Him and acknow- 
 ledge Him. His aim is to persuade the (^iAoo-o^o§ 
 to become <f)iX6\oyos ; and believing that man 
 was made by the Word and for the Word, he 
 believes also that there is that in man which will 
 know and cleave to the Word. In the very first 
 sentences of the Logos Frotreptikos, in opposition 
 to oracles, poets, and philosophers who had led 
 men astray, Clement sets forth the Word of God 
 (to aa-fxa to Kaivov) in His office of teacher, and 
 tells how He has come to open the blind eyes and 
 lead the wanderers to righteousness, to declare 
 God to men, to conquer death and bring corrup- 
 tion to an end, to exhort {TrpoTpcTvetv), instruct, 
 and reconcile men to God. So that while he is 
 careful to maintain that the love of God to man 
 is not a new thing, nor his pity now for the first 
 time active (a A A' avioOcv dpxrjOev), the whole power 
 of his address consists in his presentation of Christ 
 as the one Teacher of truth and the sole Provider 
 of life. These words may be taken as the motto 
 . of the piece, — TraAata Tj TrXavT], Kaivov Se rj aA^y^eia 
 
 It is impossible to reproduce in a translation 
 the rapidity and rhythm of Clement's eloquence, 
 and the surprising happiness of his phraseology. 
 
144 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 or to convey any idea of his inexhaustible 
 vocabulary. It is difficult even to preserve the 
 warmth and energy of his appeal ; nor can a few 
 detached passages produce an impression such as 
 is felt on the perusal of the connected and 
 cumulative whole. ^ Yet such is the wealth of 
 the original, that, though much be spilt in the 
 translation, enough may remain to show the 
 nature of his argument, and that he is worthy of 
 the title, "le fondateur de la grande apologie." 
 
 " Man is born to have connection with God. As, 
 then, we do not force the horse to plough nor the 
 steer to hunt, but apply each animal to its natural 
 employment, so, of course, man, being made for the 
 contemplation of heaven, a heavenly plant,^ we exhort 
 to the knowledge of God. We counsel him to prepare 
 godliness as his proper, special, and peculiar mainten- 
 ance (viaticum) for eternity. Till the ground, we say, 
 if you are a tiller of the soil ; but with your tilling, 
 know God. Sail, whoever loves the sea ; but call 
 upon the heavenly Pilot. Has the love of a military 
 life possessed you ? then hearken to the Captain whose 
 
 ^ Yet what Pressense says, with something of plaintive 
 simplicity, is quite true : " Nos lecteurs ne sauraient se faire 
 une idee de tout ce que ses oerits out de confus, jiarce que nous 
 n'avons cite que les passages les plus beaux sans le suivre dans 
 les detours infinis de son style." The quotations in Pressense 
 must give every reader a liigli idea of Clement's power of 
 expression. 
 
 '^ (pCkbdeov ^ooov is a title of man in the Pedagogue. 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 145 
 
 signals are in righteousness. . . . Let us not, let us 
 not be enslaved nor grovel in tlie mire like swine ; 
 but as the true children of the light, let us look up 
 and use our eyes to the light, lest the Lord prove us 
 bastards, as the sun the eaglets. Let us repent and 
 23ass from ignorance to knowledge, from foolishness to 
 wisdom, from licentiousness to temperance, from un- 
 righteousness to righteousness, from godlessness to 
 God. It is a worthy venture to desert to God. ' The 
 earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.' How 
 then do you dare to luxuriate in his possessions, and 
 be ignorant of their Lord ? Quit my earth, the Lord 
 will say to you ; touch not the water which I cause 
 to spring, neither gather the fruits which I rij)en ; 
 pay the price of your sustenance ; O man, recognise 
 your Lord ; thou art the peculiar workmanship of 
 God ; how then can his property become another's 1 
 . . . Believe, man, in man and God ; ^ believe, 
 man, in him who suffered and is adored — the living 
 God. Ye servants, believe in him who was dead. 
 All men, believe ye in him who is the only God of all 
 men. Believe, and receive salvation as your reward. 
 ' Seek ye the Lord, and your soul shall live.' He that 
 seeks God is taking steps towards his own salvation. 
 Hast thou found God ? Thou hast life. Let us then 
 seek that we may also live,^ For the reward of 
 finding God is life in his presence" (p. 84). 
 
 ^ A title given to Christ in an early part of this address is 
 6 [xovos d/j.(po} deSs re kuI dvdpwiros. 
 
 ^ ^rjT-qawjj.ev 'Iva koL '{-qawqev. For analogy of alliteration, 
 cf. X-qd-q dX-qdeias. For the sense, cf. p. 89, where he says 
 ddvaros yap d'tSios djiapTla. 
 
 L 
 
146 CLEMENT OF ALEXAXDEIA 
 
 " The word wliich. enlightens us is more to be 
 desired tlian gold. Let us receive the light, that we 
 may receive God. Let us receive the light, and we 
 shall become the disciples of God, and it will instruct 
 us how we have wandered in our search after God. 
 Since thou. Lord, leadest me by thy light, through 
 thee I find God, and from thee I receive the Father. 
 I become thy co-heir, since thou art not ashamed to 
 call me brother. Let us, then, cast off, let us cast off 
 our oblivion of the truth, our ignorance, and the 
 darkness which dims our vision like a mist ; and 
 looking upon him who lives, the true God, let us 
 greet him. Hail, Light ! for upon us who were 
 plunged in darkness and buried in the shadow of 
 death hath light from heaven shone, purer than the 
 sun, sweeter than this life below. That light is life 
 everlasting ; and whatsoever partakes of it lives. 
 And the night does homage to the light, and setting 
 througli fear, gives place to the day of the Lord, All 
 things are become sleepless light ; and the setting has 
 believed in the rising. This is the new creation. 
 For the Sun of Eighteousness rides prosperously, and 
 visits all mankind alike, imitating the Father, who 
 ' maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good,' 
 and sprinkles upon all the dew of truth. He it is 
 who has brought the setting to the rising, and has 
 raised death to life through the cross [literally, 
 crucified death to life] ; and having snatched man 
 from destruction, he has translated him to the skies, 
 transplanting corruption into incorruption, and trans- 
 forming earth into heaven, as the husbandman of 
 God " (p. 88). 
 
AXD HIS APOLOGETIC 147 
 
 Throughout the Faedagogue, as well as the 
 other treatises of Clement, there abound the 
 fullest and most distinct assertions of the pre- 
 existence and absolute divinity of Christ, often very 
 happily worded and always delivered with a hearty 
 and reverential warmth. Such passages as the 
 following frequently occur, " The Lord, despised 
 by the eye, was worshipped in act, the Expiator 
 (6 KaOdpatos), and Saviour, and Propitiator, the 
 divine Word, the most manifest and true God, 
 equalled to the Lord of all (because He was his 
 Son and ' the Word was in God ') • neither dis- 
 believed when first announced, nor unrecognised 
 when, taking the person of man and formed in the 
 flesh, he acted out the drama of man's salvation.^ 
 For he was a genuine combatant, and fought along 
 with the creature ; and, being very quickly made 
 known to and distributed among all men, caused 
 God to shine on us more swiftly than the rising 
 sun diffuses his beams in obedience to the same 
 fatherly will. He revealed God, and showed from 
 whom and who he was, by the things which he 
 taught and did — the Peace-bringer, the Eecon- 
 ciler, the Word, our Saviour ; a fountain, giving 
 
 ^ These expressions, TpoaojireTou and viroKpLvecrdai, bor- 
 rowed from the theatre, might, in some writers, be susceptible 
 of a Docetic interpretation, but are certainly free from suspicion 
 in Clement. 
 
148 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 life and peace, poured over the face of the whole 
 earth ; through whom, so to speak, the universe 
 has now become a sea of good." Shortly after, he 
 again breaks into a laudatory description. " This 
 is the word of incorruption who regenerates man, 
 restoring him to truth ; the goad of salvation, who 
 drives out corruption and chases death away ; the 
 builder of a temple among men, that he might 
 make God to dwell among men. Sanctify this 
 temple ; let pleasures and luxuries, like the flower 
 of yesterday, be abandoned to the wind and the 
 fire, and wisely cultivate the fruits of temperance, 
 and dedicate thyself as the first-fruits to God, that 
 not the work only, but the grace also, may be of 
 God." 
 
 The address closes with an eloquent appeal put 
 into the mouth of the Word, and opening with 
 language familiar to Greek ears (p. 93) : 
 
 " Hear, ye myriad tribes, yea, all men who are en- 
 dowed with reason. Barbarians as well as Greeks : I 
 call upon the whole human race, whose Creator I am 
 by the will of the Father, come to me that ye may be 
 arrayed under the one God and the one Word of God. 
 Be not satisfied with excelling all irrational animals in 
 reason, since to you only of all mortal beings do I 
 grant immortality. For I wish, I wish, to share with 
 you this grace. I confer upon you a benefit perfect 
 and entire, incorruption. I freely give you the Word, 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 149 
 
 the knowledge of God ; myself I wlioUy give to you. 
 This I am, this God wills, this is the harmony, this the 
 whole good pleasure of the Father, this is the Son, this 
 Christ, this the Word of God, the arm of the Lord, the 
 power of all things, the will of the Father. Of these 
 there have been from of old many images, but images 
 without resemblance. I am come to direct you to the 
 archetype, that to me ye also may become like. I will 
 anoint you with the unction of faith, through which 
 ye put off corruption, and I will show to you the naked 
 form of righteousness, through which ye ascend to 
 God. Come unto me, all je that labour, etc. Let us 
 hasten, let us run, God-beloved and God-like images 
 of the Word. Let us hasten, let us run, let us take 
 his yoke, let us be urged forward to immortality by 
 this noble charioteer of men. Let us form part of his 
 triumph entering the presence of the Father. The 
 noblest spectacle to the Father is the Son Eternal 
 triumphing. Let us, then, be ambitious of sharing in 
 such honours, let us be the favoured of God, and 
 obtain the greatest of enduring possessions, God and 
 life. Christ is our helj)er. Let us take courage in 
 him. . . . But enough of words, yea, too much has 
 been already said, drawn on as I have been by this 
 opportunity which God has given me, of inviting you 
 to salvation. For the words which tell of a life that 
 has no end nor cessation are ready themselves to run 
 on endlessly. To you, now, this remains, that you 
 make choice of the most profitable, judgment or grace ; 
 since, for my own part, I do not think it worth while 
 deliberating which of the two is better ; nor indeed is 
 it justifiable to weigh destruction with life." 
 
150 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 In such passages as these Clement sets the 
 Word in presence of the Greeks, declares His 
 nature, His properties and His work. He makes 
 abundant use of Scripture for the purpose both of 
 defining more accurately the person of Christ, and 
 of persuading men of the sincerity of His desire 
 to guide them to God and immortality. He thus 
 answers the questions which were being asked on 
 all sides, and to which philosophy had professed 
 to give the only satisfying answer. Clement tells 
 men of Christ, and says to them. This is He who 
 can bring you to all you seek. Is not this He 
 whom you seek ] Will not your destiny be 
 achieved in coming to Him ? Clement thus rose 
 above the position of the earlier Apologists, and 
 anticipated much of the modern Apologetic. If 
 this religion, says Clement, be not what you need, 
 reject it ; if it be, acknowledge and use it. " We 
 who are sick have need of a Saviour ; straying, we 
 need a guide ; and blind, we need one who can 
 lead us to the light ; thirsty, we need the living 
 fountain, from which, if we drink, we shall no 
 more thirst ; the dead need life ; the sheep a shep- 
 herd; the children a paedagogue; yea, all humanity 
 needs Jesus ; lest, wandering and sinning to the 
 end, we fall into condemnation, but rather, being 
 separated from the chaff, be gathered into the 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 151 
 
 Father's garner" (p. 147). He knew that there 
 was an absohite harmony between the necessities 
 of man's nature and God's religion. To use his 
 own language, there was an eternal religion sub- 
 sisting between the Paedagogue, or the AVord, and 
 the men whom He had made. In all men there 
 existed that which made them capable of recognis- 
 ing and following Christ, and this was to him 
 final proof that Christ was to be followed. If any 
 other teacher can teach more or better, if any 
 other can penetrate the human spirit to a greater 
 depth, or draw with a stronger attraction, let him 
 be followed. 
 
 The detailed enunciation of Christian precepts, 
 and the elaborate display of Christian life, which 
 form so large a part of the writings of Clement, 
 were necessary to the fulfilment of the task which 
 his position demanded. The problem of philo- 
 sophy, the great difficulty to all thinking men, had 
 always been, and continued to be, How is the 
 perfect man to be formed, and what, in the first 
 place, is he 1 Man is, undoubtedly, a very superior 
 creation ; how is it that he so continually exposes 
 himself to his own contempt, and falls short still 
 of all the glories he seems with such justice to 
 arrogate 1 Is there no possibility that he should 
 actually achieve his high destiny, and become all 
 
152 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 he is capable of? To these questions philosophy 
 had her answers; and Clement, in pursuance of 
 his plan of meeting the philosophers as much as 
 possible on their own ground, shows how the soul 
 is purified in this life, and what conduct is proper 
 to those who have entered the Christian school. 
 After explaining, as was particularly needful to 
 his audience, that the proper expression of our 
 knowledge of God is in the life, he enters with 
 much detail upon the inculcation of Christian 
 duty. He has been much censured for his per- 
 formance of this part of his task. It has been 
 urged against him that, instead of laying down 
 jmnciples of action, he has busied himself with 
 trifling and ludicrous minutiae, and that " he sets 
 before us little or nothing that is at all fitted to 
 promote the cause of genuine Christian holiness 
 of heart and life." It would be nearer the truth 
 to say, that while he does lay down (and with 
 admirable terseness) principles of conduct, and sets 
 before us (and with admirable power) much that 
 is fitted to improve the spirit, all this is overlaid 
 and partially obscured by a detail that would be 
 wearisome were it not ludicrous. We expect a 
 system of morality ; we find a code of table 
 etiquette. We expect to sit at the feet of a 
 Johnson ; we are introduced to a Chesterfield. 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 153 
 
 We lend our ear to the counsels of a spiritual 
 adviser ; and we hear the prescriptions of a 
 valetudinarian. We are instructed how to lie at 
 table, how to laugh without violating decorum, 
 and how to sneeze or cough without distressing 
 our neighbours. We are told that it resembles 
 the lower animals to sniff the steam of a savoury 
 dish, that it is unseemly to speak with the mouth 
 full, and precarious to drink in the same condition. 
 We are cautioned against lying in carved bed- 
 steads, because such harbour reptiles ; against 
 using any perfumes which neither relieve the head 
 nor strengthen the stomach ; against wearing the 
 hair on the head too thick, because that injures 
 the brain, and against wearing it on the chin too 
 thin, because that is effeminate, for the beard is 
 older than Eve, and the sign of a superior nature. 
 If our hair is gray, we must not dye it ; and if we 
 have no hair at all, we must not wear another 
 person's. If we wear rings, they must bear no 
 unseemly devices on them, but a dove, or a fish, or 
 an anchor. A lady, however wealthy, ought not 
 to wear dresses which attract the eyes and the 
 calculations of men, though she may dress so as to 
 please her husband. She must not wear sandals 
 covered with gold and precious stones, nor so trim 
 her hair that she is afraid to move her head. All 
 
154 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 this is curious, but not very edifying to a modern 
 reader. But along with this, and interwoven with 
 it, are found such manly and sensible injunctions, 
 such devout though allegorising allusions, and all 
 so well said, that one is carried on with not a little 
 interest. And we believe that an age which was 
 given up to such senseless customs, and which 
 wallowed in such abominable practices as are here 
 denounced, required as definite and detailed ad- 
 monition as we find in the Paedagogue of Clement. 
 As Bishoj) Kaye very well observes, " His in- 
 tention was to deliver rules for the guidance of 
 his fellow-Christians in the common intercourse of 
 life. Many of his rules are puerile, many 
 grounded on false principles ; but there is mingled 
 with them much that may even now be read with 
 profit, much that is fitted to give a religious tone 
 to the mind, and to inspire it with the love of 
 purity and virtue. When, too, we censure the 
 minutiae into which Clement descends, we should 
 bear in mind that, situated as Christians then 
 were, it was desirable to draw as marked a line of 
 distinction as possible between their manner of life 
 and that of the heathens by whom they were 
 surrounded." 
 
 As might have been expected, the Christian 
 use of wealth was a favourite theme with the 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 155 
 
 Alexandrian censor. Not only is it handled at 
 large in the excellent discourse entitled, " Quis 
 dives salvetur," he also recurs to it in various 
 parts of his writings. His view of it will be 
 understood from the following : 
 
 " Wealth, indeed, seems to me to be much like a 
 serpent ; unless you know how to catch it without 
 risk, and can lift it up by the tip of the tail, it will 
 double back and fold round your hand and bite you : 
 just so wealth, whether in the hand of the prudent or 
 unwary, is a desperate thing to wriggle and catch and 
 bite, but there is a possibility of a man using it so 
 magnanimously and wisely as to charm the brute by 
 the incantation of the Word and himself remain un- 
 hurt." 
 
 Again, in the fine chapter on " Simplicity the 
 best viaticum for the Christian," he says : 
 
 " Why are such dainties prepared ? Is it to fill one 
 belly ? Why such an array of drinking vessels ? Why 
 such heaps of ornaments and such crowded wardrobes 
 and cabinets ? For thieves that slip into other men's 
 clothes and for lickerish eyes. It becomes us rather 
 to set out for the truth girt and light ; as our Lord 
 says, ' Carry neither purse, nor scrij), nor shoes,' i.e. 
 do not burden yourselves with that wealth which can 
 only be stored in purses ; do not cram your treasuries 
 as those who stuff a wallet with food, but share with 
 them that need ; neither trouble yourselves with 
 beasts of burden and a train of servants, who (because 
 
156 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 tliey bear the burdens of tlie wealthy) are figuratively 
 called ' shoes.' Let us then dispense with a multitude 
 of utensils, ^vith cups of silver and vessels of gold, and 
 a crowd of domestics, and let us receive industry and 
 simplicity as the honourable and seemly companions 
 of our journey. Let us walk in harmony with the 
 "Word, and even if we have wife and children, a house- 
 hold will prove no burden which has learnt to follow 
 a wise guide, and the wife who loves her husband will 
 walk as he walks. 
 
 "A good support on the heavenward journey is the 
 double strength of simj)licity and wise gravity. As 
 the foot is the measure of the shoe, so is the body of 
 each one's requirements. What is over and above, all 
 ornate furnishings and movables, are merely a burden. 
 One who is pressing to heaven, and has his way to 
 force, should take bounty as his staff, and sharing 
 Mdth the afflicted and hard pressed, become himself 
 partaker of the true rest. For as wells which are fed 
 by a perennial spring rise always to their old level, 
 however abundantly you draw ; and as the milk flows 
 to the breasts Mdiich give suck, so bounty, the good 
 fountain of benevolence, shares and distributes itself 
 to the thirsting, and is yet again increased and filled. 
 For he who has the Word, the Almighty God, is in- 
 dependent, and never runs out of anything he needs. 
 For the Word is a sufficient possession, and the source 
 of all welfare." 
 
 After these quotations, our readers Avill scarcely 
 be prepared for the assertion that Clement " ex- 
 hibits plain traces of the operation at once of 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 157 
 
 what have been called the ascetic and the mystic 
 systems of morality." There are, indeed, state- 
 ments in Clement which might be set side by side 
 with the sentiments of F^nelon's Dissertation on 
 Pure Love, or Madame Guyon's Torrents ; but there 
 is throughout the writings of the Alexandrian a 
 broad and wholesome practicalness, a modern 
 common sense, which sets him at a distance from 
 the French Pietists of the seventeenth century. 
 The charge of mysticism may, however, be estab- 
 lished, but the charge of asceticism cannot be 
 allowed. The position of Clement as the ortho- 
 dox champion against Valentinus and Basilides, if 
 nothing else, forbade him to lean to asceticism. 
 His attitude towards philosophy laid him under a 
 like necessity to vindicate the rights of the body. 
 "The soul," he says (p. 639), "is the better part 
 of man, the body the inferior ; but neither is the 
 soul essentially good, nor the body essentially 
 bad." The author quoted above as making these 
 charges has been unfortunate in the instances he 
 has chosen to confirm them. He says, " On the 
 one hand, he prohibits indulgences which the 
 Scriptures do not condemn (as second marriages) ; 
 and, on the other hand, he releases men from 
 obligations which the Scriptures impose, — as, for 
 example, when he denies the necessity for regular 
 
158 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 times and seasons for prayer and religious exer- 
 cises, upon the ground that men ought always to 
 cultivate a devotional spirit." Upon the first 
 charge we ask the reader's attention to the fol- 
 lowing words of Clement which represent his 
 whole teaching on the point (p. 511): "A single 
 marriage (/xovoya/>t,ia), and the seemly dignity 
 attached to it, we admire ; saying, however, that 
 we ought to be sympathising, and to bear one 
 another's burdens, lest some one, thinking he 
 stands, himself also fall. And respecting second 
 marriage, the apostle says, If you burn, marry." 
 The same opinion is expressed in the 12th cap. 
 of the third book of the Stromata ; and how any 
 one can have read that book (wholly occupied as 
 it is with the subject of marriage), and have failed 
 to see that Clement is professedly and effectively 
 opposing ascetic tendencies, we are at a loss to 
 understand. The instance cited in support of the 
 second charge is not more happy. Clement's own 
 words concerning prayer, which he nowhere con- 
 tradicts, but everywhere confirms, are these (p. 
 851; they occur in one of the most beautiful and 
 instructive chapters of the Stromata) : "The whole 
 life of the Gnostic is a holy festival. His sacrifices 
 are prayers and praises, and the reading of the 
 Scriptures before meals ; psalms and hymns during 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 159 
 
 meals, and before retiring for the night : and 
 during the night, prayers again." It is quite true 
 that Clement declares that the Gnostic, or more 
 advanced Christian, is not dependent on the 
 seasons and places to which others confine their 
 worship ; at the same time, he distinctly com- 
 mends both stated hours and special occasions of 
 prayer He does maintain that the perfect man 
 is always in the enjoyment of communion with 
 God ; in language of great beauty and force he 
 represents the joyful and constant fellowship of 
 the trusting soul with God, and tells how God 
 hears not only the voice, but the thought ; but he 
 nowhere denies the necessity of stated and special 
 prayer. 
 
 This latter point is, however, of less import- 
 ance, as Clement is undoubtedly the forerunner of 
 Dionysius in mysticism. The Gnostic of Clement 
 is in all the leading features of his character the 
 mystic of La Combe and the Archbishop of Cam- 
 bray. Almost all that is found in the Maxims of 
 the Saints, or the Orationis Mentalis Analysis, may 
 be found in the sixth and seventh books of the 
 Stromata. In these books it is Clement's object 
 to describe the spiritual condition and outward 
 deportment of the true Gnostic ; and, in the judg- 
 ment of one whose voice in such matters has much 
 
160 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 authority, " Clement's portraiture of the perfect 
 Christian is one of the noblest things of the kind 
 that the world ever saw ; yet the assertions can- 
 not always be defended." It would have been 
 marvellous indeed, if, in a communion swarming 
 with heresies of every name, Clement had seen 
 the simple truth and been able to declare it with 
 power, and yet without over -statement. The 
 errors of the French Quietists must be laid partly 
 at the door of the Church of Rome, for, though 
 they had no thought of abandoning her communion, 
 the recoil from some of her doctrines drove them 
 farther from the truth than they might otherwise 
 have departed. Any one who takes an interest 
 in mysticism will find it interesting to pursue the 
 analogy between the ancient and modern forms of 
 it, and to trace something of its history. The 
 superiority of the Gnostic to the com_mon believer, 
 everywhere assumed in the Stromata, this is the 
 very point which Bossuet saw to be the foundation 
 of all Madame Guyon's error, and which he first 
 assailed. " The doctrines which you advance, 
 Madame, involve the fact of an inward experience 
 above the common experience of Christians." That 
 this is attained by contemplation of pure divinity, 
 that this contemplation unites the soul with God 
 in a manner that passes the experience of ordinary 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC 161 
 
 faith, and that this is the perfect bliss and final 
 state of the soul, these are the assertions which 
 are as unhesitatingly delivered by Clement as 
 by any professed and full-blown mystic. The 
 (XTrddeLa of Clement's Gnostic, i.e. the exemption 
 from, and not the controlling of, natural desires 
 and passions, his superiority to pleasure and pain, 
 his effortless self-command, and his pure love of 
 God, these are the well-known features of the later 
 mystic, who has attained to the state of pure love, 
 who has entered the blessed haven of abandon- 
 ment and consecration, and has now no will but 
 the will of God ; who has ceased to form definite 
 desires and expectations, but passes a life of silent 
 prayer in mute dependence on the purpose of God 
 If Clement is guilty of all that is laid to the 
 charge of the Pietists, it would be difficult to 
 prove him quite innocent of helping out the philo- 
 sophical mysticism of Plotinus. That Plotinus 
 listened to as many teachers as were within his 
 reach, until he found in the doctrines of Ammonius 
 Saccas all that his soul sought, we know on the 
 authority of his biographer. Porphyry. That he was 
 very well acquainted with the teaching of Clement, 
 we have therefore every reason to believe. That his 
 system had much in it by which he might be con- 
 victed of purloining from Christianity, is recog- 
 
 M 
 
162 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 nised on the most superficial examination ; and it 
 is scarcely credible that he should not have been 
 most jDOwerfully influenced by that Christian 
 teacher who most nearly approximates to the tone 
 of Plato, and who anticipates his own doctrine of 
 the absorption in the divine essence of the soul 
 that is exalted and purified by contemplation. 
 Yet he who concluded that because Clement was 
 philosophical and mystical he was therefore the 
 father of Plotinus, and solely accountable for his 
 birth, would show his ignorance of Neoplatonism, 
 as much as he who argued that because Clement 
 was a mystic he was also an ascetic, would show 
 his ignorance of modern pietism. In this very 
 article of asceticism there is a striking difference 
 between the teaching of Clement, who recognised 
 in the body the well-furnished palace of the soul, 
 and that of Plotinus, who " refused to permit his 
 picture to be taken, because it would unduly per- 
 petuate the image of a body he deplored, and 
 avoided all mention of the date and locality of his 
 birth, as too dark and miserable an epoch to be 
 remembered." ^ 
 
 We may be induced to be somewhat more 
 lenient to the early philosophical theologians, when 
 we compare. their firm grasp of the doctrine of the 
 ^ Archer Butler's Ancient Philosophy, ii. 362, 
 
AND HIS APOLOGETIC -163 
 
 Trinity with the shambling discourse of Tertullian 
 regarding this fundamental of our Creed. And a 
 little attention to the position of the Alexandrians 
 convinces us that their Trinitarian teaching was 
 in some degree dictated by their philosophical 
 leanings. If the Word had been the teacher of 
 philosophers from the first, then the pre-existence 
 and divinity of Jesus are almost of necessity main- 
 tained. The necessary foundation of all Clement's 
 apologetic is, " Our teacher is Jesus, the Holy God, 
 the guiding Word of all humanity" (p. 131). 
 Without the divinity of Christ the argument of 
 Clement can make no way whatever ; the doctrine 
 of the Trinity is involved in each step of it. No 
 doubt his position led him into error, as well as 
 prompted him with much that was true. His 
 defective view of the wrath of God was due partly 
 to his philosophising tendency, and partly to his 
 commendable but extreme opposition to those who 
 believed in a Demiurge. His whole teaching on 
 the articles of faith and free will bear evidence 
 that it was directed against the false Gnostics. 
 And in the chapters in which he most distinctly 
 delivers himself on these points, he expressly 
 combats the errors of Valentinus and Basilides. 
 Had they not maintained that a man's spiritual 
 destiny had nothing to do with his own will, 
 
164 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 Clement might not have been tempted to pro- 
 nounce that a man's own will had everything to 
 do with his faith. But we cannot enter now upon 
 the wide subject of Clement's dogmatic. Suffice 
 it to say, that all his writings are very worthy of 
 an attentive perusal, that they are not only his- 
 torically interesting, both as reflecting his own 
 times and as exhibiting the ages that were then 
 past, but are also so fresh and vigorous, so erudite 
 and yet so hearty and devout, as to command, if 
 not our uninterrupted admiration, at least our con- 
 stant love. And if his style has those faults 
 which were mentioned above, it is also possessed 
 of a characteristic beauty, purity of expression, 
 and force of phrase, and is relieved by an occa- 
 sional brilliance and rapidity of logical discussion 
 which might vindicate for him, more than for any 
 who has claimed the title, the epithet of the 
 Christian Plato. 
 
 M. D. 
 
 July 1863. 
 
V 
 
 FEEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 During the last two or three years the Church of 
 England has sustained losses which are lamented 
 by multitudes beyond her own pale. With start- 
 ling rapidity Dean Milman, Dean Alford, Dean 
 Mansel, and Professor Maurice have followed one 
 another to the grave. Intellectually the least of 
 the four, Dean Alford, by his English common- 
 sense, sagacity, and indomitable industry, as well 
 as by his business - like concentration on one 
 object, has produced a work, which, whatever 
 may be the opinion as to its permanent value, 
 must be admitted to have materially contributed 
 to the advancement of exegetical study, and to 
 stand as yet unrivalled as a first step in that study. 
 Still greater diversity of opinion exists regarding 
 the magnum opus of Dean Mansel, a diversity only 
 equalled by the unanimity with which all who are 
 capable of judging ascribe to him a learning and 
 
166 FEEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 a mastery of it second only to that of one of his 
 great teachers, Sir AYilliam Hamilton, together 
 with a strength and closeness of reasoning and un- 
 flagging vigour in speculation little short of his 
 other great master, Bishop Butler. The writings 
 of Dean Milman have the graceful massiveness of 
 style and artistic completeness which belong to 
 classical works ; thoroughly equipped, laborious, 
 and impartial, he is always accurate, and his nar- 
 rative, never coloured by the prejudice or heat of 
 the writer, presents undimmed the colour of his 
 theme ; dealing with the most perplexed and in- 
 definite states of opinion, with Gnosticism, Neo- 
 platonism, Manichaeism, he is always lucid and 
 never shallow ; universally informed, and able to 
 condense into one paragraph more material than 
 some historians furnish in a volume, and sug- 
 gesting by a single word a new direction for 
 thought or a revolution of opinion, he has the 
 consummate historical tact which selects only 
 what is requisite, and so felicitouslj^ groups it as 
 to fascinate and substantially inform his reader. 
 But our business now is not with any of these 
 three serviceable and lamented Deans, but with 
 one whose marked individuality caused him to 
 miss preferment, but won for him a quite unusual 
 esteem and affection. 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 167 
 
 Frederick Denison Maurice was born in the 
 year 1805. He was the son of a Unitarian 
 minister, esteemed for his intelligence and kindli- 
 ness. At an early age he was sent to Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, where he was fortunate 
 enough to have Julius Charles Hare for his tutor 
 and John Sterling for his friend. More congenial 
 society could nowhere have been found for a dis- 
 position like Mr. Maurice's, nor society more 
 likely to develop his undergraduate mind on its 
 richest side and in its most promising direction. 
 Had his lot been cast in Oxford his theological 
 opinions might have been forced into more definite 
 and stable forms ; but from his Cambridge contem- 
 poraries, and especially from his philosophical, all- 
 accomplished, and vigorous tutor, and from his 
 truth-loving and courageous friend, there passed 
 into his character and intellect, and even into his 
 style, some of the elements most valuable in his 
 subsequent career. 
 
 " Their life seems to have been an ardently specu- 
 lating and talking one ; by no means excessively 
 restrained within limits ; and, in the more adven- 
 turous heads like Sterling's, decidedly tending towards 
 the latitudinarian in most things. They had among 
 them a Debating Society called the Union, where, on 
 stated evenings, was much logic and other spiritual 
 fencing and ingenuous collision, — probably of a really 
 
168 FEEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 superior quality in tliat kind ; for not a few of the 
 then disputants have since proved themselves men of 
 parts, and attained distinction in the intellectual 
 walks of life : Frederick Maurice, Richard Trench, 
 John Kemble, Spedding, Yenables, Charles Butler, 
 Richard Milnes, and others." ^ 
 
 But paramount as the influence of such con- 
 temporaries must have been, it will not be 
 doubted by those who understand college life, 
 that the majesty of its intellectual ancestry had 
 much to do with loosening the student from the 
 narrowness of Unitarianism. It is probable that 
 he could endorse the words of his distinguished 
 predecessor at Cambridge : 
 
 " I could not print 
 Ground w^here the grass had yielded to the steps 
 Of generations of illustrious men. 
 Unmoved. I could not always lightly pass 
 Through the same gateways, sleep where they had 
 
 slept. 
 Wake where they waked, range that enclosure old, 
 That garden of great intellects, undisturbed." 
 
 But at no period of his career, and least of all 
 in the free and formative intercourse of college 
 days, could Mr. Maurice be merely acted upon 
 without powerfully reacting on those around 
 him. Before leaving Cambridge, his marked 
 ^ Carlyle's Life, of Sterling, p. 42. 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 169 
 
 individuality, strong will, and high character, 
 had won for him a sway which was owned by 
 many of his fellow -students. The peculiarity, 
 too, of his religious position must have both 
 reduced him to the happy necessity of thinking 
 for himself, and been the occasion of some 
 inquiry and revision of opinion among those 
 with whom he familiarly conversed. Indeed, 
 had he graduated and accepted academical posi- 
 tion and work, we fancy that the fascination of 
 Pusey's learning and devotedness to doctrine, and 
 of Newman's combination of subtle intellectuality 
 with practical knowledge of men and things, 
 would have been more than rivalled in the sister 
 university by Mr. Maurice's broad humanity and 
 genuine love of truth. But his theological 
 opinions prevented him from subscribing the 
 Articles, and consequently from graduating. 
 Such, however, was his reputation in his college, 
 that on his declining thus to qualify for an 
 academic appointment, it was proposed to keep 
 his name on the College books for a year or two, 
 in order that, if his views should undergo any 
 modification, he might still avail himself of those 
 emoluments and distinctions to which his under- 
 graduate career had confessedly entitled him. 
 Such an offer was highly honourable to him : his 
 
170 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 rejection of it was still more so. And it is inter- 
 esting to find in the youth of two-and-twenty not 
 merely the courageous integrity which character- 
 ised him throughout life, but, what is rarer in 
 youth, an insight into the springs of human con- 
 duct which at once showed him that to keep open 
 the possibility of getting a fellowship was to offer 
 a bribe to himself, and thus to put an undue, how- 
 ever unconscious, pressure on the formation of his 
 opinions. The temptations of young men are 
 commonly appropriate to their character and 
 future career, and it is not without significance 
 that Mr. Maurice should at so early an age have 
 been strongly tempted to sacrifice truth to cus- 
 tom, expediency, friendship, and advantage. 
 
 Taking leave of Cambridge, therefore, without 
 a degree, he went to London, apparently intend- 
 ing to devote himself to literature, in some 
 departments of which his singularly pure style 
 fitted him to excel. His friendship with Sterling 
 continued, and Mr. Silk Buckingham having 
 recently founded the Athenaeum, enlisted the two 
 young friends as contributors. About this time 
 also Mr. Maurice published a novel entitled 
 Eustace Conway. We have somewhere seen it 
 mentioned that one of the characters in this 
 work of fiction being named " Captain Marryat," 
 
FEEDERICK DENISON IMAURICE 171 
 
 the novelist of that name, dimly conceiving that 
 somehow his honour was involved, sent a chal- 
 lenge to the author. ^Ye can fancy the mingled 
 pain and humour with which Mr. Maurice would 
 pen his reply, explaining that his limited reading 
 had left him ignorant of the existence of the 
 celebrated novelist, his correspondent, but apolo- 
 gising, with certainly the faintest flavour of his 
 irrepressible irony, for the indignity he had 
 unwittingly put upon him. That Mr. Maurice 
 might have attained eminence as a novelist will 
 scarcely be denied by those who appreciate his 
 great skill in dealing with character, his fondness 
 for a dramatic vehicle for his thought, and his 
 power of sympathetically understanding positions 
 not comprehended in his own experience. It is 
 possible that some may even believe that his 
 choice of this form of literary eff'ort was a sound 
 and healthy instinct, and that his influence would 
 have been both wider and of a less mingled 
 kind had he not carried into the province of 
 theology qualities which fitted him for the culti- 
 vation of a very different field. 
 
 At this time, however, the change which had 
 been passing on his opinions culminated in his 
 formal rejection of Unitarianism. How this 
 change was accomplished, the steps in it, and 
 
172 FREDERICK DENISON" MAURICE 
 
 the grounds of it, we expect to learn when his 
 biography and correspondence shall have been 
 published ; although the public has more than 
 once had occasion to learn that a man's apologia is 
 not so satisfactory to other minds as to his own. 
 Meanwhile the extent to which his views were 
 modified may be gathered from his published 
 writings, and also from the fact that he now saw 
 his way to subscribe the Articles and take orders 
 in the Church of England.^ It has been more 
 than once insinuated or roundly stated that he 
 retained many of the opinions which characterise 
 the Unitarian Creed ; but this he himself indig- 
 nantly and even fiercely denied. Such an accusa- 
 tion he declares is "an immeasurably more 
 horrible libel — more destructive of my moral 
 
 ^ His idea of subscription may be gathered from tlie follow- 
 ing : "1. When accepted in matriculating, the Articles are 
 guides in the academical course, pointing out a method of 
 thought on theological subjects, and warning of certain con- 
 fusions into which I may fall in the study of these questions. 
 2. When I accept them as M.A., I say that I look on them as 
 maxims of thought which I have found profitable, and mean 
 to retain. 3. When I accept them at ordination, I signify 
 that my teaching will not consciously contravene these 
 maxims, but be in conformity with them." — Slightly abridged 
 from his Letter on Subscription to a Resident Member of Con- 
 vocation. Elsewhere (in one of his Letters to a Resident Mem- 
 ber of Convocation) we find him declaring it "better to be 
 brought up in a dame's school and become a dustman than 
 subscribe the Articles dishonestly." 
 
FEEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 173 
 
 character — than if it had been said that on a 
 certain day, I committed a forgery on the Bank 
 of England, or that I had, in some court of 
 justice, been guilty of a wilful and corrupt per- 
 jury."^ It will afterwards appear that, notwith- 
 standing this strong language, he did continue in 
 substantial agreement with the Unitarians regard- 
 ing some of the points on which the Church of 
 England is supposed to differ from that sect ; but 
 the language he uses in speaking of the Trinity is 
 certainly more Athanasian than that of the 
 eminent, though scarcely Nicene, divine who 
 believes in God in Nature, God in History, God 
 in us. Mr. Maurice laboured under the misfor- 
 tune of a style so ambiguous that a habit of 
 suspicion is bred in his reader, and his Neo- 
 platonic proclivities were so notorious as to pro- 
 voke unusual watchfulness when he speaks of the 
 Trinity ; but even such suspicion will find it 
 difficult to fix upon any taint in passages such as 
 the following : 
 
 " The names [Word and Son] are nsed interchange- 
 ably ; but we should, I believe, lose more than we 
 know, if either had been used exclusively. Experience 
 has shown that those who determinately prefer the 
 
 ^ Dedicatory Letter prefixed to The Doctrine of Sacrifice, 
 p. xxvii. 
 
174 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 first soon fall into tliat notion of a mere emanation 
 from some mysterious abyss of Divinity -which haunted 
 the Oriental mystics and early heretics, or else into the 
 notion of a mere principle indwelling in man. The 
 "Word becomes impersonal ; the Will becomes im- 
 personal ; very soon the man forgets that he is a 
 person himself, and becomes a mere dreamer or 
 speculator. The blessed name of Son, which connects 
 itself with all human sympathies and relationships, is 
 the deliverance from this phantom region. While we 
 cleave to it, we can never forget that only a Person 
 can express the will of the Absolute Being ; that only 
 in a Person He can see His own image." ^ 
 
 The manner in which he arrived at this faith 
 he indicates in the interesting Letter to a Friend, 
 published in his correspondence with Dr. Jelf, in 
 which he says : 
 
 " The certainty of One absolute in goodness whom 
 I could call Father, has more and more obliged me to 
 believe in a Son, to believe Him, as the Church 
 believes Him, to be consubstantial with the Father ; 
 the more have I recognised the impossibility of a 
 perfect all -comprehending unity, or of any living 
 fellowship between me and my fellowmeii, or of any 
 practical faith in myself, unless I confessed a Spirit 
 proceeding from the Father and the Son, distinct from 
 them, perfectly one with them." 
 
 Among the posts to which this adhesion to the 
 ^ Theological Essays^ p. 422. 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 175 
 
 Church of England gave him access and which he 
 successively filled were the following: In 1834 
 he commenced his clerical duties in the curacy of 
 a small parish in Warwickshire, from which he 
 was removed in 1836 to the chaplaincy of Guy's 
 Hospital, where he zealously ministered to its 
 afflicted inmates for ten years. In 1840 he was 
 appointed to the professorship of Modern History 
 and English Literature in King's College, London, 
 and subsequently held in the same institution the 
 Chairs of Ecclesiastical History and Divinity, 
 until in 1853 the Council decided that "his 
 continuance as Professor would be seriously 
 detrimental to the interests of the college." In 
 1845 he was chosen to deliver the Boyle Lectures, 
 and in 1846 he w^as appointed Warburtonian 
 Lecturer and Chaplain to Lincoln's Inn. In 
 1860 he became incumbent of St. Peter's, Vere 
 Street, and in 1866 the University of Cambridge 
 elected him Professor of Moral Philosophy. 
 
 It was shortly after his appointment to Guy's 
 Hospital that he published The Kingdom of Christ ; 
 o)\ Hints on the Principles, Ordinances, and Constitu- 
 tion of the Catholic Church, in Letters to a Member of 
 the Society of Friends. It was scarcely to be 
 expected that so comprehensive and intricate a 
 subject could be satisfactorily handled by a man 
 
176 FKEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 of three -and- thirty ; and, as might have been 
 anticipated, the author himself saw reason, a few 
 years afterwards, in 1842, to issue a second 
 edition, which was to a large extent a new work. 
 Like too many of Mr. Maurice's writings, this 
 bears evidence of undue rapidity of composition. 
 There are many eloquent passages, many striking 
 reflections, many thoughts so suggestive as to 
 have deserved more patient and thorough examina- 
 tion and development, many remarks which evince 
 extensive and intelligent reading ; but through all 
 there are manifest a determined refusal to run his 
 thinking into the same moulds as other men had 
 used and an evasion of the precise points at issue. 
 These are blemishes which have already caused 
 students to turn from this work, original as it is, 
 to others which, though written by inferior men, 
 yet more effectually solve their difficulties, and 
 convey more available information. During this 
 period Mr. Maurice had already earned distinction 
 by his contribution on moral and metaphysical 
 philosophy to the Enydopaedia Metropolitana. 
 This, as our readers are aware, has gradually 
 grown under his hand, and now forms his largest, 
 and possibly his most enduring work. He again 
 and again disclaims the idea of producing a com- 
 plete history of philosophy, or of furnishing the 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 177 
 
 student with an adequate system ; but no work is 
 more likely to quicken in the reader a love of 
 truth, or to fill his mind with vivid, if not wholly 
 adequate, representations of the profoundest 
 thinkers of all time. In this book, as elsewhere, 
 Mr. Maurice declines to deal with the mere 
 external utterance and results of a man's opinions, 
 but endeavours to get at the root of his thoughts 
 by taking into consideration his personal character 
 and circumstances. He has thus succeeded in 
 producing what is certainly the most lifelike and 
 readable History of Philosophii — a history which 
 may be recommended, which will commend itself, 
 to that large and increasing class of persons who 
 are despairing of philosophy, and who are turning 
 to physical science, politics, or history, in the 
 hope of finding there something on which they 
 can begin to build. 
 
 We have mentioned these two books together, 
 not only because they began to occupy their 
 author's mind about the same time ; but because, 
 though the one is much, and the other little, read, 
 — the one likely to live, the other likely to die, — 
 they are yet generally spoken of as being of a les- 
 " occasional " character than the remainder of his 
 writings. These writings, for the most part, 
 consist of lectures, sermons, addresses, which were 
 
 N 
 
178 FEEDERICK DENISON MAUEICE 
 
 called for by the passing events of the day, or by 
 his position for the time being. We are told that 
 five-and-thirty years ago Mr. Maurice exj)ressed 
 to a friend his opinion, " that a man who in that 
 day was more desirous to serve God and his 
 fellow-men than to win a name for himself, would 
 give up the thought of producing any complete 
 literary work, and employ himself in writing and 
 teaching on the successive subjects on which the 
 men of the day Avere thinking, and endeavouring 
 to reduce thought to action ; and his words 
 implied that he had felt, but had rejected, the 
 allurements of that last infirmity of noble minds, 
 — the desire to win and leave a name for himself." 
 The work, however, which, perhaps, may most 
 justly be considered a manifesto of his opinions, is 
 the Theological Essays, in regard to which he him- 
 self says : " The book expresses thoughts which 
 have been working in my mind for years ; the 
 method of it has not been adopted carelessly ; 
 even the composition has undergone frequent 
 revision. No labour I have been engaged in has 
 occupied me so much, or interested me more deeply." 
 In the change of opinion to which we have 
 referred, there are several points of much signifi- 
 cance. First of all, it is obvious from his own 
 statement that he was led to believe in the Son of 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 179 
 
 God, not by coming to a clearer understanding of 
 Scripture, but by the necessities of his own nature 
 or reason. We call attention to this, because it 
 was not accidental nor exceptional, but was an 
 instance of his ordinary theological method. In 
 the Theological Essays (p. 416), there occurs a 
 passage which every one who thinks it worth 
 while to ascertain what Mr. Maurice's method 
 was, will carefully read : 
 
 "I should," he says, "be abandoning the method to 
 which I have endeavoured strictly to adhere, if I 
 admitted that now at last I have come upon a mere 
 dogma, which had no support but tradition or infer- 
 ences from texts of Scripture ; or, on the other hand, 
 upon a great philosophical tenet, which wise men may 
 deduce from reason or find latent in nature, but with 
 which the poor wayfarer has nothing to do. We may 
 owe much to tradition for giving expression to the 
 faith in a Trinity ; texts of Scripture may confirm it ; 
 the context of Scripture may bring it out in beautiful 
 harmony with all the divine discoveries to man. 
 Philosophy may have seen indications of a Trinity in 
 the forms and principles of the universe, in the con- 
 stitution of man himself. But unless we are utterly 
 inconsistent with all that has been said hitherto, these 
 can be but indexes and guides to a Name which is 
 implied in our thoughts, acts, words, in our fellowship 
 with each other ; without wdiich we cannot explain the 
 utterances of the poorest peasant, or of the greatest 
 sage ; which makes thoughts real, prayers possible ; 
 
180 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 whicli brings distinctness out of vagueness, unity out 
 of division ; wliicli shows us how in fact, and not 
 merely in imagination, the charity of God may find 
 its reflex and expression in the charity of man, and 
 the charity of man its substance as well as its fruition 
 in the charity of God. What I have to do in this 
 essay, then, is certainly not to bring forward argu- 
 ments against those who impugn this doctrine, but 
 only to show how each portion of that Name into 
 which we are baptized answers to some apprehension 
 and anticipation of human beings." 
 
 This passage enounces, as distinctly as Mr. 
 Maurice ever enounces anything, that he had 
 adopted as his theological role the task of exhibit- 
 ing the harmony between human nature and 
 truth, or between the unuttered longings and 
 unformed thoughts of men and the Catholic creed. 
 As a controversialist, he was weak ; ^ his mind 
 was not objective and scientific, but reflective ; 
 he shrank from systematic theology instinctively 
 and in obedience to the same law of his nature 
 which forbade that he should ever become an 
 accomplished mathematician or physicist. He 
 had found his own way into truth not by argu- 
 ment, but by feeling and conscience, and he "wrote 
 and taught on the understanding that men would 
 
 ^ Whatever view is taken of his controversy with Mansel, 
 every one must regret the tone, form, and substance of the 
 prohx Letters to a Student of TJieology. 
 
FKEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 181 
 
 believe and accept what they found to strengthen 
 their moral convictions, and satisfy their instinctive 
 desires. He is always careful to guard his dis- 
 ciples against adopting what is merely supported 
 by external authority. For example, in the Essay 
 on the Incarnation (p. 104), he says : 
 
 " Yoii are not to believe — you cannot believe — 
 either fisherman or doctor, if the assertion itself is 
 contrary to truth, to the laws of your being, to the 
 order and constitution of the universe in M'hich you 
 are living. They may repeat it till doomsday. It 
 may come, as it did, with no authority, against the 
 weight of all opinion, breaking tlirough the customs 
 and prescriptions of centuries, defying the rulers of 
 the world ; or it may come clad with authority, with 
 the prescriptions of centuries, with the help of rulers 
 and public opinion ; it is all the same ; you cannot 
 believe the words, however habitual and familiar they 
 may be to you, if there is that in them which con- 
 tradicts the spirit of a man that is in you, which does 
 not address that with demonstration and power. 
 What we say is, that these words (John i. 14) have 
 not contradicted that spirit, but have entered it with 
 the demonstration of the Sjiirit and of power." 
 
 This is undoubtedly both true and important ; 
 many who profess to accept the Bible as an in- 
 fallible authority and rule of faith, do receive only 
 what they find convenient, and no one can receive 
 into, and hold in his mind what is contradicted 
 
182 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 and rejected by something which already has 
 possession. It is admitted that we cannot believe 
 a thing solely because we are told to do so, or 
 accept as true what our own experience denies or 
 our conscience condemns. An authoritative pro- 
 mulgation of truth cannot compel our assent, nor 
 beget immediate faith in us ; but it has neverthe- 
 less its proper function, and this function is dis- 
 charged by its disclosing to us the truth, and 
 turning our attention to it, and by constraining 
 us to be dissatisfied with our belief until we are 
 able to accept what the authoritative revelation 
 enounces. When we speak of an authority in 
 matters of belief, we mean a higher wisdom ; and 
 though we may not always be able at once to 
 accept what this higher wisdom utters, we are able 
 to put away from our minds whatever is clogging 
 their action or dulling their perception, and so fit 
 ourselves for apprehending what we indirectly 
 know to be true. Such authority Mr. Maurice 
 certainly ascribed in theory to the Bible. In his 
 careful sermon on Balaam,^ he says : 
 
 " We who acknowledge the Bible as the high and 
 ultimate authority, must desire that our decisions 
 should be revised, corrected, even reversed, by it, 
 if we have ado2)ted them from tradition, or fashioned 
 
 •^ Patriarchs and Lawgivers, p. 222. 
 
FEEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 183 
 
 them by our own weak, liasty inductions without con- 
 sulting it." 
 
 In his Essay on the Atonement, he rejects certain 
 notions on the ground that they "are not parts 
 of God's revelation or of the old creeds, but 
 belong to that Theology of Consciousness which 
 modern enlightenment would substitute for the 
 Theology of the Bible and of the Church." ^ In 
 the face of these passages, we cannot identify Mr. 
 Maurice's views with "that system whose final 
 test of truth is placed in the direct assent of the 
 human consciousness, whether in the form of 
 logical deduction, or moral judgment, or religious 
 intuition." ^ He did not consciously and theor- 
 etically assign a higher place to his own reason 
 than to the written Word of God ; he believed 
 that the notions and feelings of each particular 
 mind must be brought into harmony with the 
 utterances and decisions of that Book which God 
 has provided for the enlightenment of mankind. 
 In arguing against the Friends, while he admits 
 the truth of what they have to say positively 
 regarding the indwelling Word and the Light 
 which enlightens every man, he shows the un- 
 reasonableness of their disparagement of the 
 
 ^ Patriarchs and LaivgiverSf p. 132. 
 - Mansel's Bamiyton Lectures, p. 3. 
 
184 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 written "Word, and maintains that it alone can 
 impart purity, clearness, and strength to the 
 inward convictions and decisions of the individual 
 mind. 
 
 But while Mr. Maurice would seem at times 
 to set Scripture in its right position, and does 
 always show the utmost reverence for it, every 
 one who reads his writings must be struck by the 
 extreme rarity of his appeal to Scri2:>ture. From 
 the conclusions at which he arrived, one might 
 suppose he was not scrupulous in submitting his 
 own ideas to the modifying, not to say formative, 
 influence of its statements ; and his writings 
 abound almost equally in denunciations of those 
 who put their own meanings into the language of 
 the Bible, and in instances of interpretation which, 
 we make bold to say, would receive the sanction 
 of no other student of the sacred writings. No 
 doubt, some of those doctrines which to us seem 
 wild perversions of Scripture were arrived at 
 through Mr. Maurice's strong tendency to measure 
 truth by its practical results. So strongly biassed 
 was he in favour of what immediately told on 
 men's lives, so resolute was he in rejecting what- 
 ever did not find real application to his own 
 inward experience, so careful to receive nothing 
 which was responded to only by the intellect. 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 185 
 
 that he was continually tempted to neglect certain 
 aspects of truth, and to read the Bible in a narrow 
 though truth -loving spirit. But even this does 
 not explain his neglect of difficult doctrinal pas- 
 sages of Scripture. AYe have been at some pains 
 to discover the precise attitude of his mind 
 towards Scripture, and have been unable to 
 escape the conclusion that he did not look to it 
 as an infallible authority. That he considered it 
 the highest authority we have, that he placed it 
 above the individual reason, we have shown ; 
 but though he had frequent opportunity for 
 ascribing infallibility to it, he nowhere does so. 
 The passage in which he most nearly approaches 
 to a definite declaration of the amount of con- 
 fidence he placed in Scripture occurs in a note to 
 his Essay on Inspiration} Its importance justifies 
 us in quoting it in full : 
 
 " A distinction is often hinted at, sometimes form- 
 ally taken, between facts and doctrines. ' You may,' 
 it is said, ' believe that the Spirit guides a man into a 
 knowledge of principles. But do you accept the facts 
 of the Bible ? Do you look upon them as divinely 
 communicated to the seer ? ' Any one Avho con- 
 siders doctrines as I have considered them in these 
 Essays, finds it exceedingly hard to separate them 
 from facts ; doctrines and principles he supposes to 
 
 ^ Theological Essays, p. 344, 
 
186 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 be the meaning of facts. If, then, I am asked 
 whether I receive the transcendent facts of Scripture, 
 those which offer most occasion to disbelief, I appeal 
 to what I have written here. If I am asked whether 
 I believe the ordinary facts of Scripture, e.g. that such 
 a city was taken at such a time 1 I answer, that when 
 I find a man so free from biblical prepossessions as 
 Niebuhr assuming Isaiah and Jeremiah to be better 
 authorities about such facts than any he knew of, 
 I am surprised that our divines and religious people 
 should be so very eager to get confirmation of the 
 testimonies in sacred books from profane authorities, 
 as if they felt insecure of them till then, — a senti- 
 ment I cannot the least understand or share in ; that, 
 believing the writers of the Bible to have been jios- 
 sessed by the Spirit of Truth, I am sure they will 
 have more shrunk from fictions, and have been more 
 careful to avoid mixing them with facts, than other 
 men ; that it seems to me far safer, more Scriptural, 
 more godly, to suppose they did take iMins, and that 
 the Sj^irit taught them to take pains, in sifting facts, 
 than to suppose that they were merely told the facts ; 
 that I most assuredly should not give up the faith in 
 God which they have cherished in me, if I found they 
 had made mistakes ; and that I have too much re- 
 spect and honour for those who use the strongest 
 expressions about the certainty of every word in the 
 Scriptures, to suppose that they would. I \vill not 
 believe any Christian man, even upon his own testi- 
 mony, who tells me that he should cease to trust in 
 the Son of God, because he found chronological or 
 historical misstatements in the Scriptures as great as 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 187 
 
 ever have been charged against them by their bitterest 
 opponents. If I did suspect him of such hollo wness, 
 I should pray for him that he might never meet with 
 any travellers or philologers who confirmed the state- 
 ments of Scripture ; none but such as denied them or 
 mocked at them ; because the sooner such a foundation 
 as this is shaken the better it will be for him." 
 
 We cordially agree with Mr. Maurice in affirm- 
 ing that our faith does not depend on the accuracy 
 of Scripture regarding "ordinary facts." Our 
 faith remains intact though the histories of the 
 Old Testament and the Gospel narratives be 
 reduced to the level of the classical historians. 
 We believe in the incarnation and death and re- 
 surrection of the Son of God on grounds which 
 are not affected by such charges as are commonly 
 brought against the strict accuracy of the evan- 
 gelists. What Mr. Maurice calls the transcendent 
 fads come down to us through a complex tradition 
 of testimony which nothing now can destroy. 
 The severest historical criticism has only exhibited 
 that they are facts permanently unassailable. We 
 go further, and maintain that though the doctrinal 
 writings of the apostles were devoid of any 
 authority beyond that which is implied in their 
 truth, our faith, while it might be less full-bodied 
 and complete, would, for all purposes of spiritual 
 
188 FREDERICK DENISOX MAURICE 
 
 life, remain very much as it was. Controversy 
 would be more difficult, but the formation of in- 
 dividual opinion would still necessarily proceed. 
 We find no fault whatever with Mr. Maurice for 
 declining to identify his faith with a faith in the 
 infallibility of Scripture ; we think he was wise, 
 or, at least, ordinarily intelligent, in doing so. 
 We find no fault with him for supposing it pos- 
 sible that Scripture might misstate some things 
 but be most trustworthy in others ; for this, 
 though not an easily defensible, is certainly an 
 intelligible position. But we are decidedly of 
 opinion that a writer who so freely criticises the 
 theories of others regarding Scripture should not 
 have left his readers in doubt regarding his own. 
 It is not to be denied that the current views of the 
 origin, formation, and authority of Scripture are 
 not perfectly satisfactory. We cannot shut our 
 eyes to the fact that some of the men who 
 are most strenuously and effectively defending 
 Christianity against Positivism or the false in- 
 ferences of science, or other forms of error, do not 
 consider the Scriptures infallible even in points of 
 doctrine. It is wrong to neglect the difficulties of 
 such men ; it is useless to fall back on arguments 
 which they know and have found unconvincing. 
 We had hoped that Mr. Maurice would mature his 
 
FKEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 189 
 
 views on this important subject, and would at 
 least prepare the way for a fair, full, and friendly 
 revisal of the whole subject. But we have found 
 the Essay on Lispiration thoroughly unsatisfactory. 
 It is directed against "those who, taking the 
 Bible as their only religion and only rule of life, 
 prevent it from being either, by saying that its 
 inspiration has no relation to that of the writers 
 whose dark sayings it illuminates, or that of the 
 human beings it is intended to educate and con- 
 sole."^ The only persons whom he sees it worth 
 his while to contend with are those (Avhoever they 
 may be) who hold that the inspiration of the 
 Bible is " generically unlike that which God 
 bestows on His children at this day." If by 
 " generically unlike " he means proceeding from a 
 different source, we think his time might have 
 been better employed than in exploding such an 
 opinion. If he means that the one was an in- 
 spiration effecting different results from the other, 
 he himself believes it to have been generically 
 unlike. If he means that the operation of the 
 Spirit on the mind of the heathen poet is wrongly 
 considered to be widely different from that 
 whereby the apostles were fitted for their work, 
 we imagine that this difference is asserted in 
 ^ Theological Essays, p. 337. 
 
190 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 many passages of his own writings. From the 
 general scope of the Es>iay it would seem that he 
 considered that the chief point to be made out 
 was that it is the same Spirit who works all good 
 in the souls of all men, that inspired the apostles.^ 
 This is not a very instructive discovery, neither 
 can one who has read the First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians be surprised to learn that the extra- 
 ordinary influence of the Spirit is less precious to 
 the individual than the ordinary. We should 
 greatly have preferred that Mr. Maurice had let us 
 know by simple statement how much authority he 
 ascribed to Scripture, and on what grounds this 
 authority rests. As it is, we are left to gather 
 from his general treatment of Scripture the kind 
 of authority he attributed to it ; and what we 
 gather is, that though he never explicitly dissents 
 from Apostolic teaching, as some of his most docile 
 followers are bold enough to do, he does leave 
 in the background such Scriptural statements as 
 directly contradict his teaching. Those who do 
 not acknowledge Scripture as the infallible rule 
 
 ^ We presume Mr. Maurice is alone in attributing to God 
 tlie manifestations of su])ernatural power among tlie lieathen — 
 Dionysiac ecstasies, oracular rhapsodies, and so forth. In the 
 Essay on Insjoiration he does not scruple to represent Paul as 
 "vindicating for the Father of Spirits,"' the "hideous hum" 
 and "words deceiving" of the oracles. 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 191 
 
 of faith, do yet appeal to it for sanction of such 
 of their views as find confirmation in it. This 
 Mr. Maurice does, but so frequently does he re- 
 fuse to take any notice of passages which he must 
 have known did contradict, or would by many be 
 supposed to contradict, his statements, that it 
 seems to us sufficiently plain that for him Scrip- 
 ture was not an infallible authority. In reading 
 him, we are always reminded of that old heretic 
 Faustus, who boasted that he could use the whole- 
 some fish without being compelled to drink the 
 brine he found it in. 
 
 Before passing from this subject we may en- 
 deavour to lay before our readers Mr. Maurice's 
 theory of Scripture. The broad distinction be- 
 tween Scripture and all other books is that it 
 reveals God. All questions of infallibility, in- 
 spiration, and so forth are subordinate and 
 secondary ; the one grand truth about Scripture 
 is that, be its origin what it may, it does actually 
 make God known to men. To a man who de- 
 sired proof of this, Mr. Maurice would probably 
 have replied, " Read the book ; if a man who 
 stands in the sunlight does not see that the sun 
 is shining, you do not endeavour to convince him 
 by astronomical diagrams and problems. This 
 divine revelation also is self-evidencing ; study it 
 
192 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 and you will know God, and be convinced that 
 the light is shed from Himself." Mr. Maurice is 
 always explicit and instructive in maintaining the 
 possibility of such a revelation, and that it has 
 actually been made. He constantly affirms that 
 it is a priori a probable and likely thing that 
 God should make Himself known and declare His 
 mind to His intelligent creatures. Such a revela- 
 tion being possible and likely, there is certainly 
 nothing impossible or unlikely in its being effected 
 by means similar to the ordinary means of com- 
 munication between man and man, by the ordinary 
 forms of human discourse. In order to accom- 
 plish this communication, we should feel that 
 some selection of instruments was necessary, and 
 though we might not be able to conceive before- 
 hand how a number of men could be brought into 
 circumstances which should fit them to be more 
 efficient instruments than any others, yet if we 
 heard of a certain people "being selected and sub- 
 mitted to a peculiar discipline that they might 
 be the universal teachers, we should admire and 
 acquiesce in the arrangement. We may not be 
 able to say what degree of inspiration may be 
 needful to effect this purpose, but we can have 
 no manner of doubt that if it is God's purpose to 
 reveal Himself, He will effectually do so. And 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 193 
 
 when this revelation, which is of necessity gradual 
 and in accordance with the consequent progress of 
 men in the knowledge of God, has been accom- 
 plished, when an adequate, though not a perfect 
 revelation has been made, when there has been 
 communicated all that men can in this life re- 
 ceive, the canon closes, and the book remains 
 complete and separate from all others.^ There 
 must come such a time, a time when to add 
 would be to dilute or to repeat, a time when it 
 is fit that there should be henceforth silence. 
 Obviously such a theory of the formation of 
 Scripture may be held either with or without 
 the idea of its infallibility. It might be argued, 
 on the one hand, that if God meant to reveal 
 Himself, He might be expected to secure that the 
 revelation should be so made as to be an infallible 
 guide. There are few stronger cravings in human 
 nature than the desire for an infallible guide who 
 shall save us from the responsibility, perplexity, 
 and constant unrest which accompany the indi- 
 vidual search after truth. Proselytising Eoman- 
 ists have no stronger argument by which to appeal 
 to men than that which they found upon the 
 likelihood that God would relieve men of this 
 
 ^ The alDove is chiefly derived from Letter V. of the Kingdom 
 of Christ. 
 
 O 
 
194 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 responsibility and provide for them an access to 
 truth which should be free from toil and secure 
 against the invasion of doubt. Men have per- 
 suaded themselves that it is useless to provide an 
 infallible statute-book unless there be also pro- 
 vided an infallible interpreter and judge. And 
 in the same plausible and persuasive manner it 
 might be argued that it were useless to provide 
 for men a declaration of God's nature and mind 
 unless this were free from all mixture of error, 
 and were in such a form that no man could be 
 at a loss to discover the very truth. On the 
 other hand, and more in accordance with Mr. 
 Maurice's system of thought, it might be argued, 
 that though this revelation is confessedly an ex- 
 ceptional thing, and therefore not to be judged 
 by ordinary rules, yet, if one is to consider what 
 is likely, the likelihood seems much rather to be 
 that God will present this revelation in a form 
 which shall disclose its treasures only to the man 
 who is at personal pains to discover them. In 
 everything else men are left to judge for them- 
 selves, to sift truth from error, to find what they 
 bring the means of finding. In everything there 
 are left stones of stumbling on which the dis- 
 honest and cavilling may break themselves, and 
 there is no antecedent probability that this most 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 195 
 
 important knowledge should be so given as to be 
 equally available to the double-minded and to the 
 23ure in heart. Or Mr. Maurice might argue that 
 this book is not given that we may frame a set 
 of opinions, but that we may learn to live. This 
 book is given us to enable us to fulfil the end of 
 our being alive, and that is not to furnish out a 
 complete system of doctrine, but to be righteous 
 and loving. This position, which is certainly in- 
 volved in every j^art of Mr. Maurice's teaching, 
 has not been sufficiently weighed by his disciples. 
 We are as cordial admirers of his character as 
 they ; we are very far indeed from grudging him 
 the influence which could not but be exerted by 
 one who so attractively embodied in his own 
 person and life the principles of Christianity. 
 There have been many better theologians, but 
 few who have surpassed him in understanding 
 human duty, few who have more courageously 
 and consistently obeyed a highly sensitive and 
 thoroughly enlightened conscience, few who have 
 by purity, by strength of character, by patient 
 labour, by self-abnegation, by belief in goodness 
 and truth, caused men to acknowledge a Divine 
 presence in their midst, and the substantial com- 
 munication of grace from God to man. But our 
 complaint is that Mr. Maurice at once professed 
 
196 FREDEEICK DEXISOX MAUEICE 
 
 to despise doctrine and meddled with it, denied 
 the validity of system in theology and himself 
 attempted to construct a system. His followers 
 tell us that so genuine and truth-loving a man 
 could not be deceived, could not be permitted to 
 hold that as truth which is really error. This is 
 a very convenient and summary mode of disposing 
 of all objections to Mr. Maurice's teaching. We 
 should have counted it unworthy of attention 
 were we not convinced that the impressiveness 
 of his character has done much more for the 
 circulation of his opinions than their intrinsic 
 value. His purity of character and openness to 
 what is good made it likely — made it, we may 
 say, certain — that he would be led to such know- 
 ledge as should suffice for the regulation of his 
 own life and for his own salvation ; and this was 
 all that he encouraged men to expect from the 
 Bible. But in the ascertainment of theological 
 truth, no purity of intention or soundness of 
 character can compensate for the lack of a suffi- 
 cient theological education and of an exact study 
 of Scripture. 
 
 Though Mr. Maurice was dangerous as a leader 
 of thought, not so much from any results he 
 arrived at as from the general principles and 
 style of his theological procedure, his name has 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 197 
 
 become associated with the special heresy on 
 account of which he was expelled from King's 
 College. At an early period he rebelled against 
 the orthodox doctrine of eternal punishment, be- 
 cause it seemed to him a doctrine "full of the 
 strangest complexities and incoherences ; one which 
 cannot be set before simple people without the 
 most extraordinary devices to make it intelligible 
 — devices which utterly fail, by the admission of 
 those who resort to them." ^ The devices and 
 their failure to which he refers are described 
 in a previous letter to Dr. Jelf as "the con- 
 tinual experiments to heap hundreds of thou- 
 sands of years upon hundreds of thousands 
 of years, and then the confession, ' after all we 
 are no nearer to eternity.' " Yet he admits 
 that his own notion of eternity is incompre- 
 hensible. " I agree with you," he says in 
 writing to Mr. Williams of Lincoln's Inn, 
 "that it is impossible for any man whatso- 
 ever to have a conception of eternity." At the 
 same time he maintains that simple people 
 arrive, through the use of the Prayers of the 
 Church of England, at a practical apprehension 
 of that meaning of eternity which he deduced 
 from the New Testament. If this be so, it is 
 ^ Corres^iondence ivith Jelf, p. 14. 
 
198 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 somewhat strange that his most ardent admirers 
 and pupils are at present differing among them- 
 selves as to what he really did teach on this 
 point j and that they have so efFectually imbibed 
 the hazy unintelligible manner of their master, 
 that their explanations have been declared to be 
 more difficult than the teaching they endeavour 
 to explain. It is pathetic to see men assuring 
 themselves that certainly the enlightened world 
 shall never again be terrified by the bugbear 
 of eternal punishment, while yet they cannot 
 quite understand how they have exploded the 
 doctrine, and are perhaps even visited occasion- 
 ally with the suspicion that after all their great 
 doctor may have misled them by a metaphysical 
 quibble. It will, in these circumstances, be safe 
 to adhere pretty closely to Mr. Maurice's own 
 statements. 
 
 The whole structure of his thought on this 
 subject is professedly based on the meaning of 
 the word eternal as determined by its use in the 
 New Testament, and specially by its use as applied 
 to God. It is this application of it which, he 
 says, must determine every other. We must first 
 ascertain what eternal means when it is used with 
 reference to God, and then apply the meaning 
 thus ascertained to every connection in which the 
 
FEEDERICK DENISON MAUEICE 199 
 
 word occurs.^ AVith a loud and somewhat bom- 
 bastic inculcation of exegetical integrity, he insists 
 upon the extraordinary canon that the meaning 
 of an adjective is not modified by the substantive 
 with which it is connected. Eternal, when applied 
 to God, does not mean "without beginning or 
 end," and therefore when applied to punishment 
 it does not mean "without beginning or end." 
 Eternity, in relation to God-, has nothing to do 
 with time or duration ; therefore, in reference to 
 punishment or life, it has nothing to do with time 
 or duration. Eternal life means life in Him who 
 is eternal ; eternal death means the loss of that 
 life. "I am bound to believe that the eternal 
 life into which the righteous go is that knowledge 
 of God which is eternal life ; I am bound to sup- 
 pose that the eternal punishment into which those 
 on the left hand go is the loss of that eternal 
 life — what is elsewhere called ' eternal death.' " ^ 
 
 Now, no one will dispute that there is here 
 much that is true. We may even say that Mr. 
 
 1 We should have formed a higher opinion both of Mr. 
 Maurice's candour and of his competence as an interpreter of 
 Scripture, had he thought it worth his while to institute an 
 inquiry into the use of the word among the Jews. Any one 
 who takes the trouble to consult his memory or his Greek 
 Concordance, will see passages which he cannot by any in- 
 genuity interpret on this principle. 
 
 ^ Corresjjoyidence loith Jelf, p. 6. 
 
200 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 Maurice has done good service in showing what 
 is the essence of eternal life and eternal death. 
 The familiar idea that the possession of God 
 is heaven, and the loss of Him hell, has been 
 strikingly put again and again in his writings. 
 We find no fault with his interpretation of his 
 locus classicus on this subject: "This is eternal 
 life, that they may know Thee, the only true 
 God." These words may mean that, during this 
 present life, men may enjoy a life which is above 
 the conditions of time, life in God. But we are 
 decidedly of opinion that this idea of eternity was 
 quite unfamiliar to the persons with whom our 
 Lord associated, however familiar it became to the 
 Alexandrian school and to Augustine. Nay, we 
 think it can be shown that as the ordinary con- 
 ception men have of eternity is time indefinitely 
 prolonged, so the words expressive of eternity and 
 of indefinitely prolonged time were one and the 
 same. Certainly the idea of an indefinitely long 
 future was and is a common one ; but if, as Mr. 
 Maurice insists, atcuvios is to mean eternal in his 
 sense, and nothing but that, what word have we 
 left for the idea of everlastingness or endlessness 1 
 Mere assertion will not suffice in a case of this 
 kind ; and it became Mr. Maurice, as it would 
 become any man of candour, to examine a little 
 
FEEDERICK DENISOX MAURICE 201 
 
 more carefully the meaning of common words 
 before he ventured to alter our interpretation of 
 some sixty passages of the New Testament. 
 
 But supposing that the meaning he seeks to 
 attach to the word eternal be correct, it is to be 
 observed that this alteration of meaning throws 
 no new light on the duration of the punishment 
 threatened or of the life promised. Eternity is 
 not prolonged time, is not time at all ; but is that 
 state in which time is not. Eternity is not made 
 by adding age to age, or century to century. If 
 you take a bucket of water out of the sea, you 
 diminish it by so much, and by so much ap- 
 proach to exhausting it. But no amount of time 
 diminishes eternity, because the two conditions 
 belong to different categories. Eternity is not 
 made by time, however extended, but by its 
 absence. Whatever is eternal is removed out of 
 the conditions of time, and is no more subject 
 to these conditions. It ceases to be affected by 
 succession, by change, and becomes immutable 
 and fixed. If therefore punishment be eternal, 
 as Mr. Maurice of course concedes and maintains, 
 punishment must be immutable and permanent. 
 If any were to be delivered from what he will 
 not call endless, but insists on calling eternal 
 death, it is obvious that this deliverance from 
 
202 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 one state and entrance on another condition im- 
 plies change and succession, that is to say, implies 
 time. By Mr. Maurice's definition of eternal, he 
 certainly precludes us from attaching the idea of 
 duration to the phrase " eternal punishment," but 
 he seems unaccountably to have overlooked the 
 fact that, by that definition, he compels us to 
 attach to it the idea of unchangeableness. Some 
 of Mr. Maurice's disciples argue as if by showing 
 that eternal does not mean "without beginning 
 or end," he thereby showed that it meant " with 
 beginning or end." But his definition of the 
 word, when applied to the passages which speak 
 of punishment, certainly consigns the lost to as 
 irrevocable a perdition as is implied in the ordinary 
 interpretations of these passages. 
 
 Dr. Candlish's criticism of the Theological Essays 
 is in general too fragmentary and rapid to be very 
 effective ; but in reference to Mr. Maurice's use of 
 the word " eternal," his remarks are not merely 
 ingenious, but true and unanswerable. To en- 
 force his view of the meaning of the word, Mr. 
 Maurice had referred to the use which had been 
 made of it in the Arian controversy, maintaining 
 that the error of Arius arose from his mixing 
 time with relations which had nothing to do with 
 time ; and that Athanasius, by asserting the eternal 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 203 
 
 generation of the Son, declared that the relation 
 implied in it was lifted above all notions derived 
 from time. The heresy was that the Son had a 
 beginning, and it was met by the assertion that 
 He was eternal, and therefore by implication 
 without beginning. Dr. Candlish challenges the 
 same principle of interpretation for the expressions 
 in question. When eternal punishment is spoken 
 of, it is punishment to which the limits and laws 
 of time do not apply ; but on this very account 
 the idea of change or end is excluded. The 
 phrase to which Mr. Maurice appeals — the eternal 
 generation of the Son — implies that this act had 
 no beginning ; the phrase eternal punishment im- 
 plies that this state has no end. 
 
 This criticism, however, though it may be very 
 serviceable in showing the fallacy of some of Mr. 
 Maurice's arguments, does not shed much light 
 upon the subject under discussion. The critique 
 of Mr. Mansel,-"- besides being interesting as the 
 germ of the Bampton Lectures, delivered four 
 years afterwards, is a thorough exposure of the 
 fallacy on which Mr. Maurice's views were founded. 
 Mr. Mansel briefly, but conclusively, establishes 
 
 ^ This was published under the title, Man's Conception of 
 Eternity. An examination of Mr. Maurice's theory of a fixed 
 state out of time, i7i a Letter to the Rev. J. L. Bernays, M.A., 
 Oxford, 1854. 
 
204 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 the distinction between regulative and speculative 
 truths, and explicitly recognises the need of "a 
 preliminary criticism of the laws and limits of 
 religious thought, a work which, even had I the 
 abilities or the leisure to attempt it, would be out 
 of place here." He justly conceives that the 
 whole controversy raised by Mr. Maurice's use of 
 the word "eternal," depends on the distinction 
 between positive and negative ideas, and the 
 legitimate use of each in theology. Of absolute 
 truth our conception is negative only ; we know 
 it only as the condition of an intelligence which 
 is not ours. Thus the idea of eternity as of a 
 consciousness out of duration is negative, abso- 
 lutely and totally inconceivable by us. Such a 
 truth furnishes no basis for dogmatic teaching, 
 but is yet necessarily included or implied in a 
 revelation which comes from the infinite God. 
 But in order to become practical, this and all 
 other revealed truths must take a form adapted 
 to the understanding of the recipient, and the 
 form under which eternity is presented to the 
 human mind is that of everlastingness. Mr. 
 Maurice's mistake, therefore, however disastrous 
 in its results, and however dangerous in the 
 hands of less intelligent men, was in itself not 
 of a very grave character. It was an attempt 
 
FKEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 205 
 
 to introduce into theology a metaphysical idea. 
 It was an attempt to supplant the familiar idea 
 of endless time which, if not absolutely true, is 
 yet conceivable and practical, and to put in its 
 place an idea which it is impossible to compre- 
 hend, and which would therefore become unin- 
 fluential in men's minds. There are few readers 
 of theology who did not feel the thrill of im- 
 portant discovery when first they perceived that 
 eternity was something different from extended 
 time. There are few who do not sympathise 
 with the late Dr. Duncan in his " hatred " of Dr. 
 Campbell for scoffing at the idea of eternity as a 
 nunc stans. We see that probably truth lies that 
 way ; but we also see that it is such truth as the 
 human mind can never comprehend, and that we 
 must be content to accept as our practical guide 
 the regulative truth which has been revealed as 
 a substitute for this possible speculative truth. 
 The conception of endless time is the nearest 
 approach our minds can make to the idea of 
 eternity : this is the fairest and most serviceable 
 working equivalent for an idea which only some 
 minds have any glimmering of, and which even 
 they can neither prove to be true, nor turn to 
 any better or different account than the familiar 
 and popular notion. 
 
206 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 Other objections may be brought against Mr. 
 Maurice's teaching. Especially it is reprehensible 
 as having so slender an exegetical basis. Dr. 
 Jelf's careful and scholarlj^ inquiry into the 
 meaning of the word eternal in the New Testa- 
 ment is treated as so much waste paper. The 
 impartial inquirer is also disappointed at the easy 
 mode in which Mr. Maurice sails along, consider- 
 ing an assertion or insinuation sufficient to 
 overthrow proved positions, and leaving unsolved 
 difficulties which must inevitably occur to every 
 one who is thinking through the subject for 
 himself. It is, e.g., essential to his argument, if 
 such it can be called, that we should understand 
 in what sense or in what way a creature can be 
 connected with the eternity he speaks of, but no 
 effort is made to explain this.^ It required proof 
 
 ^ We should have welcomed some such acknowledgment at 
 least of difficulty and attemjit at solution as we find in 
 Augustine's De Katura Boni, c. xxxix. : " Aeternus autem 
 ignis, non sicut Deus aeternus quod etsi sine fine sit, uon est 
 tamen sine initio ; Deus autem etiani sine initio est, Deinde 
 quia licet jierj^etuus j)eccatorum suppliciis adhibeatur, mutabilis 
 tamen natura est. Ilia est autem vera aeternitas, quae vera 
 inimortalitas, hoc est, ilia summa incommutabilitas, quam solus 
 Deus habet, qui mutari omnino non potest. Aliud est enim 
 non mutari, cum possit mutari ; aliud autem prorsus non posse 
 mutari. Sicut ergo dicitur homo bonus, non tamen sicut Deus, 
 de quo dictum est, Nemo bonus nisi unus Deus ; et sicut 
 dicitur anima immortalis, non tamen sicut Deus, de quo dictum 
 est, Qui solus habet inimortalitatem ... sic dicitur ignis 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 207 
 
 that the Divine consciousness has no relation to 
 time, still further proof that this idea of eternity 
 being applicable to God, is also applicable when 
 the future eternity of man is spoken of ; but we 
 look in vain for anything more than Mr. Maurice's 
 assertion. Mr. Mansel's objections are, so far as 
 we can judge, conclusive : 
 
 " It seems to be inconsistent with the whole design 
 of Revelation, viewed on its human side — at variance 
 with the whole object of regulative truths ; it seems 
 to be incompatible with the conception of the next life 
 as a continuation and development of the present, or 
 of the present life as a discipline and preparation for 
 the next, to believe that our future consciousness will 
 be exempt from the law of succession. It seems, 
 moreover, though of this we cannot adequately judge, 
 to be incompatible with the conception of a finite 
 intellect at all, even of one perfect after its kind, or of 
 a state of progress and increasing knowledge. It 
 seems to substitute a negative notion for a positive 
 one ; to exchange the vivid anticipation and foretaste 
 of a real living futurity for the vague and meaningless 
 intimation of some possible state of existence under no 
 conditions which we can figure to ourselves of human 
 consciousness or human personality." 
 
 It will be observed, then, that the proper 
 difference between the teachins: of Mr. Maurice 
 
 "O 
 
 aeternus, non tamen sicut Deus, cujus solius immortalitas ipsa 
 vera aetemitas." 
 
208 FKEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 and the current orthodoxy on the subject of 
 eternal punishment consists in his introduction 
 of this metaphysical meaning of the word eternal. 
 This is the head and front of his offending. Had 
 he only been consistent with himself, and repre- 
 sented the eternal state as a fixed and permanent 
 state, no practical difference would have been 
 introduced by this speculative distinction. Ter- 
 mination is quite as incompatible with the one 
 idea of eternity as with the other. But this Mr. 
 Maurice declined to insist upon or even to admit. 
 He refuses to speak definitely of the duration of 
 punishment, and labours only to show its nature. 
 The word eternal teaches him much as to the 
 nature of life and death, punishment and reward, 
 but nothing as to their duration. But fi'om other 
 parts of his teaching we gather that he did not 
 consider this life a final test of character, did not, 
 in the straightforward sense, believe that "it is 
 appointed unto men once to die, and after this the 
 judgment." It is difficult to discover what views 
 he entertained of the growth and fixity of human 
 character, but it is certain that he believed that 
 character might undergo a total change after 
 death, and that men might pass from eternal 
 punishment to eternal reward, and presumably 
 from eternal reward to eternal punishment. We 
 
FREDEEICK DENISON MAURICE 209 
 
 are taught in Scripture that there are those whom 
 it is impossible to renew again to repentance ; we 
 are taught that there are those for whom, even in 
 this life, nothing can be done which has not 
 already been done ; but of such difficulties, verified 
 though they are by common experience and 
 observation, Mr. Maurice takes absolutely no 
 notice. Inevitably, therefore, we are driven to 
 conclude that Mr. Maurice, like many other men 
 and women, allowed impression and wish to stand 
 for reason and fact. There are many persons 
 who will not allow themselves to think that there 
 can be any real tragedy in human life, still less 
 any final perdition. The idea of permanent and 
 unrelieved, not to say endless, suff'ering, is intoler- 
 ably oppressive, and every one longs to see some 
 escape from it. Yet there is in the popular mind 
 a fundamental honesty and instinct for truth 
 which have hitherto prevented men from throw- 
 ing off" the belief in eternal punishment, though 
 few discoveries would be hailed with more 
 universal joy than that which enabled us to 
 believe that one day, however distant, all men 
 should be delivered from suffering. If we could 
 even take advantage of the cloud which un- 
 doubtedly does rest on the future of the wicked, 
 and believe that death eternal might amount to 
 
210 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 an extinction of consciousness or of being, that 
 would be a welcome alleviation. But certainly 
 we can find little comfort and see little promise of 
 alleviation in any theory of universal restitution 
 that we have yet heard. • 
 
 When he speaks directly on the subject of 
 universal restitution, Mr. Maurice seems to be 
 inconsistent or wavering. At p. 7 of his Corre- 
 spondence with Dr. Jelf, he says, that though the 
 human will can fix itself in misery, and defy that 
 which seeks to subdue it, yet love does overcome 
 this rebellion, its power being greater than ever}^ 
 other. But in close connection with this we find 
 that the ninth of his fifteen articles of belief or 
 rules for his own assertions on this subject stands 
 as follows : " Not to say that all will necessarily 
 be raised out of eternal death, because I do not 
 know." Now, alongside of this admission by Mr. 
 Maurice, that it is possible there may not be an 
 universal restitution, but that evil may, for all he 
 knows, continue to exist for ever, how are we to 
 account for his ungoverned indignation against 
 Dean Mansel for expressing the very same idea ? 
 He quotes from the Bampton Lectures what he is 
 pleased to term " nearly the most tremendous 
 paragraph I ever read in a Christian writer." 
 The paragraph is the one which contains the 
 
FEEDERICK DENLSON MAURICE 211 
 
 words, "Against this it is urged that sin cannot 
 for ever be triumphant against God. As if the 
 whole mystery of iniquity were contained in the 
 words for ever. " On this Mr. Maurice remarks : 
 
 " I was beginning to comment on these words. I 
 was trying to tell you what impression they made on 
 me. I cannot. I can only say, ' If they are true, let 
 us burn our Bibles, let us tell our countrymen, that 
 the agony and bloody sweat of Christ, His cross and 
 passion. His death and burial, His resurrection and 
 ascension, mean nothing.' ... I believe, if we lose 
 that hope [of the restitution of all things] altogether, 
 we shall not stop at Mr. Mansel's point ; we shall be 
 certain that evil must reign for ever and ever, must 
 drive out all that is opposed to it. We shall praise 
 thee, Devil, we shall acknowledge thee to be the 
 Lord. And those who still retain the conviction that 
 Christ has come into the world, will realise Jean 
 Paul's tremendous dream. They will suppose that 
 His message to men was, ' Children_, you have no 
 Father.' " i 
 
 It is no wonder that Dr. Jelf should have found 
 it difficult to ascertain what Mr. Maurice's teaching 
 on this subject was. He received a letter from 
 him in Avhich occur these words : 
 
 " I know from the express words of Scripture that 
 God 'will have all men to be saved.' I know also 
 
 ^ Letters to a Student, y>- 435-8. 
 
212 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 that the will of man has an awful power of resisting 
 this will of God. How far that power may go, I dare 
 not ask myself. It is an abyss into which I cannot 
 look. I must believe that in some way the will of 
 God will triumph ; how, I know not." 
 
 These last words certainly seem to justify Dr. 
 Jelf in stating in his reply, that to him they con- 
 veyed the impression that Mr. Maurice meant to 
 say, " The mode I do not pretend to discover, but 
 the fact I am sure of, that God's will that all men 
 shall be saved will somehow finally triumph." 
 We venture to say that not one man in a hundred 
 would deny that this was a fair representation of 
 Mr. Maurice's meaning as disclosed in the words 
 quoted, and yet Dr. Jelf is assured by their writer 
 that this representation is " curiously wide of the 
 truth, as nearly as possible the reverse of it." 
 We may probably, then, lay ourselves open to the 
 charge of rashness if we presume to say either 
 that he did or did not believe in universal restitu- 
 tion. And, indeed, we think that his habitual 
 attitude of mind towards this doctrine was a 
 negative one. He would not dogmatise either on 
 the one side or the other. He would not say 
 that there was a place or time in which the 
 resistance of man to God should be effectual, and 
 when the resources of His converting grace should 
 
FKEDERICK DENISON MAUEICE 213 
 
 be exhausted. Neither would he say that the 
 ultimate triumph of God's will could only be 
 accomplished by the restoration of universal good 
 and of every individual soul to the love of God. 
 He pled ignorance. " I am sure," he says, " that 
 restored order will be carried out by the full 
 triumph of God's loving will. How that should 
 take place while any rebellious will remains in 
 the universe, I cannot tell, though it is not for me 
 to say that it is impossible." So that, after all, 
 his universal restitution means no more, or little 
 more, than those hard Calvinistic theories he so 
 hates and repudiates. He dare not say that all 
 rebellious wills shall be softened and subdued, but 
 only, that somehow the will of God shall triumph, 
 even though some inferior wills be still out of 
 accord \vith it. His folloAvers have judged this 
 part of his teaching rather by his well-known 
 leanings, and by certain of his loose and un- 
 qualified expressions ; but it is significant, and 
 they should note it, that when he is called upon 
 to declare his opinion in terms as exj^licit as it is 
 possible for him to use, he declines to say that all 
 men shall yield to the love of God. 
 
 The doctrine of eternal punishment, however 
 essential to a complete creed, is not so central as 
 
214 FEEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 to modify all else that a man believes. In some 
 cases, notably in that of John Foster, the denial 
 of the ordinary teaching results from the vivid- 
 ness with which the state of the lost is conceived 
 by the imagination. Men of feeble imagination, 
 to whom the doctrine is little more than a form 
 of words, and who are seldom distressed by the 
 obvious consequences of it, have little temptation 
 to rebel against it. But there certainly are men 
 of, it may be, a morbidly sensitive nature, who 
 cannot muffle their imagination, and prevent it 
 from bringins; them into sensible contact with 
 what actually exists, and to whom life is rendered 
 an intolerable misery, both by the consciousness 
 they have of the present suffering in this world, 
 and by the prospect that lies before so man}^ of 
 their fellow-men. Rather than resign mental 
 comfort and happiness, men will resign their 
 belief in eternal punishment, and attain thus a 
 life free from visions so discomposing and griev- 
 ous. There are other doctrines, however, which 
 a man cannot thus discard without modifying his 
 whole creed. The doctrine of sacrifice is notably 
 of this kind. Knowing what a man believes on 
 this head, we can deduce what he will believe on 
 all other important points. Mr. Maurice's theory 
 of sacrifice is well known, and his work on this 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 215 
 
 subject bears evidence of care and matured 
 thought. It is less profound and less complete 
 than Bushnell's work, but it is equally eloquent, 
 and as attractive in its ceaseless appeal to right 
 feeling. Its fundamental defect, as has frequently 
 been pointed out, is its neglect of the relation of 
 sin to law. The moral law is assimilated to 
 physical law. Consequence takes the place of 
 penalty.^ The scriptural idea of God as a Law- 
 giver and Judge, inflicting judicial punishments, 
 is set aside, and in its place we have an order of 
 things which sin disturbs, and a Father from 
 whom sin alienates the sinner. That which is 
 required for the recovery of the sinner is not the 
 expiation of guilt nor satisfaction to an offended 
 government, but the renewal in the sinner's heart 
 of right feeling towards God. 
 
 1 The incompleteness of most of Mr. Maurice's statements 
 here tells very seriously against him. He rarely auticij)ates 
 and removes the objections to his doctrine which must inevit- 
 ably occur to an inquirer. He furnishes no material for 
 establishing his views, but is, for the most j)art, content to 
 give them, and leave the reader the much more arduous task 
 of i:)roving, and defending, and developing them. In no case 
 are we quite sure what a man believes, until we meet him face 
 to face and cross-question him. And we cannot be quite sure 
 we understand Mr. Maurice's position until we get his answer 
 to the question : In what sense do you consider the whole 
 order of things in this life penal ? And if yoii do not consider 
 this order in any sense penal, do you consider that death itself 
 
216 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 " The acts which express God's love to man ; the 
 acts by which the Son of Goct proves himself to be the 
 Son of Man ; these are the means of destroying the 
 barrier between heaven and earth, between the Father 
 and the children ; the means of taking away the sin 
 of the world. In each man the sin — the alienation 
 and separation of heart — ceases when he believes that 
 he has a Father who has loved him, and given His 
 Son for him ; when he confesses that this Son is 
 stronger to unite him with his Father and his brethren, 
 than sin is to separate him." i 
 
 This is a fair account of how sin in the heart is 
 removed, and Mr. Maurice is angry with us when 
 we presume to call past sins by the same name of 
 sin, or to think of their guilt as well as of the 
 sinfulness which still inhabits us. The Atone- 
 ment is always represented by him as consisting 
 of these two elements : there is in it, on the one 
 hand, a proof of God's love, convincing the sinner 
 that his fear and suspicion of God are groundless, 
 and making him ashamed of his aversion or 
 indifference to such a God ; and there is in it, on 
 the other hand, a persuasive example of sacrifice, 
 a pattern of perfect living, an abnegation of self 
 (the root of sin), and a dedication to God so 
 
 has nothing penal in it, but belongs wholly to the restored 
 order of which you speak ? 
 ^ DoctHne of Sacrifice, p. 196. 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 217 
 
 admirable and cogent that it constrains the sinner 
 to a like sacrifice and return to God. 
 
 There is much else which is worthy of con- 
 sideration in Mr. Maurice's theory, but it has 
 so frequently and conclusively been dealt with 
 elsewhere, that this brief statement must suffice. 
 
 So far as positive statements go, Mr. Maurice 
 says little or nothing which is not embraced in 
 the orthodox theory. We do not say that the 
 side of truth to which he and others of similar 
 views have called attention was made so promi- 
 nent, or had even its due share of attention, 
 before they taught and wrote. We think, 
 indeed, that the one aspect of the Atonement as a 
 deliverance from the guilt of sin, was by some 
 teachers almost exclusively dwelt upon, and with 
 very bad results. In many young persons the 
 sense of guilt is extremely feeble, and becomes 
 influential only after considerable conversance 
 with divine things. Where the only point of 
 attachment between the sinner and the Atone- 
 ment, that is, between the sinner and Christ, was 
 thought to be the hope it held forth of deliver- 
 ance from guilt, this necessarily resulted either 
 in the inoperativeness of the Atonement to attract 
 the sinner, or in the production of forced and 
 false feelings of guilt. If the Atonement be set 
 
218 FREDERICK DEXISON MAURICE 
 
 before men as a deliverance from the bondage of 
 evil habit as well as from the claims of a broken 
 law, those will be attracted — and they are a very 
 large number — who feel bitterly their helpless- 
 ness and depravity, but who have no deep long- 
 ing for pardon; But if orthodox}^ has been 
 practicall}^ one-sided, and we are 'far from deny- 
 ing that it commonly has been, Broad-churchism 
 is theoretically as well as practically one-sided. 
 It is a theology of reaction, and has its spring in 
 contradictoriness. It has done eminent service in 
 bringing to the front aspects of truth and ways of 
 thinking which had been lost sight of ; but, by 
 refusing to see anything but these neglected 
 truths, it has become narrower than the ortho- 
 dox}^ it condemns. The freshness and vitality 
 with which some leaders of the school have 
 handled doctrine have communicated a new and 
 healthier tone to theological thought ; but as this 
 vitality has accompanied, if not resulted from, 
 personal discovery of neglected truth, so this dis- 
 covery of truth which personal experience had 
 verified has tended to a depreciation of other 
 truths which did not form an element in their 
 own personal experience. It is very well to 
 vivify doctrine by an infusion of experimental 
 truth, but any one who tests doctrine by experi- 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 219 
 
 ence must be careful to include the experience of 
 others. Certainly there are many who can find 
 little comfort in an atonement in which there w^as 
 no penal satisfaction for sin;^ and there are none 
 who understand the orthodox doctrine of the 
 Atonement who do not find in it both this and 
 everything which is promulgated by Mr. Maurice. 
 There may be a difficulty in combining in one 
 statement both the judicial and the ethical aspect 
 of the Atonement, but we consider it an indelible 
 blot on the Broad School theology, that they 
 should suppose the two irreconcilable. ^ 
 
 The same incapacity to take account of both 
 sides of a matter is discernible in Mr. Maurice's 
 account of the mode in which men are practically 
 restored to a righteous life. He denounces the 
 
 ^ It must not be supposed that Mr. Maurice's theology takes 
 absolutely no account of guilt in any sense. He feels the 
 guilt of having broken God's law, but thinks with Terence, 
 "pro peccato magno paiilum supi^licii satis est Patri,'" or with 
 Socinus, that nothing but repentance is required by God. 
 Deliverance from guilt is necessary and longed for, and that 
 deliverance is attained through the blood of Christ ; but not 
 because that blood is the satisfaction of the penalty of the law, 
 but because it is an evidence of the love of God, a j)roof that 
 He is waiting to receive the sinner. 
 
 - It will occur to most readers, as an objection to Mr. 
 Maurice's theory, that if Christ's death were merely to exhibit 
 the love of God, and so encourage us to trust Him, this was 
 unnecessary, for all the believing Jews trusted God without 
 knowing anything of Christ's death. 
 
220 FREDEPJCK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 evangelical and ordinary style of preaching as 
 incompetent, because it appeals to what is cowardly 
 and evil in men. " We suppose men are to be 
 shown by arguments that they have sinned, and 
 that God has a right to punish them. We do 
 not say to them, ' You are under a law of love ; 
 you know you are, and you are fighting with it.'"^ 
 Mr. Maurice and his allies persist in contrasting 
 the power of love and the power of fear, as if a 
 man must either be wholly governed by the one 
 or wholly by the other. In point of fact, few 
 men are uninfluenced by both. No one questions 
 that love is the nobler and also the stronger 
 motive : 
 
 " Errat longe 
 Qui iniperium credat gravius esse aut stabilius 
 Vi quod fit, quam illud quod amicitia adjungitur." 
 
 Or, as the same poet elsewhere puts it : 
 
 " Pudore et liberalitate liberos 
 Retinere, satius esse credo quam metu." 
 
 We all believe that ultimately love will be the onl}'' 
 motive ; but it is only when love has been per- 
 fected that fear is cast out as now useless. The 
 two motives must together be brought to bear 
 upon the uneducated, the child, and the depraved. 
 
 ^ Theological Essays, p. 27. 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 221 
 
 Every one who has had much to do either with 
 the education of the young, or the reclaiming of 
 the abandoned, is aware that there is a perfect 
 practical harmony between the persuasive " terrors 
 of the Lord " and the constraining love of the 
 Lord. Certainly, Mr. Maurice's explanation of 
 the conversion of the Kings wood collier must 
 seem thoroughly incompetent to any one who has 
 either been in personal contact with similar cases, 
 or has carefully read the experience of Wesley, 
 Whitfield, and their followers. We fancy that 
 Dr. Watts is on such a point as this quite as safe 
 an authority as Mr. Maurice, and we read that he, 
 " all mild and amiable as he was, and delighted to 
 dwell on the congenial topics, says deliberately, 
 that of all the persons to whom his ministry had 
 been efficacious, only one had received the first 
 efi'ectual impressions from the gentle and attractive 
 aspects of religion ; all the rest from the awful 
 and alarming ones — the appeals to fear. And 
 this is all but universally the manner of the 
 Divine process of conversion." ^ 
 
 A theory of atonement such as Mr. Maurice 
 
 held implies a system of theology essentially 
 
 different from that which is currently accepted. 
 
 This system, in so far as he indicates it, we shall 
 
 ^ Foster's Life and Correspondence, ii. 260. 
 
222 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 endeavour briefly to sketch. Mr. Maurice himself 
 recognised that the real issue upon which the 
 dispute between evangelical theologians and him- 
 self turned, was the question whether the Fall or 
 the Redemption is the ground on which humanit}'- 
 rests. ^ This is true, but we Xhink a more adequate 
 statement of the fundamental difference of the 
 two theologies would be brought out by their 
 respective answers to the question. Is Adam or 
 Christ the root of humanity 1 Mr. Maurice's 
 whole system of thought springs out of his belief 
 that the Son of God does not become the Head of 
 humanity by His incarnation or by His designa- 
 tion to the mediatorial office and work, but that 
 He is originally the Head or Root of the race.^ 
 In his own Avords, baptism "imports the belief 
 that this Son of God, and not Adam, was the 
 true Root of humanity ; that from Him, and not 
 from any ancestor, each man derived his life."^ 
 The Son of God is, in his theology, not merely 
 
 ^ Doctrine of Sacrifice, preface, p. xxxv. 
 
 - Tims Mr. Davies, one of tlie most moderate exponents of 
 Mr. I\Iaurice's doctrine, says : " The primordial creation of 
 mankind in Christ underlies and explains our redemption by 
 Him." lie even ventures to make the surprising statement 
 that " whenever St. Paul is setting forth broadly the message 
 of Atonement through the Cross, he states as the ground of it 
 the mystery of our creation or constitution in Christ.' 
 
 ^ Theological Essays, p. 202. 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 223 
 
 the Agent in creation ; not only supplies life to 
 men, but is in them. Whether he ever distinctly- 
 asked himself the question, Can God create life? 
 we do not know ; but throughout his writings it 
 seems to be taken for granted that God can only 
 enable His creatures to live by Himself living in 
 them ; extending, as it were, His own existence 
 into new forms, so that still all His creatures may 
 be called Himself. There is, according to this 
 Pantheistic supposition, no more life in the 
 universe than there was before creation ; it only 
 exists in new forms. Certainly no language can 
 be plainer and stronger than that in which Mr. 
 Maurice asserts "an actual relationship between 
 the Son of God and human creatures of the most 
 intimate kind which language can express — a 
 relationship implying the closest communion of 
 inward life, of inward love." He says he felt 
 increasingly " the necessity of standing upon this 
 principle, that Christ is in every mcvn.^'^ Men are 
 thus by nature and original constitution, in the 
 most real sense, sons of God. Such an incident 
 as the Fall could make no alteration in this 
 relationship. He sets himself to "combat the 
 irreat denial of our time — the one which is most 
 at variance with the express letter of the Bible, 
 ^ Doctrine of Sacrifice, iDreface, p. xxiv. 
 
224 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 and with its whole object and history — that man 
 continued to be in the image of God after the 
 Fall, with the denials which correspond to this 
 and grow out of it ; that man was originally 
 created in the Divine Word ; and that, apart 
 from Him, neither Adam nor any of his descend- 
 ants either had, or ever could have, any 
 righteousness or an 3^ life."^ Christ thus dwelling 
 in all men by their very nature, all that is need- 
 ful for their restoration to the enjoyment of God 
 and to a godlike character, is their recognition of 
 this their true condition as God's children. No 
 obstacles exist preventing God's love from freely 
 expressing itself to the sinner ; the only change 
 needful lies in the recognition by man of his true 
 relationship to God. This is effected by the 
 manifestation of Christ in the flesh, which reveals 
 God's love for men and their union or unity with 
 the Son, and so inclines them to live no longer to 
 themselves. This revelation of the Son in them, 
 and this knowledge of God as their Father, is 
 eternal life, while the lack or rejection of this 
 knowledge is death eternal. 
 
 Such a system manifestly evacuates the Catholic 
 Christian creed of much that is peculiar, if not 
 essential, to it. Whether, and in what sense, our 
 ^ Patriarchs and Lawgivers, pref. to 2tl ed. p. ix. 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 225 
 
 religion would have been Christian had we 
 remained unfallen, we cannot tell. Whether in 
 that case the Son of God would have become 
 incarnate, we do not know. As things are, the 
 incarnation is certainly presented to us in Scrip- 
 ture as a remedial arrangement, and the connection 
 of men with Christ is spoken of as corrective of, 
 and supplementary to, their connection with 
 Adam. So far from it being the case that men 
 are primarily in Christ, we are directly assured 
 that we are originally connected with Adam, and 
 only attain, by a change so complete as to be 
 worthy of the name of a new birth, to a vital 
 connection with Christ. We are distinctly and 
 expressly warned against looking at things in this 
 reversed order, and are taught that " that was not 
 first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; 
 and afterwards that which is spiritual." This is 
 said with special reference to the two heads of 
 humanity, Adam and Christ. And as the in- 
 carnation of Christ is, in the actual constitution 
 of things, subsequent to the creation of Adam, 
 and introduced as a remedial expedient, so in the 
 life of the individual there exists first the natural 
 connection with Adam, and only subsequent to 
 that the spiritual connection with Christ — a con- 
 nection which, being spiritual, is formed by the 
 
 Q 
 
226 FEEDEKICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 Avill of the individual. It is on this scheme very 
 intelligible that this change should be called a 
 new birth, and that by the establishment of a 
 spiritual connection with the Son of God, men 
 should become adopted sons of God ; but if men 
 are by their natural birth sons of God, is "re- 
 generation " not a misnomer for a change in which 
 there is no real alteration of our relation to God ? 
 and is it not misleading to speak of a second 
 birth ? That there is some truth in the assertion 
 that we are by nature God's children, we do not 
 deny. We are far from maintaining that the 
 description of God as our Governor or Judge is 
 exhaustive, just as we should be slow to admit 
 that the natural relationship between God and His 
 human creatures is adequately represented by that 
 of Fatherhood. We conceive that no single aspect 
 of God's relationship to man is adequate, and that 
 if we would understand the nature of His dealings 
 with us, we must combine the love and longing of 
 the Father with the Sovereign's regard for justice 
 and indissoluble connection with law. If, there- 
 fore, men speak and think of God as their Father, 
 understanding thereby that they may count upon 
 a Father's tenderness in Him, and are receiving 
 from Him a Father's care, no doctrine of Adoption 
 or Regeneration would instigate us to rebuke 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 227 
 
 them for so conceiving of God ; but if they 
 proceed to found upon this name of Father a 
 scientific theology, if they argue that because they 
 are in some sense children of God already, they 
 need no connection with God's Son other than 
 that which they naturally enjoy, we cannot but 
 think that the entire scheme of salvation by 
 Christ contradicts their position. 
 
 The influence which Mr. Maurice exerted was 
 of that indefinable kind which proceeds from 
 character, rather tlian that which is asserted by 
 new and striking thought. His actual contribu- 
 tions to theology were small. He has not given 
 us any substantial development of doctrine, he has 
 not set any article of our creed on a more un- 
 assailable foundation. Some of his contemporaries 
 have left behind them works full of well-digested 
 thought and ascertained information, Avorks of an 
 impersonal kind, which communicate substantial 
 knowledge, without giving us any hint of the 
 character of their authors. In every line of Mr. 
 Maurice's writings we are in contact with himself, 
 and his books are useful mainly, if not solely, 
 because they impart to the reader something of 
 the earnest and living spirit of the writer. It is 
 the tone in which he conducts all inquiries rather 
 
228 FEEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 than the result of any special investigation which 
 benefits his readers. As a preacher, this was the 
 secret of his influence. From many pulpits there 
 might have been heard much more lucid exposi- 
 tions of Scripture, and much more eloquent 
 enforcements of truth, but it is not what a man 
 says, but what he is, that influences. It is not 
 the sermon so much as the man that preaches. 
 A very commonplace truth heartily believed, and 
 uttered because it is believed, is accepted by the 
 hearer who is impregnable to the most skilful 
 reasoning. Mr. Maurice, with his plain, hesitating 
 manner of address, was an instance of this. His 
 sermons were often crude, often dry, always 
 obscure, but in them all the hearer was in contact 
 with a soul seeking the light with holy and 
 earnest purpose, hopeful of success, and resolute 
 to seek till it found. Mr. Maurice became a 
 leader among men because he followed none, but 
 was always himself, true to his own convictions, 
 open to more light, able to help others because 
 himself immovably grounded, afraid of nothing, 
 of no new discovery, of no outward changes ; 
 because he loved what was true and right, and 
 had finally given himself to the truth, finding in 
 it his blessedness. He had himself passed through 
 the dark and difficult places into which intelligent. 
 
FREDEPJCK DENISON MAURICE 229 
 
 thoughtful, and God-fearing men are led, and he 
 had that kind of imagination which enabled him 
 to live through the experience of others. In 
 dealing with the characters found under the Old 
 Testament, his tendency was therefore rather to 
 put too much of his own feeling into them than 
 to handle them as fossil remains. Always success- 
 ful in making these characters live before us, he 
 sometimes falls into the Byronic error of putting 
 himself into every character, and finding in others 
 only what he has first found in himself. In spite, 
 however, of this tendency, his writings on the Old 
 Testament are not only full of interest, profound 
 thought, and beauty of expression, but do present 
 many views of persons and institutions which are 
 of great value. Here he was in his element, and 
 no hand is more successful than his in tracinsf 
 obscure experiences, unravelling the mixture of 
 motives and the subtle influences which express 
 themselves in conduct, or in depicting the various 
 attitudes which men assume towards God and one 
 another. But we cannot persuade ourselves that 
 he has been successful in handling theology proper. 
 Indeed, to speak honestly, we have found few 
 writers more disappointing. There are great 
 difficulties in theology, and we, perhaps simply, 
 betook ourselves to the writings of Mr. Maurice 
 
230 FEEDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 Avitli considerable expectations. At first we were 
 encouraged by tlie earnest moral tone, but soon 
 his misrepresentations of evangelical truth con- 
 vinced us that we had found only a one-sided 
 man still. These misrepresentations, we are 
 bound to say, are so gross, so virulent, and so 
 ignorant, that they at once destroyed our con- 
 fidence in Mr. Maurice as a theological guide. 
 We do not suppose that his theological reading 
 was extensive ; we have no evidence that he was 
 careful in ascertaining what Calvinism really is, as 
 held by its recognised champions, but it is difficult 
 to believe that he had no compunction in ascribing 
 to the Evangelicals such opinions as he represents 
 them as holding. If we are to accept his repre- 
 sentations of evangelical truth as a true account 
 of Avhat he really supposed Evangelicals or 
 Calvinists to hold, then we must conclude that he 
 had never consulted any one leader of evangelical 
 thought, that he had never read Owen, or 
 Goodwin, or Edwards, or even Stillingfleet or 
 Charnock. We are aware that Calvinism is the 
 red rag which renders a Broad-Churchman furious 
 and blind, but we are heartily disappointed that 
 Mr. Maurice should not have so far commanded 
 himself as to look steadily for a little at that 
 which he attacked. In his Theological Essays his 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 231 
 
 uniform method is to describe the current opinion 
 on the toj^ic in question, and then gradually to 
 disclose the view which he means shall supersede 
 the old ideas, but in no case does he give us a 
 reference to his source of information. No man 
 is so free in ascribing hateful sentiments to large 
 bodies of his fellow-Christians, and yet in almost 
 no instance does he quote or refer to any authority. 
 It is the merest caricature of the meagrest form 
 of evangelical teaching which he gives ; and we 
 are persuaded that he could not substantiate his 
 descriptions from the writings of any well-known 
 teacher. This literary crime, like all other faults, 
 has its own punishment; it renders his most 
 systematic work utterly feeble and unsatisfactory. 
 For who cares to hear magniloquent refutations 
 of what no one believes 1 If Mr. Maurice chooses 
 to call these creations of his own fancy orthodoxy, 
 or if he chooses to identify the popular evangelical 
 idea Avith some grotesque caricature of it, we are 
 not bound to be so deceived. And if, having 
 refuted this creation of his own, he erects his 
 trophy and sings his triumphal ode over the fall 
 of current theological opinion, we can but lament 
 that a man who might have been usefully employed 
 should so have wasted thought and language. 
 The obscurity, universally complained of as 
 
232 FREDEEICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 attaching to Mr. Maurice's writings, arose mainly 
 from his theological position and the attitude he 
 assumed towards the orthodox creed. Accepting 
 the dogmatic expressions of the Articles, the task 
 of his life was to find the truth that underlies 
 them. To him the Creed rather than the Bible 
 was the source of theology. But he would accept 
 no article which had not a meaning for his spiritual 
 aspirations and experience ; and his own intense 
 hunger for what was real and nourishing to the 
 spiritual life within him, caused him to reject with 
 vehemence whatever savoured of merely notional 
 or prepositional theology. Terms and j^hrases. 
 however venerable, were nothing to him. All 
 formulas and creeds are dry bones, and he accepts 
 it as his office " to create a soul under the ribs of 
 death." In doing so he is guided solely by his 
 own spiritual experience, and necessarily, there- 
 fore, by his own intellectual habits and forms of 
 thought. He accepted the phraseology of ortho- 
 doxy, but filled it with a meaning peculiar to 
 himself. He believed in an Atonement, a Resur- 
 rection, a Day of Judgment, but utterly repudiated 
 what is commonly understood by these terms. 
 He answers to his own definition of the " original 
 man " as it is given in a characteristic passage in 
 the Dedicatory Letter to his work on Sacrifice : 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 233 
 
 " I have affirmed continually — I have affirmed again 
 in this book — that I have discovered nothing ; that 
 what I am saying is to be found in every creed of the 
 Catholic Church ; in the Prayers and Articles of the 
 Church to which I belong ; most emphatically in the 
 Bible, from which they derive their authority, and to 
 which they refer as their ultimate standard. But 
 while I utterly disclaim novelty, which, I suppose, is 
 what Dr. Candlish means by originality in matter, 
 there is a sense in which I earnestly desire to be 
 original. . . . An original man is not one who in- 
 vents — not one who refuses to learn from others.^ I 
 say, boldly, no original man ever did that. But he is 
 one who does not take words and phrases at second- 
 hand ; who asks what they signify ; who does not feel 
 that they are his, or that he has a right to use them 
 till he knows what they signify. The original man is 
 fighting for his life ; he must knov/ whether he has 
 any ground to stand upon ; he must ask God to tell 
 him, because man cannot." 
 
 It was this constant purpose and desire to hold 
 nothing for truth which he could not realise 
 within himself, and to give utterance to it pre- 
 cisely in that form in which it manifested itself 
 
 ^ Which will remiud our readers of Carlyle's utterance in 
 his Ledtcres on Heroes. " A man can believe, and make his 
 own, in the most genuine way, what he has received from 
 another ; — and with boundless gratitude to that other. The 
 merit of originality is not novelty ; it is sincerity. The 
 believing man is the original man ; whatsoever he believes, he 
 believes it for himself, and not for another." 
 
234 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 in his own spirit, which made him obscure. It is 
 his greatest excellence that to him no word is 
 merely a word ; in all his thinking we feel that 
 he is not dealing mentally with propositions and 
 logical inferences, but spiritually with vital real- 
 ities, with things and persons. This is his great 
 power and his great helpfulness, but out of this 
 arise his great defects, his narrowness and his 
 obscurity. It is to this doctrinal self-absorption 
 that the apparently egotistical character of his 
 utterances is due. We are never left alone with 
 the subject ; the truth is never left to speak for 
 itself, it comes verified by Mr. Maurice's experi- 
 ence. This style of writing has its strength and 
 its weakness ; it has the strength which belongs 
 to a personal statement, it has the weakness 
 which attaches to what appears as individual 
 opinion rather than the voice of the Church. A 
 man cannot always speak in the first person with- 
 out leaving the impression that, however true to 
 his own experience, his words do not convey the 
 truth sanctioned by universal consent. It must 
 also be owned that there is in Mr. Maurice's 
 writings no large and liberal approbation of the 
 work of other theologians, .but rather a frettingly 
 recurrent depreciation of those who have pre- 
 ceded him. Of course, every reader of his writ- 
 
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 235 
 
 ings is aware that praise is occasionally distributed 
 in the most unexpected directions, but accom- 
 panying the praise there is always found the 
 modifying, detracting clause which leaves on the 
 reader's mind the impression that truth lies with 
 Mr. Maurice alone ; and, in point of fact, the 
 result of a belief in him is very frequently dis- 
 belief in all other writers. Indeed, it is scarcely 
 too much to say, that in many instances there is 
 no other visible result of belief in him than con- 
 tempt for every other theologian. 
 
 We should be sorry, however, to seem to part 
 from so rare a man in a spirit of hostility, or 
 enmity, or detraction. We believe him to have 
 been a man who has done much good as well as 
 much harm. It may indeed be feared that he is 
 one to whom the words are applicable, " The evil 
 that men do lives after them, the good is oft 
 interred with their bones." It may be feared 
 that opinions which had no evil results in a 
 character so pure and elevated as his, may in less 
 genuine and reverential natures be productive of 
 a thoroughgoing rationalism. Rejection of the 
 traditional theology may have done little harm to 
 Mr. Maurice himself, but may do much harm to 
 the smaller spirits who take up the cry against 
 all dogmatic teaching, and to those who merely 
 
236 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 wish countenance in renouncing what is com- 
 monly beheved. It is very well known that a 
 man's followers carry out his principles to con- 
 clusions little thought of by himself, and we 
 think that already there are symptoms, among 
 those who profess unbounded admiration for Mr. 
 Maurice, of a loosening of faith in Scripture, 
 which results from, though it far outsteps, his 
 theory of its nature. There has got abroad a 
 notion that this very excellent and able man 
 showed little respect for the traditional theology, 
 and some persons, omitting to consider that Mr. 
 Maurice threw off the old habits of thought not 
 that he might be " unclothed " but " clothed 
 upon " with what he conscientiously believed to 
 be more sufficient, imitate him in discarding what 
 they have hitherto worn, but are in danger of 
 being "found naked." But notwithstanding such 
 disastrous results in pretentious, insincere, or 
 feeble minds, we believe that the spectacle of a 
 man who shrank from no test to which the 
 Christian faith can be put, who advocated and 
 displayed an absolute freedom of thought, and 
 yet maintained to the end and increasingly his 
 faith in God and in Christ, has saved many others 
 from infidelity, and forced the acknowledgment 
 that Christianity in some form or other is true. 
 
FREDEEICK DENISON MAURICE 237 
 
 This spectacle was all the more telling by reason 
 of his departure from the orthodox faith ; for few 
 men can believe in an intellectual liberty which 
 asserts itself only by agreeing with and corro- 
 borating existing beliefs. Though undoubtedly 
 many adherents of orthodoxy are quite as un- 
 fettered and outspoken as Mr. Maurice, yet 
 perhaps the time had come when the Church 
 required to be reminded that theology, like every 
 other science, has a tendency to convert living, 
 life-giving truth into dead formulas and intel- 
 lectual propositions. With immense industry, and 
 with spiritual conflict which left its ineradicable 
 traces on his resolute but tender countenance, Mr. 
 Maurice verified the fundamentals of the Christian 
 faith in his own soul, and in presence of every 
 difficulty with which his wide knowledge and 
 fearless inquiry acquainted him ; and the result 
 has been that men see that, even supposing the 
 Westminster and every other Confession to be in 
 many particulars wrong, there remains an inde- 
 feasible reality in religion. This result might 
 perhaps have been gained without any counter- 
 acting detriment, but the Church must ever 
 honour the man who has identified the name of 
 Christian with the tenderest graces and the man- 
 liest virtues which adorn and enrich human 
 
238 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 nature, with the truest faith in God and an 
 ardent devotion to the well-being of men. If we 
 feel little sympathy with his theology, we do 
 not the less love and admire the man : " omnes 
 homines sumus ; non nos, sed errores et falsitates 
 oderimus." 
 
 October 1872. 
 
VI 
 
 CONFUCIUS 
 
 The Chinese are supposed to form about one- 
 third of the population of the world. And there 
 is some ground for believing that for the last four 
 thousand years they have held much the same 
 numerical proportion to the entire human race. 
 Yet it may be said that there is but one China- 
 man who has earned a world-wide reputation, one 
 individual who has been large enough to lift him- 
 self above the millions of unknown, unrecorded 
 lives and force himself on the regard of the 
 Western world. It is probably due to the absorp- 
 tion of the individual in the State that there is in 
 China so remarkable a lack of great names. The 
 individual exists for the State, not the State for 
 the individual. Everything is crushed down to 
 a dead level and monotony. No heroic spirits 
 arise ; no heroic deeds are done. Patriotism is 
 enjoined by law, and the spirit of devotedness has 
 
240 CONFUCIUS 
 
 never been evoked. Consequently, though no 
 state has ever governed so many men, none has 
 annals so poor and flat. Individual effort is 
 frowned upon ; improvement is branded as innova- 
 tion. 
 
 By what singular qualities then did Confucius 
 win for himself his unique rej^utation ? He was 
 not a conqueror stamping his name on the terror- 
 struck imagination of surrounding tribes. He 
 was not an inventor whose memory is kept green 
 by the gratitude of those who daily enjoy the 
 fruit of his genius. He was not a poet uttering 
 men's best thoughts and deepest feelings for them 
 in words more expressive than their own. He 
 was not even a philosopher, or if a philosopher, 
 his philosophy was on the level of that of 
 Benjamin Franklin. In short, no ordinary 
 avenue to fame seems to have been open to him ; 
 and yet, if numbers go for anything, what fame 
 rivals that of the man who for twenty-three 
 centuries has been worshipped as all but divine 
 by nearly one half of the world, and whose words 
 are regarded as canonical by a people compared to 
 whose exclusive jealousy the Jewish exclusiveness 
 is latitudinarian ? The secret of his fame is 
 mainly this, that he was the Chinaman of the 
 Chinamen, the most conservative and ancestor- 
 
CONFUCIUS 241 
 
 worshipping individual of the most conservative 
 and ancestor- worshipping race. It was by his 
 work that the national tendencies and popular 
 instincts were recognised and definitely fixed. 
 What had before been implicit was by Confucius 
 made explicit. It was he who formulated the 
 relations of ruler and subject which form so large 
 a part of Chinese life. It was he who gave 
 utterance to those maxims of personal conduct 
 which the Chinese are justly proud of, though 
 they do not scrupulously observe them. Especi- 
 ally it was he who gathered into a Chinese canon 
 all the wisdom which had been tested by previous 
 generations, and so set the seal of completeness 
 on Chinese life and customs so far as this can be 
 done by any man or by any books. 
 
 The facts of his life, which are at once well 
 ascertained and significant, are few. Confucius, 
 or Kung-foo-tsze, [i.e. Kung, the Master], like 
 some of the heroes of Hebrew history, was the 
 son of his father's old age — the long - coveted 
 boy whom nine unwelcome daughters had pre- 
 ceded. He was born in the year 551 B.C., of 
 parents who, though poor, were in good posi- 
 tion. His father was a soldier of immense size, 
 strength, and courage, and with the blood of 
 emperors in his veins ; so that even at the age 
 
 R 
 
242 CONFUCIUS 
 
 of seventy he found it possible to contract a 
 second marriage, from which sprang his famous 
 son. The child was named Kew from a peculiar 
 formation on the top of his head, which is still 
 represented in some of the statues of Confucius. 
 In his third year he lost his father, and of his 
 childhood and schooldays only one character- 
 istic trait is preserved. As it is recorded of 
 Athanasius that he was observed when a 
 child playing at church ceremonies, and himself 
 enacting the part of a bishop, so of Confucius 
 it is related that " as a boy he used to play at 
 the arrangement of sacrificial vessels, and at 
 postures of ceremony." At the age of nineteen 
 he married, and entered the service of the State 
 as a keeper of grain - stores and inspector of 
 pastures and flocks. These duties were inter- 
 rupted three or four years after by the death 
 of his mother, an event which required that he 
 should go into retirement for twenty - seven 
 months. This period, however, was abundantly 
 utilised for purposes of study and of inquiry 
 into funeral and other religious observances and 
 ancient customs. By slow degrees, and with 
 some interruptions, he won his way at the age 
 of fifty to a position in Avhich he could practi- 
 cally carry out the social reforms he had long 
 
CONFUCIUS 243 
 
 desired. As chief magistrate of the town of 
 Chung-too he produced in a single year a marked 
 improvement in trade -customs, in the private 
 life of the citizens, and generally in the pros- 
 perity of the community. Kulers and people 
 were alike sensible of the change. Neighbour- 
 ing governors applied to him for draft- schemes 
 for the government of their provinces ; and when 
 he was made Minister of Crime, so alive were 
 the criminal classes to his integrity and thorough- 
 ness, that his mere appointment awed them into 
 honesty. 
 
 His success, indeed, was his ruin. The pro- 
 vince of Loo became the envy of surrounding 
 provinces, and by an extraordinary appeal made 
 to the sensual appetites of its prince, the neigh- 
 bouring rulers succeeded in destroying the in- 
 fluence of the austere minister. When eighty 
 dancing girls and one hundred and twenty of the 
 finest horses arrived as a present to the prince, 
 a discerning friend of Confucius said to him, 
 " Master, it is time for you to be going." Reluct- 
 antly and regretfully Confucius withdrew, and 
 the remainder of his life is a record of sorrow, 
 disappointment, and unsettledness. Passing from 
 place to place as the Apostle of Reform, he was 
 everywhere rejected, though frequently treated 
 
244 CONFUCIUS 
 
 with kindness and respect at the first. His wife, 
 his son, his most intimate disciples, died during 
 these melancholy years, till at last, broken with 
 years and failure, he bowed to his fate. He died 
 in his seventy-third year, a disappointed, saddened 
 man, conscious of his own greatness, or at any 
 rate of the importance of his teaching, and yet 
 more than doubtful whether any lasting impres- 
 sion had been made by it. If we may judge 
 from the pathetic significance of one of his brief 
 sayings, he seems to have himself lost hope, and 
 to have allowed his long-cherished ideal kingdom 
 of Chow to pass altogether into cloudland out 
 from among all practicable realities. "Extreme 
 is my decay," he says ; " for a long time I have 
 not dreamed, as I was wont to do, that I saw the 
 Duke of Chow." Dr. Legge gives the following 
 touching account of his death : " Early one morn- 
 ing he got up, and with his hands behind his 
 back, dragging his staff, he moved about by his 
 door, crooning over — 
 
 " ' The great mountain must crumble ; 
 The strong beam must break ; 
 And the wise man wither away like a plant.' 
 
 After a little he entered the house and sat down 
 opposite the door. Tsze-Kung had heard his 
 
CONFUCIUS 245 
 
 words, and said to himself, ' If the great mountain 
 crumble, to what shall I look up ? If the strong 
 beam break, and the wise man wither away, on 
 whom shall I lean 1 The Master, I fear, is going 
 to be ill.' With this he hastened into the house. 
 •Confucius said to him, ' Tsze, what makes you so 
 late 1 , . . No intelligent monarch arises ; there 
 is not one in the empire that will make me his 
 master. My time is come to die.' So it was. 
 He went to his couch, and, after seven days, 
 expired." 
 
 The acknowledgment so scantily given him in 
 his lifetime was afterwards abundantly rendered 
 by those to whom he was little more than a 
 name. His reputation grew, until, in the year 57 
 of our era, it was enacted that sacrifices be offered 
 to him in all the colleges of the principal divisions 
 of the empire. A few centuries more, and temples 
 were erected to him, and his worship became, as 
 it remains to this day, the state religion. Twice 
 a year the Emperor himself, the representative of 
 the divine to all Chinamen, performs ceremonies 
 in honour of Confucius with special solemnity ; 
 and this most exalted of potentates bows himself 
 to the earth, and invokes the spirit of Confucius 
 in the words, " Great art thou, perfect sage ! 
 Thy virtue is full, thy doctrine is complete. 
 
246 CONFUCIUS 
 
 Among mortal men there has not been thine 
 equal. All khigs honour thee. Thy statutes 
 and laws have come gloriously down. Thou art 
 the pattern in this imperial school." 
 
 "While, however, the career of Confucius as a 
 practical statesman or reformer was almost wholly 
 ineffective, his influence in private on the select 
 circle that owned him as their Master and trea- 
 sured his words was immense. He may best be 
 understood as a kind of Chinese Socrates, quick- 
 ening his disciples to think, rather than handing 
 over to them a finished system, fearless and dis- 
 interested as the Greek sage, and with a like 
 capacity of discriminating between the likely 
 pupil and the unimprovable dullard. "Rotten 
 wood," he said, " cannot be carved ; a wall of 
 dirty earth will not receive the trowel. This Yu, 
 who sleeps in the daytime, what is the use of my 
 reproving him ? " Again : " I do not open up the 
 truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, 
 nor help out any one who is not anxious to 
 explain himself. AVhen I have presented one 
 corner of a subject to any one, and he cannot 
 from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my 
 lesson." As a teacher, he maintained throughout 
 his whole career a perfect independence, for 
 which we cannot but honour him. A provincial 
 
CONFUCIUS 247 
 
 governor who had been captivated with his 
 conversation offered him the revenues of one of 
 his towns, but Confucius declined the gift, saying 
 to his disciples, "A superior man will only 
 receive reward for services which he has done. 
 I have given advice to the Duke, but he has not 
 yet obeyed it, and now he would endow me with 
 this place. Very far is he from understanding 
 me." Threats moved him as little as bribes or 
 rewards. His vigorous reforms and reassertion 
 of forgotten and inconvenient customs often made 
 him obnoxious both to rulers and people. But 
 he argued that if Heaven had wished to let the 
 cause of truth perish, he would not have been 
 impelled to proclaim it, and " if Heaven intends 
 that the truth shall not perish, then what can the 
 people of Kwang do to me." Always accessible 
 to the earnest inquirer, he never declined to give 
 instruction, though his pupil might, to use his 
 own words, have nothing to give him but a 
 bundle of dried flesh. He was himself profoundly 
 interested in human duties and relationships, 
 willing always to receive or to impart light. 
 " There were four things," his disciples used to 
 say, " from which the Master was entirely free. 
 He had no foregone conclusions, no arbitrary 
 predeterminations, no obstinacy, no egotism " — 
 
248 CONFUCIUS 
 
 important qualities, certainly, in any one who 
 proposes to find the truth. Of his sincerity no 
 one can entertain a doubt. " I detest," he says, 
 " that which has appearance without reality ; I 
 detest clever men, for fear that they shall con- 
 found justice ; I detest an eloquent mouth, fear- 
 ing lest it confuse truth ; I detest the colour of 
 violet, because it mimics the colour of purple ; I 
 detest the most respectable people of a neigh- 
 bourhood, because they mimic virtue." 
 
 The subject-matter of the teaching of Confucius 
 was Ethics. In his day there was a remarkable 
 stirring of the Chinese mind, and this mental 
 movement naturally revolved round the popular 
 religion. This religion was one which could 
 satisfy neither the speculative nor the morall}^ 
 earnest men. It was a degenerate nature-wor- 
 ship, each natural agency being under the control 
 of departmental spirits, who had to be consulted 
 and propitiated on every occasion. No better 
 soil could be found for charlatanry and supersti- 
 tion. Two reformative reactions appeared in the 
 sixth century B.C., the one associated with the, 
 name of Lao-tsze, the other with that of Con- 
 fucius. The work of the former was an attempt 
 to elevate the popular religion by rationalising it, 
 or finding a sufficient sj^eculative basis for faitli. 
 
CONFUCIUS 249 
 
 To Confucius fell the more congenial task of 
 introducing a higher morality. Both were dis- 
 satisfied with the state of matters around them. 
 The one said to himself, Let us see what basis 
 in fact there is for religious worship ; let us find 
 out what existence is, and what this world is, and 
 whence we are. The other said, Let us look at 
 the things immediately before us, and speak only 
 of Avhat we know, and regarding which we can 
 make positive affirmations. The one was the 
 Hegel, the other the Comte of China. They had 
 no sympathy with one another. Confucius had 
 a dry, prosaic, practical mind, which could only 
 gaze in wonder at the speculative flights of 
 Lao-tsze. He was not ashamed to make the 
 admission to his disciples, "I know how birds 
 can fly, how fishes can swim, how animals can 
 run. But there is the dragon : I cannot tell how 
 he mounts on the wind through the clouds and 
 rises to heaven. To-day I have seen Lao-tsze, 
 and can only compare him to the dragon." 
 
 The position of Confucius may best be under- 
 stood through the analogous position of the 
 statesmen-philosophers of Eome, such as Cicero, 
 Seneca, and Plutarch. Confucius could not break 
 with the religion of his country, and he had no 
 desire to do so. A reverence for antiquity was 
 
250 CONFUCIUS 
 
 his chief characteristic. " I am a transmitter, not 
 a maker," he was fond of saying. All his reforms 
 were conducted in a conservative spirit, and on 
 the principle that all wisdom had been given to 
 the ancients. He would not meddle with the 
 established worship which had satisfied his 
 fathers. It was part of his duty as a good 
 citizen to render that worship, and therefore he 
 would unquestioningly give it. To him, as to 
 every Chinaman, the State was the supreme 
 entity. It was to it he owed his allegiance, and 
 his aim was to discover how men could best live 
 together and serve the State. Like Aristotle, he 
 is devoted to ethics and politics, and has nothing 
 to say about the Divine. The bent and constant 
 attitude of his mind is given in his words, " To 
 give oneself earnestly to the duties due to men, 
 and while respecting spiritual beings, to keep 
 aloof from them, this may be called wisdom." 
 
 We must not look to Confucius, then, for any 
 light upon religious matters. He had evidently 
 no convictions about the supernatural. He was 
 an Agnostic pure and simple, declining to dogma- 
 tise where he had no grounds for affirmation. 
 Even when questioned regarding the most uni- 
 versal custom and belief of the Chinese religion, 
 he made evasive answers. Ke Loo, e.g., asked 
 
CONFUCIUS 251 
 
 him about serving the spirits of the dead, but 
 Confucius replied, " While you are not able to 
 serve living men, how can you serve their spirits ?'' 
 Not daunted by this clever snub, the irrepressible 
 disciple went on to ask about death ; but the 
 ready fencer met this assault also with an equally 
 skilful parry : " While you do not know life, how 
 can you know death ? " These replies might 
 indeed be supposed to lie in the same plane as 
 the remark of the Apostle John, " He that 
 loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how 
 can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " 
 They might, that is to say, be construed as 
 merely intended to remind men that there is an 
 order and gradation in human duties, and that no 
 man can accomplish the higher by evading the 
 lower j and to rebuke the tendency to exonerate 
 ourselves from duties that lie under our nose 
 by professing to be engaged in higher matters. 
 But this construction cannot always be given, 
 and will not account for the uniform indisposi- 
 tion which Confucius manifests to commit him- 
 self to any statement regarding things super- 
 natural. He was, in fact, a high-minded secularist 
 or positivist, who believed that care for present 
 duty was the only preparation for the future, 
 that men should concern themselves with what 
 
252 CONFUCIUS 
 
 they know, and that the unseen and unknown 
 will reveal itself in due time. " Have the dead 
 knowledge," asked one of his disciples ; "or 
 have they not ? " The Master replied, " If I were 
 to say that they have knowledge, I am afraid 
 that filial sons would injure their substance in pay- 
 ing the last offices to the departed ; and if I were 
 to say that they have not knowledge, I fear lest 
 unfilial sons should leave their parents unburied. 
 You need not wish to know whether they have 
 knowledge or not. There is no present urgency 
 about the point. Hereafter you will know it for 
 yourself." Obviously Confucius was not pos- 
 sessed by that intense religious craving, nor by 
 that keen speculative instinct, the one or the 
 other of which drives many men past secularism, 
 bidding them search above all else for God, bid- 
 ding them renew the search, however baffled, 
 however weary and perplexed, because they feel 
 that till the question of God's existence is settled 
 all other questions can receive but a partial and 
 provisional solution. 
 
 Yet the moral intensity and practical earnest- 
 ness of Confucius never relaxed. And if he ever 
 questioned himself regarding the source of moral 
 obligation and found that he could not satisfac- 
 torily answer the questions that pierced to the 
 
CONFUCIUS 253 
 
 ultimate aim of human life and the fundamental 
 ground of human duty, this seems only to have 
 made him cling more tenaciously to whatever in 
 conduct he felt to be good, and to trust more to 
 the leaven of personal influence than to carefully 
 elaborated systems of ethics for the regeneration 
 of society. His consciousness of the inefficacy of 
 reasoned systems of morals is remarkably ex- 
 pressed in the following : " The Master said, ' I 
 would prefer not speaking.' Tsze-Kung said, 
 ' If you, Master, do not speak, what shall we your 
 disciples have to record ? ' The Master replied, 
 ' Does Heaven speak ? The four seasons pursue 
 their courses, and all things are continually being 
 produced, but does Heaven say anything 1 ' " 
 Increasingly he felt the insufficiency of teaching 
 to make men moral, — and here again he resembles 
 Aristotle, — increasingly indeed he felt how far off 
 he himself was from living up to his own ideal. 
 "The sage and the man of perfect virtue," he 
 said, " how dare I rank myself with them 1 In 
 letters I am perhaps equal to other men, but the 
 character of the superior man, carrying out in his 
 conduct what he professes, is what I have not 
 yet attained to." "The leaving virtue without 
 proper cultivation, the not thoroughly discussing 
 what is learned, not being able to move towards 
 
254 CONFUCIUS 
 
 righteousness of which a knowledge is gained, 
 and not being able to change what is not good — 
 these are the things which occasion me solicitude." 
 The work from which a knowledge of the 
 teaching of Confucius may best be gained is 
 entitled The Confucian Analects. This work may, 
 in respect of its form, be compared to the gospels ; 
 not that it contains anything approaching to a 
 biography of Confucius, but because it comj)rises 
 a vast number of his sayings, which were set 
 down in writing or committed to memory by 
 those who heard them. In the Analects, there- 
 fore, we must not expect to find such an exposi- 
 tion of his views as a philosopher would give who 
 sat down, pen in hand, to do so ; neither have 
 we the artistically finished and long-drawn discus- 
 sions familiar to the reader of Plato, but only a 
 collection of brief sayings evoked by some trivial 
 circumstance or incidental question. Some of 
 these sayings are indeed full of shrewdness, and 
 worthy of the universal introductory formula, 
 " The Master said." For example : " In ancient 
 times men learned with a view to their own 
 improvement : nowadays men learn with a view 
 to the approbation of others." Again : " He who 
 requires much from himself and little from others 
 will keep himself from being the object of resent- 
 
CONFUCIUS 255 
 
 ment." Two other of his sayings are worthy of 
 the attention of all students : " The Master said, 
 Learning without thought is labour lost ; thought 
 without learning is perilous." And again : " In 
 all things success depends upon previous pre- 
 paration, and without such previous prepara- 
 tion there is sure to be failure. If what is to be 
 spoken be previously determined, there will be no 
 stumbling. If affairs be previously determined, 
 there will be no difficulty with them. If one's 
 actions have been previously determined, there 
 will be no sorrow in connection with them. If 
 principles of conduct have been previously deter- 
 mined, the practice of them w^ill be inexhaustible." 
 Of course it would be easy to quote pages of 
 trivial, flat, commonplace observations ; on the 
 other hand, if any one wished to establish for 
 Confucius the character of profundity, he might 
 cite such a saying as this: "Is virtue a thing 
 remote 1 I wish to be virtuous, and lo ! virtue is 
 at hand"; or as this : "What the superior man 
 seeks is in himself ; what the mean man seeks is 
 in others." 
 
 But it is not by scattered sayings such as these 
 that a teacher can exert a lasting influence. In 
 the Analects we find traces of something more 
 than the faculty of felicitous expression and acute 
 
256 CONFUCIUS 
 
 observation. We find a moral earnestness that 
 penetrates to some of the most important prin- 
 ciples of human life and conduct. Perhaps the 
 most remarkable instance of this ethical insight 
 is found in the Chinese teacher's anticipation 
 of the golden rule of the Gospel. One of his 
 disciples, weary of maxims and rules, said to 
 Confucius, " Is there one word which may serve 
 as a rule of practice for all one's life 1 " The 
 Master replied, " Is not Pieciprocity such a word 1 
 What you do not want done to yourself, do not 
 do to others." This was not a mere accidental 
 hit or happy thought. In the little work en- 
 titled The Doctrine of the Mean, in which he 
 elaborates his ethical ideas somewhat more fully, 
 it is still this principle which pervades the whole. 
 Indeed he formulates it in the ever-memorable 
 expression, which is probably profounder than 
 any ethical truth uttered by Greek philosophy, 
 "Benevolence is Man." Again and again we find 
 him unfolding this central truth in some such 
 style as the following : " In the way of the 
 superior man there are four things to not one of 
 which have I as yet attained : to serve my father 
 as I would require my son to serve me, to this 
 I have not attained ; to serve my prince as I would 
 require my minister to serve me ; ... to serve 
 
CONFUCIUS 257 
 
 my elder brother as I would require my younger 
 brother to serve me ; to set the example in 
 behaving to a friend as I would require him to 
 behave to me — to this I have not attained." 
 But the prominence he gave to this ethical 
 principle is perhaps most convincingly shown by 
 the fact that this doctrine of his was taken up 
 and developed by the philosopher Mih Teih, who 
 demonstrated, in a work still extant and accessible 
 to English readers, that universal mutual love is 
 the root of all virtue and the cure of all social evil. 
 There are two uses to which this slight ac- 
 quaintance with the great Chinese moralist may 
 be put. The first is to guard ourselves against 
 the common error of supposing that it is by 
 inculcating a wholly new and previously un- 
 thought-of morality that the Christian religion 
 proves its divine origin and establishes its trans- 
 cendent importance. The Christian morality is 
 more complete, more consistent, more penetrating 
 than that inculcated elsewhere. The Christian 
 morality is perfect, being the morality of the 
 Incarnate God. But it is an extremely rash, not 
 to say unfair, procedure on the part of those who 
 have no personal acquaintance with other moral 
 systems to institute comparisons upon special 
 points, or to declaim at large against the defects 
 
 s 
 
258 CONFUCIUS 
 
 of uninspired teachers. For what is the conse- 
 quence 1 The consequence is this, that having 
 heard the ardent but reckless Christian Apologist 
 declare that this one Christian injunction, " Do to 
 others as ye would be done by," is enough to 
 prove the divinity of our religion, you turn to 
 Confucius and find the very same sentiment, or 
 you consult the Hindu sacred books and you 
 read : " Hear the sum of all righteousness, and 
 when thou hast heard, ponder it. Do not to 
 others what would be repugnant to thyself." It 
 may then be insinuated that these are only 
 negative precepts informing you what you are not 
 to do, but not directing you to positive duty ; you 
 look, therefore, a little further and you find it 
 written : " That the wise man should in whatever 
 manner he can promote the satisfaction of every 
 embodied creature — this is the worship of 
 Vishnu." "What makes the birth of embodied 
 creatures fruitful is this, that they should with 
 their life, with their means, with their under- 
 standing, and with their speech, seek to advance 
 the welfare of other creatures in this world." 
 " The good show compassion even to worthless 
 creatures. The moon does not withdraw its light 
 from the house of the Pariah." " Suitable 
 hospitality should be shown even to an enemy 
 
CONFUCIUS 259 
 
 when he comes to one's house. A tree does 
 not withdraw its shade even from the forester 
 who comes to cut it down." 
 
 Manifestly, if we have been taught that the 
 chief distinction between Christianity and other 
 systems lies in the contents of their moral teach- 
 ing, our faith must receive a shock when we dis- 
 cover how much of what is true and high these 
 systems contain. Hence the reluctance of many 
 to admit the facts regarding pre - Christian 
 teachers ; hence their jealous, unloving criticism 
 of their teachings. Mr. Kinglake has admirably 
 shown that the unusual bloodshed at the battle of 
 Inkerman was in great measure due to the false 
 issue on which for some part of the day that 
 battle was fought. The Sand-bag Battery, for the 
 acquisition of which hundreds of brave men fell, 
 was utterly worthless when won, and was not by 
 any means the key of the position ; and yet it 
 was round it again and again that the tide of 
 the fight was drawn. And similarly it is only 
 through an entire, and in many cases disastrous, 
 misapprehension that the contest between Chris- 
 tianity and opposing systems can be drawn to a 
 position of second-rate importance. That men 
 should be able by their unassisted mental 
 powers, or under the influence of those sporadic 
 
260 CONFUCIUS 
 
 and mysterious impulses which God seems to 
 have communicated from time to time to the 
 heathen, to analyse their own moral nature 
 seems to me almost as likely as that they should 
 be able to anatomise the human body and dis- 
 cover the ends and uses and legitimate treatment 
 of its organs. At all events it is a mistake to 
 treat Christianity as if it were chiefly a system of 
 morals, and to lay the stress of the argument in 
 its favour on its distinct superiority in moral 
 teaching ; because though this position be gained 
 we do not thereby command the whole field, and 
 the opponents of Christianity are well aware that 
 there is no point at which they are more likely 
 to succeed in making a serious breach in our 
 defences. 
 
 A system of morals carries in itself no moral 
 dynamic, no propelling force, no regenerating 
 power. Neither is morality co- extensive with 
 religion. However we answer the question, 
 Was the teaching of Confucius and Mih Teih 
 essentially different from the teaching of the 
 Gospel 1 there remain the far more vital ques- 
 tions, Did these teachers enable men to attain 
 the ideal they set before them 1 and, Did they 
 bring them into a right relation not only to 
 their fellow-men, but to their God ? To both 
 
CONFUCIUS 261 
 
 questions Confucius himself constantly and dole- 
 fully replies in the negative. Yet it is these 
 two questions which are quietly evaded or kept 
 in the background while our attention is called 
 to the comparison of the contents of the Chinese 
 ethical code with the contents of the law of 
 Christ. Here, for example, is perhaps the most 
 graceful and telling attempt to level up all 
 religions to one standard that has been 
 made : 
 
 " Children of men ! the unseen Power, whose eye 
 For ever doth accompany mankind. 
 Hath look'd on no religion scornfully 
 That man did ever find. 
 
 Which has not taught weak wills how much they 
 
 can ? 
 Which has not fall'n on the dry heart like rain ? 
 Which has not cried to sunk, self-weary man, 
 Thou must be born again ? 
 
 Children of men ! not that your age excel 
 In pride of life the ages of your sires, 
 But that you think clear, feel deep, bear fruit 
 well. 
 
 The Friend of Man desires." 
 
 But if there be a Friend of Man there is one 
 
262 CONFUCIUS 
 
 thing He must more earnestly desire, and that 
 is, the personal recognition and love of the 
 children of men. And it is idle to measure 
 any mere system of morality with the religion 
 of Christ in this respect. It is in this religion 
 we meet God as we meet Him nowhere else, and 
 so receive that link to what is higher than our- 
 selves without which knowledge of our duty to 
 one another always becomes inoperative. To 
 the question, Can morality exist without religion ? 
 the history of China gives a broad and unmistak- 
 able answer. 
 
 But if the grand feature of religion is that it 
 brings a personal element into morality, if Chris- 
 tianity is what it is because of the Person it 
 reveals, if it owes its power to the personal con- 
 nection established between men and God, if it 
 gives a motive and a strength to us by bringing 
 all our life into fellowship with Him, then the 
 help we derive from our religion will vary pre- 
 cisely with our success in introducing this per- 
 sonal element into our own life. A hearty 
 Confucian is a more respectable man than a 
 nominal Christian, or than a Christian who takes 
 to do with his religion as a system of laws, 
 observances, regulations, and counsels, and who 
 fails to find in it the means of entering into 
 
CONFUCIUS 263 
 
 fellowship with God and a love that is stronger 
 and more enlightening than all law. Like many 
 more of his words, these of the great Eichard 
 Hooker are worthy of letters of gold : " They 
 that love the religion they profess may haA^e 
 failed in choice, but yet they are sure to reap 
 what benefit the same is able to afford ; whereas 
 the best and soundest professed by them that 
 bear it not the like affection yieldeth them 
 retaining it in that sort no benefit." 
 
 The second use to be derived from a study of 
 the Chinese moralists is of a kindred nature. 
 I think we should be neglecting our advantage in 
 living so late in the world if we refused to see 
 in the history of China positivism on its trial. 
 Evolution was not scientifically made out by the 
 Chinese, but from a speculative point of view it 
 was accepted. The existence of a personal Creator 
 was not denied ; it was merely relegated to the 
 limbo of uncertainties. Man was accepted as the 
 highest known manifestation of the world-soul or 
 productive energies of nature. Worship of ances- 
 tors was the sole religion, and duty to men was 
 the only duty. In fact, feature by feature the 
 modern philosophy was represented by the school 
 of Confucius. And so far as I can see the 
 experiment of a morality without any higher 
 
264 CONFUCIUS 
 
 religion than filial piety could never be made in 
 more favourable circumstances. In Greece the 
 moralists were not canonised ; even the drama- 
 tists, influential and didactic as they were, cannot 
 be called authoritative. But the teachings of 
 Confucius have been for two thousand years 
 accepted as canonical, and no boy has been edu- 
 cated without having his mind imbued with these 
 teachings. Philosophy had a chance in China 
 which it is never likely to have in any other 
 country. No population can reasonably be 
 expected to yield itself so passively and so 
 steadily to this species of influence. Nor is it 
 credible that a purer non- Christian system of 
 ethics will ever be devised. Yet what has been 
 the result? Ask any man who has lived in 
 China, read the narratives of the most impartial 
 travellers, and you find that with one voice they 
 denounce the Chinese as among the most immoral 
 of peoples. They do indeed possess virtues, and 
 virtues of a substantial and efficacious kind. 
 They set an example to the world by their 
 filial piety, their industry, their contentment to 
 live at peace with neighbouring nations. It has 
 been urged that they have had virtue enough 
 to preserve them as a prosperous people for 
 four thousand years ; and Chinamen who have 
 
CONFUCIUS 265 
 
 visited England are as much astonished that we 
 should compare our moral condition Avith theirs 
 as we are astonished that they should fancy 
 themselves on a level with us in the ordinary 
 virtues. These are points which must be left 
 to other inquirers, and meanwhile we would 
 commend the study of the Chinese to all who 
 desire a practical or experimental answer to some 
 of the questions which are agitating our own 
 society. 
 
VII 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 Civilisation has for its aim the perfecting of 
 civil society ; the discovery and establishment of 
 the happiest possible conditions of social life in 
 this world. All the movements and life of the 
 social organism, all legislation, commerce, war, 
 emigration, administration of justice, exist for the 
 sake of securing further advantages to society and 
 for making life in this world less difficult and 
 oppressive. On all living forms there is im- 
 pressed a law of growth and improvement ; and 
 in accordance with this law society continually 
 strives after a perfect condition in which every 
 man shall have all his rights, and enjoy every aid 
 to self-development and success that society can 
 give him. Now Christianity proposes to accom- 
 plish this very thing, to establish the kingdom of 
 God upon earth, or, in other words, to bring all 
 human affairs into the happiest possible condition. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 267 
 
 And if Christianity is the great civilising power, 
 it would seem to be the duty of every good 
 citizen to uphold and promote it, as far as in him 
 lies. 
 
 In order that we may clearly see the relation 
 which subsists between civilisation and Chris- 
 tianity we must first of all apprehend what 
 civilisation is, and what it is not. There is 
 unfortunately no concrete instance of a perfect 
 civilisation to which we might point. It need 
 scarcely be said that we in this country are not in 
 a perfectly civilised condition. In some respects 
 the ancient Greeks were more civilised than we 
 are. A holiday in Athens was celebrated by 
 magnificent spectacles, by artistically devised 
 choruses and processions, by the public recital 
 of some new work of genius, history or drama ; 
 and it was disfigured by no rowdyism. So 
 long as our amusements are so coarse and sensual 
 that the quieter part of the population shrinks 
 from a public holiday ; so long as labour remains 
 so much like slavery ; so long as hundreds of 
 thousands among us live by vice and crime ; so 
 long as there are countless social problems await- 
 ing solution, we cannot suppose ourselves to be 
 perfectly civilised. No doubt when we compare 
 our condition with that of our progenitors five 
 
268 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 centuries ago, when men lived in mud hovels, 
 when reading and writing were the accomplish- 
 ments of a profession, when a few powerful 
 nobles kept the entire population in subjection, 
 and often in misery, we may claim to be compara- 
 tively civilised. In some outward and material 
 respects, indeed, we may affirm that we are 
 already perfect. In means of communicating, for 
 example, with distant places, the telegraph cannot 
 be surpassed. Improvements in the collection 
 and distribution of intelligence may be intro- 
 duced, but the maximum of rapidity in trans- 
 mission has plainly been reached. In the 
 enormous multiplication of power by means of 
 steam, in the permanent acquisitions of know- 
 ledge made by science, and in the methods which 
 certify us that these acquisitions are but the 
 introduction to a measureless advance, we enjoy 
 the outward equipment of a very advanced 
 civilisation. 
 
 But civilisation itself consists not so much in 
 these material advantages and achievements as in 
 the underlying conditions which have made them 
 possible, and in the refinement and intelligence 
 and charity of which they may become the 
 instruments. The civilisation of a country is to 
 be measured, not by its wealth nor by its skilful 
 
CHEISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 269 
 
 adaptations of scientific discoveries to social con- 
 venience, but rather by the character of the uses 
 to which these things are put, and the aims and 
 purposes they fulfil. Are men better educated ? 
 are law and order more generally maintained 1 are 
 the relations we hold to one another and to other 
 states better understood ? — these, and such as 
 these, are the questions we must ask if we would 
 learn our stage in civilisation. The vital refine- 
 ments, as Emerson justly says, "are the moral 
 and intellectual steps." The appearance of great 
 moralists and seers and legislators 
 
 " are causal facts, which carry forward races to new 
 conditions, and elevate the rule of life. In the pres- 
 ence of these agencies, it is frivolous to insist on the 
 invention of printing or gunpowder, of steam-power or 
 gaslight, percussion-caps and rubber shoes, which are 
 toys thrown oft' from that security, freedom, and 
 exhilaration which a healthy morality creates in 
 society. These arts add a comfort and smoothness 
 to house and street life ; but a purer morality, which 
 kindles genius, civilises civilisation, casts backw^ard all 
 that we held sacred into the profane, as the flame of 
 oil throws a shadow when shined upon by the flame 
 of the Budelight." ^ 
 
 And precisely to the same effect says an higher 
 authority than Emerson, Dean Church : 
 
 1 Macmillan's edition, V. 292. 
 
270 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 " The degree of civilisation depends a great deal 
 more on whether the citizens are manly, honest, just, 
 public-spirited, generous, able to work together in 
 life, than on whether they are rich, hard-working, or 
 cunning of hand, or subtle of thought, or delicate of 
 taste, or keen searchers into nature and discoverers of 
 its secrets. All these things are sure to belong to 
 civilisation as it advances ; and as it advances it needs 
 them, and can turn them to account more and more. 
 All I say is, that they are not civilisation itself as I 
 understand it." ^ 
 
 Statesmen and moralists in modern times have 
 frequently had occasion to point out that mere 
 amelioration of the social condition does not in 
 itself constitute civilisation. Life may be easy 
 and safe, taxation light, labour abundant and 
 remunerative, the sources of health and prosperity 
 open to all ; but if this happy condition do not 
 contribute to the development of w^hat is best in 
 man, there lacks an important element of civilisa- 
 tion. In fact, unless humanity itself be developed, 
 unless human nature itself be helped towards 
 perfection, there is not much to choose between a 
 highly civilised and a barbarous social state. In 
 a state of barbarism, as has often been pointed 
 out, there is much from which we are debarred 
 
 ^ The (jti/ts of Civilination, p. 155. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 271 
 
 by a highly organised external civilisation. 
 There is 
 
 " the pleasure of individual independence ; the 
 pleasure of enjoying oneself with vigour and liberty, 
 amidst the chances of the world and of life ; the 
 delights of activity without labour ; the relish of an 
 adventurous career full of uncertainty and of exciting 
 peril." 1 
 
 But the freedom and ease and excitement of this 
 barbaric condition are sacrificed for the sake of 
 those more important functions which can be 
 performed by the civilised. Men submit to the 
 many limitations which a highly organised 
 civilisation imposes, because they are conscious 
 that a higher mental culture and a more ex- 
 tended influence belong to the members of a 
 state than to the loosely-cohering individuals of 
 a savage tribe. They perceive that the civilised 
 man is a larger, more capable, finer product than 
 the uncivilised. But if the outward material of 
 civilisation do not secure this finer product, then 
 it fails, and is the mere body of civilisation w^ith- 
 out the living spirit. 
 
 In a word, man himself is the important thing 
 in history. We judge all the past movements of 
 
 ^ Guizot, Civilisation in £uroj)e, p. 40 
 
272 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 history and of civilisation by the question, What 
 have they done for man 1 Is the race as a whole 
 distinctly in advance of its former position 1 Are 
 there even here and there appearances of a pro- 
 mising kind 1 Do the forces now operating in 
 the world produce a finer type of man than 
 formerly 1 There is no doubt that in many 
 respects great advances have been made. The 
 rights of the individual are much more con- 
 sidered. The claims of weaker nations to just 
 treatment are at least understood, if not always 
 admitted. Social problems are freely and can- 
 didly discussed, and must eventually be wisely 
 determined, even if after foolish and hurtful 
 experiments. But even though every state in 
 the world had the wisest internal organisation, 
 giving to every individual the utmost of advan- 
 tage, and though it had a perfectly adjusted 
 relation to all other states, the question would still 
 remain. What type of man is thus produced 1 It 
 is with what is directly and distinctively human 
 that civilisation has to do. And without attempt- 
 ins: to determine whether the individual exists 
 for the sake of society, or society for the sake of 
 the individual, we may safely affirm that neither 
 has attained its end until the best possible in 
 human nature has been developed. Now, the 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 273 
 
 best possible in human nature is certainly that 
 which belongs to character. It is not by what is 
 physical, nor by what is mental, but by what is 
 moral, that men touch their highest. 
 
 Without morality, then, civilisation is incon- 
 ceivable. We cannot imagine a high civilisation 
 existing without law, without literature, without 
 art, without scientific knowledge, without institu- 
 tions ; but least of all can we conceive any high 
 civilisation which is not penetrated by moral prin- 
 ciples. An absence of morality or the presence 
 of a very imperfect moral ideal, marks with im- 
 perfection any state, however richly endowed and 
 equipped it may otherwise be. High and noble 
 as in many respects the civilisation of Athens in 
 the age of Pericles was, it is yet branded as im- 
 perfect by the uncondemned immorality of even 
 its most cultured men. 
 
 Herbert Spencer has shown that 
 
 " the character of the aggregate is determined by the 
 character of the imits " ; ^ 
 
 and as a corollary from this principle it may, I 
 think, be affirmed that where the individuals com- 
 posing a state are immoral, the state itself will be 
 immoral. And if it be true — as without question 
 
 ^ Sociology, p. 48. 
 T 
 
274 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 it is — that "morality is the nature of things," and 
 therefore an essential element in all permanent 
 success, then it follows that all civilisation must 
 be moral, or is destined to decay. In short, as 
 it is true of the individual that in order to his 
 making the most of himself for this life, he must 
 take into account the life to come ; so is it true 
 of society, that in order to a perfect civilisation 
 or order of life for this world, it must be founded 
 on a morality which civilisation itself has no 
 power to create, if it has even the means of pre- 
 serving and propagating it. 
 
 Now here we seem to touch solid ground. 
 There can be no satisfactory or enduring civilisa- 
 tion without morality. And certainly whatever 
 else Christianity may be, it is a religion whose 
 object is to make men moral. True, it may not 
 have been conspicuously successful in accomplish- 
 ing this object. But this, as Eousseau had the 
 shrewdness and candour to remark, does not prove 
 that it is superfluous, but only that as yet few 
 persons are Christians. And any one who affirms 
 that Christianity did not introduce into the world 
 new moral forces, merely convicts himself of 
 ignorance of history. Granted that the Christian 
 Church has made many mistakes and committed 
 many crimes ; granted that she has on particular 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 275 
 
 occasions retarded science and obstructed healthy 
 political movements ; yet it is not to be denied 
 that the Christian religion tends to make men 
 moral, and does so with a persuasive and effective 
 force which belongs to no other influence which 
 has ever been brought to bear upon men. The in- 
 dividual is necessary to society ; and the morality 
 of the individual is essential to the well-being of 
 society. In the interests of civilisation, therefore, 
 Christianity is indispensable as the only hitherto 
 discovered efficient and universally applicable con- 
 servator of the morality of the individual. 
 
 If we descend from the "high priori road" of 
 argument from generally admitted premisses and 
 follow the surer path of historical research, we 
 shall be guided to the same conclusion — that 
 Christianity is essential to civilisation. History 
 affords us the crucible in which we can analyse 
 our actual civilisation, and ascertain what in- 
 gredients have gone to its composition. History 
 can with exactness answer the question : Are we 
 in any measure indebted to Christianity for such 
 civilisation as we have ? Should we have made 
 the same or even greater progress, supposing 
 Christianity had never been heard of 1 Is Chris- 
 tianity a factor of any importance in our social 
 well-being 1 A recent writer of unquestioned 
 
276 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 authority in his own field has charged Christianity 
 with destroying two civilisations. Can this charge 
 be sustained ? These questions will be answered 
 if we allow history to show us what had been 
 accomplished in civilisation before Christianity 
 appeared in the world, and what impulses Chris- 
 tianity has in point of fact imparted to modern 
 civilisation. And I think this appeal to history 
 will make it clear that in two respects Christianity 
 has been a most important factor in the produc- 
 tion of modern European civilisation. It has (1) 
 supplied the fatal defect in ancient civilisation, 
 the defect of morality ; and (2) it has assimilated 
 and adapted to the uses of modern society, all 
 that was valuable in ancient civilisation. These 
 two points I will endeavour briefly to establish. 
 
 When we turn our gaze upon that critical 
 period when Christianity was introduced to the 
 world, the eye is at once attracted by a civilisa- 
 tion, which, if not of the most refined type, yet 
 possessed many qualities which seemed to promise 
 a great future. In Rome there was amassed an 
 immense accumulation of wealth, and of all the 
 raw material of enjoyment, of culture, and of 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 277 
 
 power. Everything which could gratify the taste 
 or contribute to an easy and luxurious life was 
 there in profusion. And yet life in Eome became 
 increasingly hideous and repulsive. The bright 
 cities of the Empire, splendid with buildings 
 which are the envy and despair of modern archi- 
 tecture ; their baths and gardens and amphi- 
 theatres, the mere ruins of which are the wonder 
 of to-day ; their streets crowded with tokens of 
 the wealth and power of these masters of the 
 world ; their picturesque and peaceful country 
 seats ; their wonderful applications of art and 
 mechanical contrivance to all household conveni- 
 ences, and their power of saturating their whole 
 life with the achievements and spirit of art ; their 
 facilities for rapid and safe communication with 
 remote places, and the accessibility of justice — all 
 this which lends to life under the Empire so much 
 brilliance, and makes it live before us in colours 
 so yarious and so unfading, was after all but the 
 garnish of a sepulchre, only partially hiding away 
 a loathsome corruption. 
 
 It is needless here to describe with any detail 
 the licentiousness and degradation which charac- 
 terised Eome in the first century. The main 
 features of the picture are sufficiently known, 
 and even those who know little else about that 
 
278 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 period have been made acquainted with its corrup- 
 tion by the powerful condemnation of it which 
 occurs in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. The 
 most decisive and ominous element in the general 
 demoralisation was the shamelessness of the 
 women. Adultery and divorce were so common 
 as to excite no remark. A law had to be passed 
 prohibiting the prostitution of women of rank, 
 who bore the names that were identified with the 
 history of their country. Never surely was a 
 legislative assembly called upon to pass a measure 
 more calculated to bring a blush to the cheek of 
 every member. The dissolute sensuality of the 
 leaders of society betrayed itself in banquets, on 
 which the host would spend his whole patrimony, 
 and which terminated in dances compared to which 
 the most shameless of modern performances are 
 decent and respectable. The natures thus glutted 
 with sensual gratifications, and throwing off the 
 guidance and restraint of natural feeling, craved 
 the sharper stimulant of the spectacle of suffering 
 and blood, and found an unnatural and deadening 
 enjoyment in the mutual slaughter of thousands 
 of captives, or the deadly combats of trained 
 gladiators. 
 
 In point of fact the world has never been so 
 ingeniously and exhaustively wicked as in Eomc 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 279 
 
 during the first century. A writer whose leanings 
 are certainly not nnduly Christian says : 
 
 " In no period had hrute force more completely 
 triumphed, in none was the thirst for material advan- 
 tages more intense, in very few was vice more osten- 
 tatiously glorified." ^ 
 
 This judgment is confirmed by their own con- 
 temporary writers. Tacitus finds in the period a 
 subject congenial to his tragic and scathing pen, 
 and concentrates his indignation at the shameless 
 degradation in the epigrammatic but strictly true 
 remark that "Virtue was then a sentence of 
 death." 
 
 Juvenal, who had an unrivalled genius for hold- 
 ing u]) the mirror to wickedness, whose every 
 word was a blister, his every adjective a poisoned 
 arrow transfixing character after character for the 
 contemptuous gaze of all time, yet occasionally 
 throws down his pen in despair and contents 
 hihiself with general invective : 
 
 " Vice," he says, " has now attained its zenith ; 
 nothing is left for future times to discover or to add ; 
 the sons can but repeat the vices of their fathers." 
 
 The Emperors themselves were probably the 
 most miserable series of men that were ever 
 
 ^ Lecky, History of European Morals, i. 191. 
 
280 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 mocked by the apparatus of happiness. The 
 throne was fatal. One after another of its occu- 
 pants died by poison or by the dagger. Julius 
 married four times, Augustus thrice, Tiberius 
 twice, Caius thrice, Claudius six times, Nero 
 thrice ; yet not one of these was succeeded by 
 his own son. Domitian caused the ends of the 
 corridor where he took exercise to be lined with 
 highly -polished marble, that he might detect 
 any would-be assassin approaching from behind. 
 Claudius was a gourmand, but could not touch 
 any dish that was set before him till a physician 
 had tasted it, and pronounced it free from poison. 
 Caius, with nerves strained by every caprice of 
 self-indulgence, so that his naturally excitable 
 temperament seemed to totter on the verge of 
 delirium, would, night after night, spring from 
 the wild and terrifying dreams that tormented 
 him, and pace the galleries of his palace, shouting 
 for the dawn. Such were the men who repre- 
 sented the highest point touched by the most 
 powerful of ancient civilisations. 
 
 Now in this case it cannot be said that there 
 were racial defects which precluded Rome from 
 enjoying the highest type of civilisation. No 
 race could have more promising natural qualities 
 than those which distinguished the primitive 
 
CHEISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 281 
 
 citizens of Rome. They were sober, truthful, 
 hardy, chaste, industrious, daring, enterprising, 
 self-reliant, and eminently gifted for colonising 
 and governing. Indeed, for the practical work 
 of this world it would be difficult to imagine a 
 race better equipped. Neither were their circum- 
 stances unpropitious : they inherited the civilisa- 
 tion of Greece, and their position as masters of 
 the world gave them opportunity of observing 
 and adopting whatever art or useful institution 
 or custom had been in any place developed. But 
 from each conquered province the intoxicated 
 Roman brought back some novel vice, along with 
 the additional wealth which put the gratification 
 of every desire within his reach. The old Roman 
 honour and virtue, the chastity of their women, 
 the incorruptible manliness of their men were 
 broken down by the rapid increase of wealth, 
 and the absence of any worthy purpose, or high 
 aims in conquest. The absence of any ennobling 
 hope, and of any grand exhibition of the spiritual 
 significance of life, left them a prey to greed and 
 lust, to lowering ambitions and degrading appe- 
 tites. And as the absence of a popular and high 
 morality debased the character of the Roman 
 civilisation, so it prevented it from becoming pro- 
 gressive and permanent. Among other lessons 
 
282 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 that may be read in the decline and fall of that 
 great Empire, this is not the least important, — 
 that a nation's continuance depends upon the 
 morality of its citizens. It was not left to a 
 Christian apologist to point this out. Horace 
 was neither prude nor pharisee ; he was not 
 easily shocked, nor was it his interest as a 
 courtier to become an alarmist, but in verse that 
 no one could misunderstand or forget, he warned 
 the people that the Empire they so strenuously 
 defended against barbaric foes was being inevit- 
 ably destroyed by their own licentiousness. And 
 I suppose it will be generally agreed that the 
 ultimate dissolution of the Eoman Empire was 
 the result, not of any grave political mistake, nor 
 of any irreparable disaster, or only of such politi- 
 cal mistakes and disasters as were occasioned by 
 the tide of immorality, which sapped the manli- 
 ness of the race and the other true foundations 
 of empire. 
 
 It is true one historian ascribes the fall of 
 Rome to the despotism of the emperors, another 
 to the bad economic and moral results of the 
 institution of slavery, a third to the disappearance 
 of the landed or middle class of society ; and to 
 dogmatise in connection with so perplexing and 
 complicated a problem would be presumptuous. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 283 
 
 But it will scarcely be questioned that Juvenal 
 laid his finger on one true cause of decay when 
 he said that 
 
 " luxury, more ruthless than war, had fallen upon the 
 city and avenged a conquered world " ; 
 
 although his words were not fulfilled for some 
 centuries. As the territory of Rome increased, so 
 did its dangers multiply ; and the greed that 
 incited to fresh conquests led also to the abuse of 
 the power acquired, and to an incapacity to face 
 the deeper responsibilities of conquest. ] Had 
 there remained in the Roman the old public 
 spirit that loved country better than sons, and 
 counted it glory to die for Rome ; the old rever- 
 ence for purity that preferred a daughter's death 
 to her dishonour ; the old truth which kept faith 
 with an enemy, even when to do so was certain 
 death ; the masculine contempt for wealth, in 
 which the breed of conquerors had been nursed, 
 it cannot be doubted that the Empire would have 
 adapted itself to changing conditions, and sur- 
 vived the gravest emergencies. 
 
 But what we are here concerned to show is 
 mainly this, that the absence of a high morality, 
 fed by a true and popular religion, to a large 
 extent blighted the civilisation of Rome, and 
 
28-i CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 deprived it of a chief refining influence. The 
 manner in which Christianity supplied this lack 
 can be clearly traced. And it may not be out 
 of place to exhibit its work in one or two 
 directions. 
 
 1. Perhaps the most striking general result of 
 the introduction of Christianity is the renewal of 
 hope among men. It was as if the race had 
 become conscious of receiving a new lease of life. 
 It was a dying world it entered : full of activity 
 and apparent strength, but full also of despair ; 
 ringing with shouts of victory and of amusement, 
 but with a chilling melancholy cramping the 
 heart. As Salvian said, the Empire "moritur et 
 ridet,'' it laughs mth the death-rattle in its throat. 
 Pessimism of the most despairing kind possessed 
 many of the best and wisest men. Suddenly in 
 the midst of this sated and despairing world 
 appeared a people with the radiance of renewed 
 youth and undoubting hope on its face ; its eye 
 brilliant with new-found truth, its bearing erect 
 from very gladness. The Christians were in- 
 comprehensible to the ordinary Roman. Their 
 confidence was judged to be obstinacy; their 
 hope delusion. But as this same hopeful bearing 
 was found to survive martyrdom and every kind 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 285 
 
 of ill-usage, it was examined, and the contagion 
 of the Christian confidence in the future was 
 caught by many. 
 
 This hopefulness about the race was partly the 
 hereditary bequest of Judaism. Kenan says that 
 
 '• what more than all else characterised the Jew was 
 his confident belief in a brilliant and happy future for 
 humanity. " 
 
 But the Christian hopefulness was fed by the 
 fuller knowledge of God communicated by Jesus 
 Christ. In the life and especially in the cross 
 of Christ, God was revealed to men as a God 
 of unimagined holiness and unquenchable love. 
 When it came to be understood among men 
 that when they looked for their God they were 
 to see Him bearing their sins upon the cross, 
 loving them and hating their sins with an equal 
 intensity, a new hope flooded their minds. They 
 felt at once that this was a God whose purposes 
 were worth fulfilling, and that they themselves 
 were bound to fulfil them. Once the idea of God 
 as the Father of all men was grasped, the whole 
 conception of history and of the future of the 
 race was altered. It was impossible that God's 
 purpose should fail, impossible that His purpose 
 should not include all men, impossible that it 
 
286 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 should not be beneficent in the highest degree. 
 The mode in which this purpose was to be ful- 
 filled and the date of its consummation were 
 misunderstood. So elate was the Christian heart 
 that at first it anticipated an immediate consum- 
 mation. But the essential elements of its hope 
 were abiding, and were not mistaken. Men were 
 taught to look at humanity as a whole, and at 
 history as a whole, so that even when the vast 
 and great Eoman Empire itself was broken up, 
 and when men bewailed its fall as if the order of 
 nature itself were coming to an end, the Christian 
 knowledge of God as the Father of men and ruler 
 of all events enabled them to believe that still 
 His Avise purpose was running on to fulfilment, 
 though on lines that were new and as yet obscure. 
 It was when the profoundest men were exclaim- 
 ing that human affairs were the sj)ort of the 
 higher powers, and when all men felt as if 
 
 " The pillared firmament were rottenness. 
 And Earth's base built on stubble," 
 
 that the calm voice of Christianity restored sane 
 strength to men's hearts by proclaiming, "The 
 Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice." To any 
 one who observes the Eoman Empire as Chris- 
 tianity dawned upon it, it is obvious that men 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 287 
 
 are conscious that a new life has entered the 
 world, and that germinant ideas and principles of 
 abiding influence have lodged in the human mind. 
 
 2. The manner in which Christian principle 
 has permeated society and strengthened all civil- 
 ising influences, counteracting the results of pagan 
 ideas, is very well seen in the gradual extirpation 
 of slavery. 
 
 In empires extended and maintained by con- 
 quest and force of arms, slaves were of necessity 
 very numerous, and a very broad and marked 
 distinction subsisted between the conquering race 
 or governing class and the captive slaves. In 
 the palmy days of Rome the number of slaves 
 her citizens owned was enormous. Sometimes a 
 wealthy person left at death as many as four 
 thousand. Many citizens possessed a hundred; 
 and he was a poor man who had not ten. On one 
 occasion it was proposed in the Senate that the 
 slave should wear a distinctive dress, but the 
 proposal was at once quashed on the ground that 
 it would be most impolitic to give the slaves so 
 ready a clue to their own immense numbers. 
 But the abundance of slave labour, which seemed 
 so inexhaustible a source of wealth, really turned 
 to the impoverishment of the Roman Empire. 
 
288 CHEISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 All the ordinary handicrafts, being practised by 
 slaves, were considered discreditable to the free- 
 born. Even in the time of Cicero we find that 
 labour was considered unworthy of a gentleman : 
 
 " The gains of all hired workmen whom we pay for 
 manual labour, and not for artistic skill, are ignoble 
 and sordid : for in their case the very wages they 
 receive constitute a sort of obligation to serve as slaves. 
 Also, all retail traders are to be considered mean ; for 
 they would never get on unless they lied enough. 
 And all artisans are engaged in vulgar business, for in 
 a workshop there is nothing that befits a gentleman." 
 
 The free-born citizen thus became an idler, for 
 his legitimate pursuits of law and arms could not 
 occupy his whole time ; and as slaves Avere also 
 employed in manufacture, it became impossible 
 for free labour to enter into competition. Be- 
 yond the city of Rome the results of the employ- 
 ment of slave -labour were equally disastrous. 
 The peasantry or yeomen were gradually exter- 
 minated, their lands being absorbed in the huge 
 properties of successful courtiers or administra- 
 tors, and farmed by gangs of slaves instead of the 
 indigenous peasantry. These slaves were treated 
 as we treat convicts, compelled to work in fetters, 
 and lodged at night in huge and unhealthy prison- 
 houses. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 289 
 
 Christianity introduced new ideas, which have 
 at last made themselves felt. It inherited the 
 Jewish ideas of the dignity of labour, and to this 
 it added its own care for the slave. The gradual 
 amelioration of the condition of slaves, and their 
 eventual emancipation under Christianity, form a 
 history full of significance. 
 
 Had our Lord or His apostles commanded the 
 emancipation of slaves we should have lost one of 
 the most conspicuous and instructive instances of 
 the manner in which Christian belief and sentiment 
 do their work in civilisation. No edicts of eman- 
 cipation were issued by our Lord, nor even by 
 His Church for many centuries after it had power 
 to do so. The earliest trace of a command of the 
 Church to put an end to slavery occurs in the 
 ninth century. They are the words of St. 
 Theodore of Stude : 
 
 '' Thou shalt possess no slave, neither for domestic 
 service, nor for the work of the fields ; for man is 
 made in the image of God." ^ 
 
 At first there was no thought of emancipation 
 in the Church. Lidividuals here and there per- 
 ceived the incongruity of retaining in a servile 
 condition men who were their brothers in Christ, 
 
 ^ Brace, p. 59. 
 U 
 
290 CHRISTIANITY AXD CIVILISATION 
 
 and often their superiors in character and Chris- 
 tian conduct. And sometimes where a slave 
 belonged to a household in which he was sub- 
 jected to cruel persecution, or in which it was 
 well-nigh impossible he could live a Christian life, 
 he might be ransomed by the Church. But in 
 general the Christian master retained his slaves, 
 and the Christian slave was exhorted to be 
 content with his condition. Indeed, one canon 
 of the Church (council of Gangra) explicitly 
 enacts : 
 
 " If any one, under the pretence of piety, advises a 
 slave to leave his master and run away from his ser- 
 vice, and not to serve his master with goodwill and 
 full respect, let him be anathema." 
 
 What the Christian teachers of the early 
 centuries press upon their hearers is not the duty 
 of emancipating, but of instructing and caring for 
 their slaves. Says Augustine, in an address to 
 slaves : 
 
 " Christ did not make slaves freemen and masters, 
 but He made bad slaves good slaves." 
 
 Indeed, the Church herself continued to hold 
 slaves as Church property until the middle ages. 
 But from the first, although there was no thought 
 
^ CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 291 
 
 of emancipation, which was too large and revohi- 
 tionary an idea to be soon conceived, the condi- 
 tion of the slave was improved. The Christian 
 master was positively forbidden to ill-use his 
 slave : if a woman even accidentally caused the 
 death of her slave by punishment she was ex- 
 cluded from communion for five years. The 
 Gospel was preached as cordially to the slave as 
 to the freeborn : the Church was as open to him. 
 He sat down at the table of communion with his 
 master, and instances are not wanting in which 
 slaves became bishops in the Church. And as 
 early as 321 A.D., the manumission of slaves from 
 religious motives is recognised as common enough 
 to require regulation, and accordingly Constantine 
 encourages it in the enactment : 
 
 " He who under a religious feeling has given a just 
 liberty to his slaves in the bosom of the Christian 
 Church will be thought to have made a gift of a right 
 similar to Roman citizensLip." ^ 
 
 In accordance with the growing humanity and 
 the erring piety of the times, the emancipation of 
 slaves came to be looked upon as a good deed 
 which could not fail to redound to a man's credit 
 in this world, and to his advantage in the world 
 
 ^ Brace, p. 54. 
 
292 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 to come. The monk in abjuring all his posses- 
 sions necessarily parted with his slaves and fre- 
 quently gave them their freedom. Those who to 
 a more limited extent abandoned the luxuries of 
 a merely worldly life often parted with some of 
 their numerous slaves, and these also were com- 
 monly emancipated. 
 
 Slowly indeed, very slowly, but surely, all 
 these influences worked in Christendom. Only 
 in our own day has the last blow been given to 
 an institution which has probably inflicted more 
 suffering than either pestilence or war — which 
 has indeed been a perennial fountain of degrada- 
 tion, despair, and vice, wherever it has existed. 
 As mercy is twice blessed, blessing him that 
 gives, as well as him that receives ; so inhumanity 
 in the form of slavery has been as great a curse 
 to the slave-owner as to the slave. The horrors 
 of a slave-raid as now accomplished in Africa, the 
 physical miseries, the unparalleled cruelties, the 
 ruthless slaughter of the incapable, and the worse 
 fate of the surviving, all these horrors that make 
 the heart sink in helpless indignation, are outdone 
 by the extinction of human feeling, the excite- 
 ment of the vilest passions, the slow demoralisa- 
 tion of the slave-owning class. This blackest of 
 stains Christendom has at length washed off her- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 293 
 
 self, and there is the clearest evidence that the 
 jSnal extinction of slavery among Christian peoples 
 was due, not to profounder economic views, nor 
 to any natural instincts of humanity, but to the 
 principles of Christianity. Garrison in the early 
 stage of the final conflict in America said : 
 
 "Emancipation must be the work of Christianity 
 and the Church. They must achieve the elevation of 
 the blacks, and place them on the equality of the 
 Gospels." 
 
 And Clarkson, when fighting the same battle 
 in our own country, said : 
 
 " If we oppress the stranger as I have shown, and if 
 by a knowledge of his heart we find he is a person of 
 the same passions and feelings as ourselves, we are 
 certainly breaking by the prosecution of the slave- 
 trade that fundamental rule of Christianity which 
 says we shall not do that unto another which we 
 wish should not be done unto ourselves." 
 
 Here then is a fact in the history of civilisation 
 of a large and easily appreciable kind. It was 
 impossible that the world should be civilised while 
 one half of it lay under disabilities so crushing, 
 and in a degradation so frightful. Indeed it was 
 impossible that those who were exempt from these 
 disabilities should be civilised, so long as their 
 
294 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 inhumanity or ignorance of human rights suffered 
 them to hold their fellow-men in such a bondage. 
 Yet no institution seemed so firmly established as 
 slavery. To many most discerning men it seemed 
 an ordinance of nature. It was a universal custom. 
 It appealed to the self-interest of men. But by 
 the slow leavening of Christian sentiment, and 
 by the vigorous assertion of Christian principle, 
 society has at length thrown off this incubus, and 
 in the very act of doing so has made a really 
 measureless stride in civilisation. 
 
 II 
 
 But besides introducing into the ancient civilisa- 
 tion principles which have eventually eliminated 
 some of its most glaring evils, Christianity has 
 also preserved to the modern world, if not all 
 that was valuable, certainly the best elements in 
 ancient civilisation. I am far from meaning to 
 claim for Christianity the credit of being the 
 sole agent in producing all those beneficial re- 
 sults which are compendiously known as modern 
 civilisation. Much, no doubt, is due to the ex- 
 periments made in civilisation by races whose 
 history was closed before Christianity appeared. 
 Christ came " in the fulness of time " to a world 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 295 
 
 prepared by the energies and fortunes of various 
 nations. Much also is due to the natural tendency 
 in the race to progress. Doubtless " the thoughts 
 of men are widened by the process of the suns." 
 The collision of mind with mind ; the constant 
 call made upon human invention to meet new 
 emergencies, and to take advantage of accidental 
 discoveries ; the introduction of fresh races, with 
 their characteristic ideas, upon the field of uni- 
 versal history ; these and other natural causes 
 tend to produce a progressive civilisation. But 
 the claim I am now urging is, that whatever the 
 ancient world produced of a worthy kind, has been 
 handed down to us by the agency of Christianity. 
 When Shelley said, 
 
 " We are all Greeks, our laws, our literature, our 
 religion, our art, have their roots in Greece," 
 
 he spoke somewhat at random. But had he said 
 tt^at to Greece we are largely indebted in art and 
 literature, and to Rome in law, he would have 
 uttered unquestioned truth. But it is the Church 
 of Christ which, though it did not create, has 
 conserved these great heritages to us of modern 
 times. Bough as the transition from the ancient 
 to the modern world was, and apparently hap- 
 hazard as was the partition of advantages between 
 
296 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 the old Latin and young Northern races, it would 
 have been attended with far more disastrous re- 
 sults had not Christianity smoothed the transi- 
 tion, and moderated the disturbance. It was the 
 Church which alone maintained its historic con- 
 tinuity in those wild centuries, when every 
 nationality was altered, when immemorial bound- 
 aries were obliterated, and ancient tribes driven 
 from their ancestral homes, when all that was 
 most stable in civil society seemed tottering to 
 its fall, and when life and property were in such 
 hazard that men had no leisure to think of litera- 
 ture or of art. Only within the Church did men 
 find security and peace ; the Church alone re- 
 tained the respect of men, and enabled them to 
 hope that something would survive the universal 
 shaking of everything that was old. 
 
 That the Church preserved to us the literature 
 of the ancient world is not disputed. And with 
 the literature the Church has preserved the know- 
 ledge of all that was worth celebrating in litera- 
 ture, the history, the thought, the life of antiquity, 
 and has thus kept the modern world in sympathy 
 with all that was most noble and most precious 
 in pre-Christian times. And this service it has 
 rendered, not by the mere accident that monastic 
 libraries were the only safe places in which ancient 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 297 
 
 MSS. could be preserved ; but by the deliberate 
 conclusion of the Church, that the writings of 
 the heathen should be preserved. No doubt there 
 was at all times a party in the Church which con- 
 demned pagan learning, and adopted the watch- 
 word of Tertullian : 
 
 " What is there in common between Athens and 
 Jerusalem ; between the Academy and the Church ; 
 between heretics and Christians ? " 
 
 Even Jerome, who alleviated the rigour of his 
 monkish fasts by reading Plautus or Ovid, had 
 some twinges of conscience for this dalliance with 
 pagan literature. Falling dangerously ill one 
 Lent, he dreamt that he stood before Christ's 
 throne. "Who art thou?" said the Judge. "I 
 am a Christian," answered Jerome. "No," re- 
 plied Christ, " not a Christian, but a Ciceronian." 
 But notwithstanding his dream, and the flagella- 
 tioh he received from the angels, he continued to 
 carry with him on his journeys Cicero or Plato, 
 and to teach to the Christian children in his 
 schools the lyric and comic poetry which charmed 
 himself. His contemporary, Augustine, defended 
 the Christian use of the genius of heathendom on 
 the ground that the Israelites had been com- 
 manded to spoil the Egyptians. In fact the 
 
298 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 common attitude of the Church towards the litera- 
 ture of antiquity is best represented by the monk 
 who burst into tears at the tomb of Virgil, or by 
 the Christian poet Dante choosing the same great 
 bard as his guide in the unseen world. 
 
 There would seem to be in some quarters an 
 impression that the introduction of Christianity 
 has not proved favourable to the development of 
 Art, and that it cannot claim to have preserved to 
 modern times this conspicuous element of ancient 
 civilisation. Closer scrutiny of the actual history 
 of Art removes this impression. It is true that 
 the sense of sin which Christianity aroused, as 
 well as the perception of the moral discord 
 between the world and God which it quickened, 
 made Hellenism for ever impossible. No longer 
 could it be believed that to be moral one need 
 only be natural. The taint in human nature as 
 it actually appears on earth, its need of regenera- 
 tion, could not be overlooked. It was recognised 
 that the sense of harmony or beauty, to which 
 the Greek had trusted as his guide in morals as 
 in Art, was, like everything else in man, dulled by 
 carnal and selfish desires. And no doubt the 
 tendency for a time was to underrate the import- 
 ance of physical culture, and to condemn what- 
 ever glorified the mere outward form and appear- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 299 
 
 ance. In point of fact, Art had become in the 
 first century to a very large extent the minister 
 of idolatry and of luxury ; and to any one who is 
 familiar with the public and private life of the 
 time, it can seem neither surprising nor deplor- 
 able that there should have been a reaction 
 against it. There are certain manifestations of 
 Art, as of human nature, to which Christianity, in 
 common with every healthy human sentiment, 
 must always be opposed. They are the worst 
 freinds of Art who degrade it, by making it the 
 pander to appetites of which healthy natures 
 are ashamed. In order that Art might take its 
 true place as the interpreter of beauty to men, it 
 was necessary that it should not be suffered to 
 allure men, through loveliness of form and colour, 
 to what was morally hideous. As Canon West- 
 cott truly remarks : 
 
 " A formal severance from the past was the prelude 
 to the new birth of Christian art." ^ 
 
 This is recognised by those who have studied Art 
 profoundly, and without any bias in favour of 
 Christianity. Mr. Symonds says : 
 
 " Together with the separation of the flesh and 
 spirit wrought by Christianity, came the abhorrence of 
 
 ^ Epistles of St. John, p. 325. 
 
300 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 beauty as a snare, the sense that carnal affections were 
 tainted with sin, the unwilling toleration of sexual 
 love as a necessity, the idealisation of celibacy and 
 solitude. At the same time humanity acquired new 
 faculties and wider sensibilities. A profounder and 
 more vital feeling of the mysteries of the universe 
 arose. Our life on earth was seen to be a thing by no 
 means rounded in itself and perfect, but only one 
 term of an infinite and unknown series. It was 
 henceforward impossible to translate the world into 
 the language of purely aesthetic form. The striving 
 of the spirit marks the transition of the ancient to the 
 modern world." ^ 
 
 Any fanatical contempt for Art, or hostility to 
 it, which may have been displayed by Christians 
 in the first fervour of the new and exciting ideas, 
 must be set down as mere reaction against what 
 was vicious in the uses Art had served. The 
 spirit in which Epiphanius tore the picture of 
 Christ he found in a church, and ordered the veil 
 on which it was wrought to be used for a pauper's 
 shroud, was not the spirit of Christianity, nor 
 was it the spirit which long prevailed among 
 Christians. Christian ideas and the training to 
 which Christian principles subject men, have 
 immensely deepened human nature, and have 
 imparted to human experience a variety and a 
 
 1 The Greek Poets. First Series, p. 434. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 301 
 
 colour unknown before. The expansion of 
 horizon which results from the hope of immor- 
 tality, the quickening of new aspirations, the 
 suggestion of endless possibilities, the awakening 
 of slumbering desires, the revealing of unthought- 
 of connections with our fellow-men and with the 
 world, all that adds significance and abiding 
 interest to life is brought with Christianity, and 
 inspires Art with new conceptions. It is the 
 function of the artist to show us beauty we have 
 overlooked, either because it has been hidden 
 among unlovely things, or because it has been 
 isolated. The artist brings out its beauty by 
 setting it in a new relation, which draws our 
 attention to what before we have missed. 
 
 " For, don't you mark, we're made so that we love 
 First when we see them painted, things we have 
 
 passed 
 Perhaps an hundred times, nor cared to see ; 
 And so they are better, painted — better to us, 
 Which is the same thing. Art was given for that ; 
 God uses us to help each other so. 
 Lending our minds out." 
 
 Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi, 
 
 But the artist who merely sees a beauty in 
 form or colour, where other men pass it by, 
 the poet who merely recognises and can repro- 
 
302 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 duce an interesting and dramatic situation in 
 human life, has the eye and the brain of the 
 artist, but may yet lack the only legitimate aim 
 of all true art. Art may not amuse or delight at 
 the expense of what is highest in man. Through 
 its power to appeal to man's instinct for beauty, 
 it must bring an elevating and purifying joy. 
 Life as it actually is, it must show men, — yes, if 
 it can maintain the moral proportions of things, 
 and by its representations lead men to loathe 
 what is loathsome, and admire only what is 
 admirable. Otherwise it becomes a curse, and 
 not a blessing to man j a demoralising, not a 
 civilising influence. It is a chief agent in civilisa- 
 tion when it trains men to admire and love, to 
 pity and to grieve, to pardon and to condemn, 
 where these feelings are appropriate. And in 
 this grand function it receives help of the most 
 valuable kind from a religion which teaches that 
 
 " this world's no blot for us, nor blank ; it means 
 intensely, and means good " ; ^ 
 
 which tells us that between God and man there 
 is a real affinity, and which shows us how far- 
 reachinsr in result are all our words and actions. 
 
 o 
 
 The immensely increased richness and variety of 
 ^ Browning's Fra Lippo Lippi, 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 303 
 
 music, painting, and poetry in modern times will 
 be ascribed, at least in considerable measure, to 
 the influence of the Christian religion, by those 
 who patiently investigate the growth of the 
 human mind. 
 
 Even more essential to civilisation than Litera- 
 ture or Art, is Law. Where there is no Law 
 civilisation is impossible. But 
 
 " where you have in a society a strong and lasting 
 tendency to bring public and private affairs under the 
 control of fixed general rules, to which individual 
 wills are expected and are trained to submit ; where 
 these rules are found to be grounded, instinctively 
 perhaps at first, methodically afterwards, on definite 
 principles of right, fitness, and sound reason ; where a 
 people's habitual impulse and natural disposition is to 
 believe in laws and to trust them, and it is accepted as 
 the part of common sense, duty, and honour to obey 
 them ; where these characteristics of respect for law as 
 an authority, of resort to it as an expedient and 
 remedy, are found to follow the progress of a great 
 national history even from its beginnings, it cannot be 
 denied that there you have an essential feature of high 
 civilisation. They of whom this may be said have seen 
 truly, in one most important point, how to order human 
 life. And law in that sense in which we know it, and 
 are living under it, in its strength, in its majesty, in 
 its stability, in its practical, business-like character, 
 may, I suppose, be said to have been born at Rome." ^ 
 
 ^ Dean Church's Gifts of Civilisation, p. 163. 
 
304 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 This the early Christians were forward to 
 admit. They did not hesitate to ascribe the 
 Roman legisLation to a Divine source. 
 
 " Leges Romanorum divinitus per ora principum 
 emanarunt" said Augustine.^ 
 
 But though born in Rome, Law certainly owes to 
 Christianity a great part of its development. In 
 its early days it reflected too plainly the stern 
 and fierce features of the Roman character. The 
 son was the property of the father, and had no 
 rights of his own. The wife was the bought 
 possession of her husband ; and the slave was the 
 living tool, to be thrown aside when worn out. 
 The amelioration of this extreme harshness is 
 due, not to Christianity alone, but in the first 
 place to Stoicism. The Stoic philosophy has the 
 distinction among philosophies of exercising a 
 direct, and extensive, and beneficial influence 
 upon society. Contemporaneously with Chris- 
 tianity this great and inspiring philosophy made 
 itself felt in Rome, and through the saddest years 
 of the Empire nursed many of the best and 
 greatest of her citizens. But it was through 
 the leofislation of Rome that Stoicism exercised 
 
 'O* 
 
 ^ The laws of the Romans came from God through the lips 
 of their rulers. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 305 
 
 its most powerful influence. The leading Roman 
 jurists of the early centuries were Stoics, and in 
 becoming jurists they did not cease to be phil- 
 osophers. There were, no doubt, tendencies in 
 Stoicism which somewhat obstructed the free 
 operation of its philanthropic principles ; but if 
 Stoicism did not make men pitiful, it made them 
 sane and just. It elevated what was spiritual in 
 man, and under its light the brutal cruelty of the 
 Roman character was ashamed of itself, and even 
 the Roman insolence which despised the slave and 
 the foreigner was curbed. 
 
 " As far as natural law is concerned, all men are 
 equal." 
 
 " By natural law, all men are born free." 
 
 Such maxims fell naturally from the lips of 
 Stoic jurists, and a marked amelioration of 
 oppressed conditions set in under this new 
 regime. The son, the slave, the wife, all classes 
 of society began to feel the breath of a new and 
 happier era. 
 
 The improvement begun by Stoicism was 
 carried on by Christianity. Even before Chris- 
 tian principles were allowed directly to influence 
 legislation, the leaven of Christianity had found 
 its way into many social relations. The Church 
 
 X 
 
306 CHRISTIANITY A^'D CIVILISATION 
 
 had from the first been recognised as a great 
 institution for teaching and enforcing a pure 
 morality. The ancient religions concerned them- 
 selves little with morals : the priesthood was 
 not a preaching institution, and took no over- 
 sight of conduct, save in matters ceremonial. 
 It was a new thing in the world to see a great 
 religion devoting itself to the task of elevating 
 the morals of its adherents. Christians were not 
 admitted to the Communion of the Church if 
 they were known to be guilty of certain sins, of 
 which the civil law took no cognisance. A new 
 system of law arose within the Church, as rigor- 
 ously administered as the law of the Empire, and 
 finding offences where the imperial law found 
 none. This system of law regulating the life of 
 the Christian population brought clearly before 
 the minds of men the intention of Christianity, 
 and furnished all men with an ideal of character 
 and conduct which was new to them. In this 
 code every transgression had its penalty attached; 
 and while the door of the Church was held open 
 to the penitent, some adequate representation was 
 at the same time given of the high requirements 
 of the Divine holiness. Ecclesiastical law thus 
 became the pioneer of civil law. It educated the 
 public sentiment, and indicated the direction in 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 307 
 
 which civil law should be revised and amended. 
 It was the rising tide which lifted the whole body 
 of Roman law to a higher level. 
 
 This brief sketch is sufficient to indicate the 
 manner in which Christianity preserved the best 
 elements of the old civilisation. It may fairly 
 claim, not only to have directly contributed the 
 most important element of civilisation, the highest 
 moral ideal — the example of Christ ; a sufficient 
 motive — the sacrifice of the cross — to strive to- 
 wards it ; and a sufficient power to realise it — the 
 power of the Holy Spirit ; but also to have in- 
 directly influenced for good everything for which 
 society exists, and the whole of human life. It 
 has stimulated thought, and opened new fields for 
 its exercise ; it has purified and deepened art, and 
 by giving to love a new meaning and scope, has 
 entirely altered literature, and given it a range of 
 human interest it never before possessed. It has 
 improved and extended education ; it has digni- 
 fied labour, and thus enormously stimulated 
 mechanical invention. It has greatly lessened 
 the misery of human life, introducing justice and 
 charity on a large scale ; and it is now labouring 
 heartily and steadily at remaining grievances, 
 endeavouring to bridge the chasm between rich 
 
308 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 and poor, to sort the balance between labour and 
 capital, to adjust satisfactorily the relation of 
 man to man, and of nation to nation ; to mini- 
 mise disease and all individual disabilities, and to 
 supplant war by arbitration. In nothing that is 
 essential to a perfect civilisation can a Christian 
 be uninterested, and from none dare he withhold 
 a helping hand, because he believes that Christ 
 has come for this purpose, to establish His 
 kingdom on earth. 
 
 Guizot, in his most instructive and lucid 
 analysis of European civilisation, makes the 
 pregnant remark that the great distinction be- 
 tween ancient and modern civilisations is that 
 the ancient were simple, while the modern are 
 complex : in other words, that while each ancient 
 civilisation depended on one social power, the 
 modern depend upon several. The Egyptian 
 civilisation, e.g., was theocratic, or religious, de- 
 pending on the priesthood ; the Assyrian was 
 military, depending on the army ; the Tyrian 
 was commercial. There are in society these 
 distinct sources of power and of well - being — 
 religion, military strength, education, commerce. 
 Each of these has something to contribute to the 
 civilisation and well-being of the State. But if 
 one of these powers usurps exclusive rule and 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 309 
 
 becomes autocratic, the State will be rapidly 
 developed in the direction nourished by that 
 po^Yer, but it will be atrophied in other depart- 
 ments, and must either die or become stationary 
 and barren. In China, for example, the State 
 has been for two thousand years dominated by 
 the educated class. Admission to ofl&ces of State 
 and to all posts under government is regulated by 
 competitive literary examinations. This system 
 has its obvious advantages ; but the result of its 
 exclusive influence is that China has been com- 
 paratively stagnant for all these centuries. In 
 Europe this bar to progress has not existed. Its 
 civilisation is many-sided. It has derived much 
 from Rome, much from the barbarians, much 
 from Christianity. 
 
 It might also, I think, be shown that the solid- 
 arity of European civilisation is largely the result 
 of Christianity. The gifts and discoveries and 
 customs of one nation more readily become the 
 property of all those in other parts of the world. 
 What is the unifying element 'i It is not race. 
 Races as antagonistic as Celt and Saxon are com- 
 bined in this unity. It is not language. What 
 languages could be more diverse than Spanish 
 and Hungarian 1 But the Christian element and 
 ideas in literature make the literature of Europe 
 
310 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 interesting to all Europeans, and tend to unify 
 the culture of the various races. The same 
 radical ideas influence their legislation, and pre- 
 pare one nation to understand and to appreci- 
 ate the political and social conceptions of the 
 rest. 
 
 No doubt the student of history is often per- 
 plexed to find that Christianity has often done so 
 much less than might have been expected. He 
 will be grieved to read in the unalterable facts of 
 history a grave indictment against the Church. 
 He will see that while undoubtedly softening the 
 barbaric ferocity of the northern races, she has 
 herself been guilty of most unpardonable cruelties : 
 that while resisting the tyrannical oppression of 
 kings and nobles, she has often kept the people 
 in a still more degrading bondage ; that through 
 fear of a rival authority she has retarded science 
 and fostered superstition ; and that in several 
 respects, which her enemies have never been slow 
 to proclaim, she has in great measure forfeited 
 her claim to be for the healing of the nations. It 
 is incontestable that the Church of Christ might 
 have done much more and much better than she 
 has done. But we contend that the candid 
 reader of her history, if he find much to blame, 
 will also own that she has done for civilisation 
 
CHKISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 311 
 
 what no other known power could have done, and 
 certainly what no other power has done. 
 
 When the circumstances are considered in 
 which Christianity had to maintain itself, the 
 work it had to do, and the material it had to 
 work with ; when it is considered that Christi- 
 anity took possession of rude tribes, barbarous in 
 their manners and ideas, living for plunder, war, 
 and the chase, without settled abodes, without 
 education, with barely the rudiments of social 
 order ; when it is considered that Christianity 
 had to engraft its own principles of justice and 
 humanity on national usages and laws which in 
 many particulars repudiated these principles; 
 when it is considered that out of the chaos and 
 night of the centuries between the fifth and the 
 twelfth, modern Europe has by the help of 
 Christianity emerged, one is disposed to wonder 
 not at the meagreness, but at the grandeur of the 
 results accomplished. And where the Church 
 did fail, she failed not by being Christian over- 
 much, but by failing to be Christian. Even now 
 the Church is only slowly apprehending what the 
 religion of Christ really is, and we can hardly 
 wonder that ten centuries ago it was not per- 
 fectly understood. 
 
 One or two considerations"^ may be urged which 
 
312 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 may serve to mitigate our soreness that Chris- 
 tianity has not, as a healer of society, accom- 
 plished all that might be expected. In the first 
 place, it must always be borne in mind that 
 Christianity is not like civil law which can be 
 enforced by authority. It could not work magic- 
 ally, irrespective of the laws which govern moral 
 growth. It could not produce its effects save 
 through the intervention of human understanding 
 and human concurrence. It had no power to 
 constrain the will of man ; but it had to wait till 
 men should learn the genius and spirit of it, and 
 till they should willingly yield themselves to its 
 influence. Its supreme influence is seen only in 
 those who are personally born again. The full 
 power of Christianity for the regeneration of 
 society could only be seen if all individuals were 
 regenerate. Such results are not quickly ob- 
 tained. The world is only very slowly convinced 
 of civil truths ; how can we wonder it is slow to 
 believe what is spiritual 1 If you tell men of 
 earthly things and they believe you not, how shall 
 they believe if you tell them of heavenly things 1 
 Besides, it is a commonplace of science and of 
 history that great ends are slowly achieved. 
 Geology demonstrates that with God a thousand 
 years are as one day. History reads us the same 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 313 
 
 lesson. Slowly and patiently God advances 
 towards His ends. And the more we understand 
 God's ways, the less shall we resent that society 
 is not regenerated in a' day, nor all the world 
 civilised in one generation. 
 
 In conclusion, we may appropriately ask, what 
 is the significance of the fact that outside of 
 Christendom there is no high or progressive 
 civilisation 1 The old civilisations, magnificent as 
 in some respects they certainly were, carried in 
 themselves the seeds of decay. The very rapacity 
 and lust of conquest and of splendour, which 
 gave them brilliance, indicated the unchastened 
 vigour of youth, and foretold premature, rapid, 
 and irremediable decay. The sudden blaze of 
 civilisation which accompanied the early successes 
 of the Mohammedan arms was the result of an 
 intense but one-sided conviction ; and being one- 
 sided it remains for ever restricted, it cannot 
 educate the whole man, cannot fit him for the 
 whole of life, cannot give him growth beyond a 
 certain point. Mohammedanism can turn a 
 naked African into an armed, drilled, and efficient 
 soldier ; it can educate and satisfy man's capacity 
 for an ornate and luxurious life ; it can hold men 
 together in common enterprises and inspire them 
 to endure great hardships, but it has yet to learn 
 
3U CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 two at least of the radical elements of civilised 
 life, respect for woman and for liberty. Only in 
 Christian countries have men steadily aimed at 
 giving their rights to the weak, to women and 
 slaves. Only in Christian countries has the 
 natural equality of all men been taken seriousl}', 
 and been allowed practically to influence legisla- 
 tion and social arrangements. Only in Christian 
 countries can you trace a ceaseless striving and 
 steady advance towards that happy condition in 
 which there shall be "neither male nor female, 
 bond nor free," so far as the rights and possi- 
 bilities of human life are concerned.^ 
 
 This limitation of the highest forms of civilisa- 
 tion to Christian countries is sometimes explained 
 by racial differences. Mohammedans keep women 
 and slaves in bondage because they are Orientals. 
 Freedom is in the blood of the Western races, 
 and they cannot either be slaves or hold slaves. 
 Now it is not to be denied that racial distinctions 
 have most substantial results in civilisation. Nor 
 is it to be denied that the Germanic races before 
 they were brought into contact with Christianity 
 had an exceptional reverence for women and an 
 exceptional regard for independence and liberty. 
 At the same time it must remain doubtful to any 
 1 See Brace, p. 291. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 315 
 
 one ^vho compares the primitive German races 
 with the primitive Eomans, whether there was 
 any appreciable difference between them. And 
 all that I would claim for Christianity in this 
 particular is that it cherished the natural gifts of 
 these races, and saved them from being degraded 
 and destroyed as those of the Eomans were. 
 And it is incontestable that the historian can lay 
 his finger here and there upon legislation in 
 favour of the slave expressly dictated by Christian 
 feeling and upon ameliorations of the condition of 
 woman which arose directly out of Christian 
 sentiment. The facts are so : and it is idle to say 
 that if Christianity had not emancipated oppressed 
 classes, racial instincts would have done so. We 
 must abide by history ; and history tells us that 
 neither racial instincts alone, nor Christianity 
 alone, effected the great work of civilising 
 Europe ; but the two working together in that 
 close combination which defies analysis and which 
 was intended by God, the Author of both. 
 
 The conclusion, then, to which the mere 
 historical inquirer is inevitably led, would seem 
 to be that history discloses no power which has 
 been so efficient in civilisation as Christianity. 
 That no stimulus to moral growth and individual 
 improvement is comparable to that which flows 
 
316 CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 
 
 from the person and cross of Christ will be 
 granted by all who have experienced it. But the 
 inquiry now conducted shows in addition that the 
 same vital forces which avail for the regeneration 
 of the individual, avail also, though in methods 
 less direct, for the regeneration of society ; and 
 that no other forces do supply a permanent and 
 sufficient elevating power. Other forces, no 
 doubt, have their place and their results, but 
 whether we consider the operation of these forces 
 in ancient civilisations or in modern races outside 
 of Christendom, we are equally compelled to 
 recognise that they lack some essential factors, 
 which only Christianity supplies. From Chris- 
 tianity we have received what we justly prize as 
 the very flower of civilisation, and in Christianity 
 have we the guarantee for all noble endeavour in 
 the future, for all sympathetic consideration of 
 actual human conditions, and for all the zeal, self- 
 sacrifice, and labour that may be required for 
 their improvement. 
 
VIII 
 
 ON PREACHING! 
 
 I CANNOT enter upon my subject without most 
 sincerely congratulating you upon your desire to 
 learn something of that art which you are to 
 spend your life in practising. In my college 
 days the prevalent ambition was to be foremost 
 in study ; and a number of thoroughly good 
 students were formed. But along with this 
 laudable ambition there existed something verg- 
 ing on contempt of the popular preacher. We 
 respected a man who had a great deal in him ; 
 but if he was able to bring it out, and had not 
 only much that was worth saying, but could say 
 it in a worthy manner, and so. that people were 
 compelled to listen and believe, we regarded 
 him with some measure of suspicion. The con- 
 sequence is too obvious to be overlooked by the 
 
 ^ An address delivered to the students of the Free Church 
 College, Glasgow, 1880. 
 
318 ON PREACHING 
 
 blindest adherent of our Church. We possess an 
 unduly large proportion of small congregations. 
 There is a greater waste of the raw material of 
 good preaching among ourselves than, I suppose, 
 among any other body of Christians. By dint of 
 a curriculum whose chief fault is that it is too 
 ambitious, and by the help of a staff of professors 
 who would contrive to use the most opaque and 
 unintelligent curriculum as a medium of light, 
 we succeed in turning out a large proportion of 
 educated theologians. But they are trained to 
 be anything rather than public speakers. The 
 training is only partly professional. Our licenti- 
 ates are like graduates in medicine who have 
 never seen a patient nor heard a clinical lecture ; 
 or like licentiates in law who have never sat at 
 an office desk nor drawn up a deed. We pro- 
 duce athletes instead of skilled mechanics. Our 
 young ministers are full of unavailable resources, 
 and are as helpless in presence of a congregation 
 as a historian in presence of an invading army. 
 Hence our small proportion of success. Partly, 
 no doubt, this is due to the musical and liturgical 
 attractions studiously provided by the Churches 
 which are wise in their generation, while cul- 
 pably neglected by ourselves ; but it is due 
 even more to the fact that in other Churches 
 
ON PEEACHING 319 
 
 a larger proportion of ministers have acquired the 
 art of public speaking. If some of them have 
 little to say, they can yet say it with a grace. 
 
 I congratulate you, then, on your wish to learn 
 how to preach ; and I fancy you have asked me 
 to come and give you some rough notes on the 
 subject, on the principle that it is generally the 
 man who cannot himself do the thing who can 
 best say how it ought to be done — that is, on the 
 converse of Matthew Arnold's fundamental rule 
 that "the critic should abstain from practice." 
 At all events, I am very glad to be here, and 
 sincerely thank you for your invitation. 
 
 There are two preliminary observations which, 
 although you have all made them for yourselves, 
 it may be as well to repeat, that we may be sure 
 we know exactly where we are. 1st. The first 
 is, that it is the man who preaches. Certainly in 
 the long run it is the man that tells rather than 
 the V sermon. The sermon is but the medium 
 through which the personality of the preacher 
 communicates itself to the audience. So that we 
 ought not too readily to despise people for praising 
 preaching they do not understand, nor for being 
 moved by what is very little more than bodily 
 exercise, because it is in the subtlest ways that 
 communication of vital force is made. Faith is 
 
320 ON PREACHING 
 
 much more a matter of contagion than we are 
 sometimes disposed to admit, and where there is 
 strong religious vitality it will find its Avay 
 through almost any medium. Hence the initial, 
 grand difficulty of preaching. It is not an art 
 that can be acquired, so that at last you can 
 write sermons mechanically ; on the contrary, the 
 whole man must be in good order before you can 
 effectively preach. What Milton says of the poet 
 is still truer of the preacher: "I was confirmed 
 in this opinion, that he who would not be frus- 
 trated of his hope to write well hereafter in 
 laudable things ought himself to be a true poem 
 . . . not presuming to sing high praises of heroic 
 men or famous cities, unless he have in himself 
 the experience and practice of all that is praise- 
 worthy." And as he elsewhere says : "This is a 
 work not to be raised from the heat of youth or 
 the vapours of wine, like that which flows at 
 waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist or 
 the trencher fury of some rhyming parasite : nor 
 to be obtained by the invocation of dame Memory 
 and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to 
 that Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utter- 
 ance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim 
 with the hallowed fire of His altar to touch and 
 purify the lips of whom He pleases. To this must 
 
ON PREACHING 321 
 
 be added industrious and select reading, steady ob- 
 servation, and insight into all seemly and generous 
 acts and affairs." Do not suppose that in pressing 
 this point I am seeking to make you good men 
 under pretence of making you good preachers. 
 Not at all. It is solely in the interest of good 
 preaching I speak, and because I am deeply per- 
 suaded that the initial hindrance to effective 
 preaching is the lack of strong religious con- 
 victions and a personality penetrated with re- 
 ligious feeling. Let me add that tlie absence of 
 genial human nature is often as great a hindrance. 
 If you have no interest in men and women, if 
 you like books better than life, ancient history 
 better than what is going on to-day, you may 
 become extremely useful, but scarcely as preachers. 
 He is most likely to succeed as a preacher to whom 
 nothing is more interesting than human character, 
 and who has chosen his profession not because it 
 commits him to a life of quiet study among books, 
 but because it promises to him much contact with 
 men and influence upon them. 
 
 2d. It is obvious to remark that no rules will 
 avail to make men preach well ; that every man 
 by practice, and reflection on his own practice of 
 the art, will arrive at the method which is best 
 for him. The sooner this practice begins the 
 
 Y 
 
322 ON PREACHING 
 
 better, so long as it does not interfere with your 
 stud}^ ; and the more uneducated and in a state 
 of nature your audience is, the better. My first 
 experience of preaching was in a model lodging- 
 house, to an audience of labourers, with a thief 
 here and there by way of seasoning, all in their 
 shirt-sleeves, and seated round a deal table in a 
 room that opened off the kitchen of the establish- 
 ment. The door between the rooms was always 
 open, and I believe I had a better chance there 
 of learning to preach than ever I have had since ; 
 for I felt myself pitted against the alluring smell 
 of cookery and the frizzling of bacon, and when- 
 ever I became uninteresting I was made distinctly 
 aware of the fact by the increase of conversation 
 in the kitchen. 
 
 But though practice alone will teach you how 
 you can best utilise your own gifts, this know- 
 ledge is often obtained by a most humiliating 
 experience. The first years of a ministry are 
 often just a scramble from one mistake to 
 another; and if one who has been through the 
 bog can shout loud enough to be heard by those 
 who have yet to pass it, he may show them where 
 the softest bits of the ground are, and warn them 
 where not to go. And I understand this is ver}^ 
 much what you wish me to do — not to descant 
 
ON PREACHING 323 
 
 on the higher qualities of the preacher, nor to 
 give you a theory, but to lay before you one or 
 two practical hints which experience has shown 
 me to be serviceable. 
 
 What I have to say I will arrange under the 
 three heads of Substance, Form, and Delivery. 
 
 1st. As regards Substance. Success in preach- 
 ing very much depends upon a judicious choice 
 of subjects. If you take up a volume of popular 
 sermons you see that the titles indicate subjects 
 about which people will naturally wish to hear. 
 " The Moral Consequences of Single Sins," " Unreal 
 Words," "Obedience without Love," "Eeligious 
 Conversation " — these are subjects on which you 
 would willingly listen for half an hour to the 
 talk of a sensible man. There are subjects which 
 have a never -failing interest to all classes and 
 kinds of men, and these are the subjects which 
 are closely connected with human character and 
 huikan life. Unless you speak to men of the actual 
 circumstances and objects with which they have 
 to do, they at once perceive you are but vapouring, 
 maundering unverifiable platitudes, and it does not 
 concern them to listen. The Bible furnishes large 
 material and suggestion for character-preaching, 
 and our Scotch method of lecturing enables us to 
 touch upon delicate matters of personal and home 
 
324 ox PEEACHING 
 
 life which we could never have the audacity to 
 select for treatment, however welcome they are 
 when they come in ordinary course. Lecturing 
 has this other unspeakable advantage for an un- 
 inventive and irresolute man, that it saves him 
 spending many hours weekly in the endeavour 
 to find a suitable subject — an endeavour some- 
 times vain, for I have known one of the wisest, 
 fullest, and ripest of men to burn three almost 
 finished sermons in one week. 
 
 It is chiefly in two directions that preachers 
 are apt to go astray in choosing their subject. 
 They choose what is too abstruse or what is 
 of too limited application to their audience. A 
 young preacher is under strong temptation to 
 treat his audience to speculations on points they 
 have never been in sight of." To him it is natural 
 to take up a subject with which study has made 
 him familiar, and to start with his investigation 
 at the point where others have been brought to 
 a stand, and so to launch his hearers into a 
 wholly unintelligible and uninteresting region. 
 Or he is tempted to avoid the commonplaces of 
 preaching — the Atonement, the love of Christ, 
 reasons for accepting God's offer of salvation, or 
 such universally applicable themes, and to choose 
 minute points or fine threads of Christian exi)eri- 
 
ON PREACHING 325 
 
 ence, which are off the beat of almost every mind 
 in his audience. I have known and now know 
 prea,chers of admirable parts who have failed to 
 get churches from one or other of these mistakes 
 — from the choice of subjects either quite remote 
 from the thought of common people and unin- 
 telligible to them, or so particular as to interest 
 only a few. And to myself it has always seemed 
 to be the most difficult part of the whole work of 
 preaching to discover themes which are at once 
 capable of carrying some considerable weight of 
 Christian truth and likely to interest people. 
 
 The method I long ago adopted to secure, as 
 far as possible, a constant supply of such subjects, 
 is to keep a register of suitable and unworn texts. 
 In reading the Bible, a few words will sometimes 
 leap out from the context and take possession of 
 your mind as the final representation of some 
 truth. Whenever this occurs, follow the dictate 
 of nature, and mark a large T on the margin of 
 your working Bible, or transfer the words at once 
 to a note -book kept for the purpose. Unless 
 your memory is exceptionally strong, do not trust 
 it. After twenty the memory of nine men in 
 ten is almost worthless for many purposes. If 
 the books in your college library had been simply 
 thrown into the room one on the top of the other 
 
326 ON PREACHING 
 
 as they were bought, it would represent the state 
 of that important faculty on which we have to 
 depend for so much of the work of life. It is 
 only those who have taken time, and been at 
 pains to carry each acquisition to its right shelf, 
 that can at a moment's notice lay their hand on 
 what they require. And this is given to few. 
 For the most part, knowledge is tumbled in upon 
 us, and the labour of assorting it is too great to 
 be undertaken, and so it lies in an utterly useless 
 heap. Do not scorn, then, to keep a pen-and-ink 
 memory, and set down at once the texts that 
 occur to you and the subject they preach to you, 
 in the words coined by the first impression. If 
 you allot to each suggestive text the two pages of 
 a note-book as it opens, and if you add from time 
 to time what your reading or observation con- 
 tributes to the elucidation or amplification or 
 illustration of the subject, you will sometimes 
 find, to your great joy, a sermon almost ready- 
 made. I have kept such a book for years, and 
 have found it one of the most tangible and 
 appreciable helps to preaching. I find in it such 
 notes as these: "Num. xii. 14, 'The Lord said 
 unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face 
 should she not be ashamed seven days ? ' " — obvi- 
 ously, the text for a sermon on the comparative 
 
ox PREACHING 327 
 
 shame we feel on receiving tokens of God's dis- 
 pleasure and expressions of men's displeasure. 
 Again, as a text from which to preach on the 
 influence which other men's judgment has on our 
 conduct, or more generally " on the motives of 
 human conduct," I find this text marked : " Exod. 
 ii. 1 2, ' He looked this way and that way, and 
 when he saw that there was no man he slew the 
 Egyptian.' " Again, for a sermon on the hind- 
 rances Avhich prevent prayer from being answered, 
 I find that text in Daniel x. 12, marked: "Fear 
 not, Daniel, for from the first day that thou didst 
 set thine heart to understand and to chasten thy- 
 self before thy God, thy words were heard, and I 
 am come for thy words." The very finding of such 
 a text goes far to precipitate you into a sermon. 
 
 Sometimes the best sermons you are capable of 
 making are, however, not suggested by a text, but 
 by some defect in religious life that meets you 
 wherever you go among your people, or by some 
 deep-cut experience in your own history. These 
 are the sermons that tell. There is always some 
 similarly wounded soul that recognises that you 
 are touching the critical point in its experience, 
 and that eagerly hails your explication of its 
 difficulty. Sometimes it is not easy to find a 
 text for such sermons. You will occasionally 
 
328 ON PEEACHING 
 
 finish the writin2: of such a sermon before it 
 occurs to you that in order to satisfy popular 
 expectation a text is needed. If you know your 
 Bible as Newman knows his, you will always get 
 some suitable words, but not without careful 
 search. Even for prominent points in Christian 
 teaching, you will sometimes be at a loss to find 
 the suitable motto — and I do not know that it 
 matters much, so long as your subject is clearly 
 enounced and really runs on the lines of Christian 
 teaching or Christian experience. 
 
 For your selection of preaching material you 
 must be guided mainly by the needs of your own 
 spiritual life. You will always command atten- 
 tion when you speak of what is of vital moment 
 to your own spiritual well-being. There is no 
 subject so trite and commonplace that will not 
 acquire freshness when spoken of by one who is 
 dealing with it as matter of life and death to him- 
 self. It is almost useless handling Justification, 
 Sacrifice, the Divinity of Christ, His Intercession, 
 if you are merely wishing to fill up a Sunday- 
 service with an adequate treatment of such a 
 theme ; but these are the subjects which tell most 
 powerfully when you approach them, because you 
 find that for your own soul's peace you are driven 
 to take to pieces all that has been taught you 
 
ox PREACHING 329 
 
 about them, and to reconstruct them for your- 
 selves. "All language and literature," says John 
 Stuart Mill, "are full of general observations on 
 life, both as to "what it is and how to conduct 
 oneself in it ; observations which everybody 
 knows, which everybody repeats or hears with 
 acquiescence, which are received as truisms, yet 
 of which most people first truly learn the meaning 
 when experience, generally of a painful kind, has 
 made it a reality to them." This is especially 
 true of the truths of religion. Preach what you 
 have verified in your experience, and people will 
 be interested. 
 
 Even, however, when you are not deeply 
 exercised about any important topic, you must 
 preach upon subjects objectively important. It 
 is the duty of every settled minister to be sure 
 that he is preaching with sufficient frequency on 
 the central facts and truths of the Gospel. In 
 som^e Churches the ecclesiastical year compels the 
 j^reacher to a regular cycle of the most important 
 Christian themes, and if we do not approve of the 
 method, we should be careful lest with the method 
 we throw away also the end it achieves. 
 
 Subject, then, to the limitations stated, it may 
 be laid doAvn as a law that whatever is thoroughly 
 interesting to yourself, and has a religious bearing, 
 
330 ox PEE ACHING 
 
 is fit material for preaching. But do not fancy 
 that because a subject ought to interest you, it 
 therefore does so. Nor yet conclude that because 
 it has interested some one else, and he has made 
 a good sermon out of it, tliat therefore it will 
 interest you. Not at all. You have learned that 
 you have just to wait your time until your in- 
 terest spontaneously attaches to certain books the 
 world admires. You have perhaps found that 
 even in the Book of Job, or in Homer, or Dante, 
 or Milton, you do not find all that the leaders of 
 opinion find ; and that the book which four years 
 ago you could see nothing in is to-day your meat 
 and drink. So with preaching you will grow up 
 to the best subjects. Be yourself. Preach what 
 is of present interest to you, and other things will 
 become interesting. But do not throw yourself off 
 the line, or run off upon a false scent, by trying 
 to be interested in some other man's subjects. 
 The only legitimate method of creating or forcing 
 an interest in a subject is by working hard at it. 
 
 But in finding such material for preaching, is 
 no help to be derived from books ? From books 
 of sermons I think you cannot directly get much 
 material. It seems to me that in sitting down to 
 write a sermon you will come better speed if you 
 refuse to look at any sermon on the same topic. 
 
ON PREACHING 331 
 
 At the same time, I think it is every preacher's 
 duty to make himself acquainted with the best 
 work in his own department ; to study and 
 analyse and learn the secrets of the sermons 
 which have approved themselves most decidedly 
 to the hearers. But this analytic study of 
 sermons pertains more to the acquiring of a 
 suitable form for our own preaching. And prob- 
 ably the best way of using published sermons 
 for the supply of material is to keep a volume 
 of Newman, or Temple, or Beecher, or Spurgeon, 
 by you for devotional reading. It is a good 
 beginning to a day, and it contributes in a two- 
 fold way to your work. The ideas you thus 
 receive become assimilated to your own mental 
 possessions and enter into your own spiritual life, 
 so that your mind is gradually filled with material 
 for your own thought to work upon in the preach- 
 ing line. And, better still, it keeps you up to 
 the right preaching level, and gives you the 
 proper tone in which to begin your own work. 
 It is the distinctive mark of genius, as John 
 Foster said, that it lights its own fire. We who 
 are not the gifted ones must often be content 
 to catch light and kindling from another. Even 
 the greatest writers have not despised such aid. 
 Burke had always "a ragged Virgil" at his 
 
332 ON PREACHING 
 
 elbow ; and the orator and statesman of our 
 own day who most nearly rises to the level of 
 Burke — I mean Mr. Gladstone — goes, as every 
 one knows, to a still deeper and purer source of 
 inspiration. Plutarch tells us that Caius Gracchus 
 was frequently carried away by passion while 
 speaking in public, and therefore kept a well- 
 educated slave at his back, who, as often as 
 the orator's voice became shrill and discordant, 
 sounded a soft, sweet note on his flute, and so 
 restored his master to the proper pitch. And it 
 is by giving ear to the sweet, true, and manly 
 tones of our best preachers that we are most 
 likely to be recalled to our highest and best self, 
 and to begin our day's work at the right level. 
 
 There are books, not volumes of sermons, from 
 which much preaching material can be derived. 
 Of course, as it is each man's own observation of 
 life and of men that will best fill his mind with 
 ideas for preaching, so each man has his own 
 books that nourish and stimulate him ; but I • 
 would recommend you to try the Puritan Good- 
 win, and the Romanist Faber. I cannot conceive 
 of any one reading their volumes without receiv- 
 ing most substantial aid for preaching. But all 
 good books are helpful. In the measure in which 
 they are honestly studied, they widen the view, 
 
ON PREACHING 333 
 
 strengthen the judgment, and inform the mind. 
 Only, nothing is more difficult than to study when 
 you are not going to make immediate use of what 
 you learn. It is one of the great snares of our 
 profession to mistake reading for studying. There 
 is many a minister who has been irretrievably 
 ruined as a student by giving way to the fancy 
 that when he got hold of a good book, and spent 
 the day with his feet on the hob, he was studying. 
 We all learn in time the truth of Bishop Butler's 
 remark, that reading is the idlest of human occupa- 
 tions. And many of us learn that we read too 
 much. As undigested food burdens the body, 
 and impedes the free action of its organs, so 
 undigested reading clogs the mind, and interferes 
 with intellectual activity. It is when we are 
 spending thought of our own on a subject that 
 the appetite for mental nutriment is restored, and 
 that we can actually assimilate what we receive. 
 Butvthere is almost no kind of literature that will 
 not help the preacher, either by refreshing and 
 enlivening the mind, or putting him on new lines 
 of thought, or making him more familiar with the 
 real motives of men and the actual issues of certain 
 lines of conduct, or by supplying him with illus- 
 trative matter. 
 
 On the subject of illustration I have only two 
 
334 ox PREACHING 
 
 remarks to make — 1st. That every preacher should 
 cultivate his faculty of illustration, because there 
 can be no question that his success largely de- 
 pends upon it. Of course I do not mean his 
 popularity, but his power to impart and infix 
 truth. And I would recommend, as perhaps one 
 of the best ways of cultivating this faculty, that 
 the young preacher should take up as his subject 
 one or other of those laws of Christ's kingdom 
 which are so frequently enounced in the gospel — 
 I mean such laws as these : Except a corn of 
 wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth 
 alone ; or, To him that hath shall be given — for 
 in order to enforce the working of a law you 
 must of necessity cite instances, and it is easy to 
 find suitable examples of the working of those 
 great laws that rule both in the spiritual and 
 physical sphere. 2d. The second remark I would 
 make is this : Never introduce an illustration with 
 the formula, "Suppose a man"; never, that is to 
 say, illustrate by a hypothetical case — rather begin 
 in the nursery style, " Once upon a time there 
 lived a man." It is the direct affirmation of fact 
 that commands attention. It occurred to me 
 when Mr. Moody was preaching here that a 
 great part of the secret of his success lay in this, 
 whether he knew it himself or not, that he always 
 
ON rREACHING 335 
 
 drew his illustrations from actual life, from some- 
 thing his boy had said that morning, or that he 
 had heard on the street. The reason of the 
 different effect produced is obvious. If you 
 begin your illustration with " Suppose," your 
 dullest auditor instinctively feels that you may 
 suppose whatever suits you, and that of course 
 you will only suppose what makes for your own 
 position. Masters of illustration, such as Aristotle 
 and Homer, will always be found to draw from 
 the actual. 
 
 Even where illustration is almost wholly want- 
 ing, vividness is always secured by writing in 
 presence of your audience. As you sit at your 
 desk gather your people before your mind's eye, 
 and you will never treat your subject abstractly, 
 and apart from their living necessities. To write 
 sermons as a probationer is difficult in the ex- 
 treme ; but as soon as you have a people of your 
 own, and become friendly with them and in- 
 terested in them, they haunt you as you write, 
 and not only suggest the fit things to say, but 
 put all the liveliness of personal intercourse into 
 your sermon. Never allow your sermon to be a 
 monologue, but make it an address from beginning 
 to end. And no sooner do you get a real interest 
 in the mental condition of any one of your people 
 
336 ON PREACHING 
 
 than it becomes so — nay, even though you have 
 no special interest in them, yet if you set three 
 or four of j^'our people before your mind while 
 you write, their shadowy presence will act as a 
 test, making you at once feel where you are 
 becoming dull and uninteresting and abstract. 
 And be sure that in this small representative 
 congregation that sit round your desk, your most 
 obtuse and uneducated hearer has a place. You 
 will thus, and thus only, take the sting out of 
 that ill-natured but wholesome criticism uttered 
 two hundred years ago, and no less needful now — 
 " Preaching for the most part is the glory of the 
 preacher, to show himself a fine man. Catechis- 
 ing would do much better." 
 
 2d. Let me now say a few words on the form 
 of your preaching. And I would say — 1st. Do 
 not begin to write until your plan is mature. 
 Have clearly in view what you wish to enforce, 
 and let this rule all the parts of your composition. 
 Your plan will probably take shape somewhat in 
 this humble way : you will sit down, pencil in 
 hand, and jot down various things that occur to 
 you as requiring to be said on the subject. This 
 is often terrible work. When the note-book fails 
 me I have sat for hours at my desk, unable to 
 think of one thing worth saying, and have had 
 
ON PKEACHING 337 
 
 the mortification of seeing the whole forenoon slip 
 by, leaving my paper as clean as it came from the 
 mill. In such circumstances you will be tempted 
 to wish you had devoted your life to smith or 
 wood work, or rope -making, where you could 
 measure your w^ork by the yard, or to any occupa- 
 tion in which you could always uniformly go on 
 and produce something. It is at such times you 
 learn to sympathise with Lessing when he says, 
 "Among all the wretched, I think him the most 
 wretched who must work with his head, even if 
 he is not conscious of having one." But in your 
 happier moments various things 'Nvill occur to you 
 to be said, and as you jot them down you will 
 gradually see how best to group them so as to 
 form an effective treatment of the subject. Once 
 your plan is vividly conceived, the heaviest part 
 of your work is over. Many preachers, indeed, 
 do no more. And men of a certain temperament 
 will, perhaps, preach better with no further pre- 
 paration than merely the conception of a well- 
 balanced plan, and the accurate perception of the 
 leading points by which it is to be worked out. 
 If you see clearly what you mean to enforce, and 
 know where you mean to begin and where you 
 mean to end, and if you have also well in your 
 head the arguments you mean to use and the 
 
 z 
 
338 OX PREACHING 
 
 illustrations by which you wish to enliven them, 
 and the points you mean to make, you are well 
 furnished for effective preaching, supposing always 
 you have nerve. 
 
 Divisions are not always necessary ; and some 
 of the greatest modern preachers, such as Canon 
 Mozley, never use them. Others again are strong 
 in division. Frederick Robertson, e.g., shows re- 
 markable skill in so dividing his sermon that 
 great scope is given for fully handling the subject. 
 It is noticeable that almost invariably his division 
 is twofold. 
 
 It is, I think, as essential to success to break 
 up your discourse into brief paragraphs, each of 
 them clearly enouncing and completing a single 
 idea. A sermon thus broken up is as much more 
 effective than a continuous, prolonged dribble of 
 ideas as a succession of blows of a hammer is 
 more effective than a prolonged and continuous 
 pressure. You see a num]jer of writers nowadays 
 adopting the practice of numbering their para- 
 graphs — this is the mechanical expression of the 
 idea that thought becomes easier and more profit- 
 able when it is conveyed in compact pellets follow- 
 ing one another consecutively. You will also find 
 that it greatly relieves and enlightens a sermon if 
 you can vary the tone of each paragraph. If one 
 
ON PREACHING 339 
 
 is explanatory, let the next be hortatory ; if one 
 is dogmatic, let the next be illustrative or emo- 
 tional, and so on. 
 
 And when each paragraph is written, and 
 stands before you in black and white, ask your- 
 self these questions : Is there anything here that 
 will do the people good, or that they ought to 
 know, and do not already know ; and have I put 
 it so that it is impossible for them to miss under- 
 standing and being impressed by it 1 
 
 3d. You may nullify by bad deliver ij what is 
 admirable both in matter and in form. Indeed, 
 it is pitiable to think how much waste goes on 
 weekly in Scotland in this respect. You must, 
 in the first place, bear in mind that a large part 
 of your hearers when they say that they like 
 your preaching better than that of some one else, 
 simply and solely mean that they hear you better. 
 You will be astonished to learn how many people 
 find comfort in having a voice come clear and 
 pleasantly on the ear. Cicero had some little 
 experience as a public speaker, and he advises 
 regarding the voice " ut dam sit, id suavis." 
 For a large number of our hearers, the first 
 requisite of preaching is that it be heard with 
 perfect ease and satisfaction. You cannot help 
 listening from the first to Mr. 's preaching. 
 
340 OX PREACHING 
 
 because he begins in a clear, resonant, masculine 
 voice — a voice which somehow comes home to 
 the mind with the intimation that it has some- 
 thing to say. Whenever you find yourself begin- 
 ning your sermon in a tone of friendliness and 
 lively interest, you may feel sure of holding the 
 people's attention. When you can put yourself^ 
 in your own mind, on thoroughly good terms 
 with your audience, without being patronising or 
 childishly coaxing, you are sure to catch their 
 attention. On the other hand, when you get 
 annoyed with the coughing of a miscellaneous 
 audience or sulky at their inattention, you be- 
 come conscious that this betrays itself in your 
 voice, and you may as well be done. The pulpit 
 voice assumed by some preachers is not to be 
 commended, nor the lugubrious or preternaturally 
 solemn tones in which you sometimes hear a man 
 begin the service, as if his wife were lying dead 
 in the vestry. Yet this solemnity has a great 
 effect in quieting an audience, and possibly acts 
 as the tones of the organ do in quickening re- 
 ligious sensibility. Still, I would say, above all 
 things be natural. Do not sj^eak as you speak 
 across a table to a friend, for it is not natural 
 to address a thousand people as you address one ; 
 but do not assume a voice. 
 
ON PREACHING 341 
 
 But, above all, cultivate the art of preaching 
 without notes. I do not know any art that is so 
 much worth acquiring as that of public speaking. 
 Miseries unspeakable must be endured by some 
 in acquiring it ; agonies of nervousness before 
 each attempt, and agonies of shame afterwards ; 
 but the price is not too heavy. The man who has 
 acquired the faculty of addressing a body of his 
 fellow-men wields the most effective instrument 
 that man can wield. Of all technical faults of 
 which I this day repent there is none which I 
 more constantly and deeply regret than that I 
 did not thoroughly acquire this faculty. A read 
 sermon, and, still more, a read lecture, may be 
 instructive and impressive, but undoubtedly the 
 highest form of address is that in which a man 
 speaks face to face with his audience, without 
 even the slight intervention of his own manu- 
 script. I have no faith in committed sermons, in 
 which the man stands like an automaton that has 
 been wound up to say certain words, the eye 
 fixed on emptiness, and empty as that which it is 
 fixed upon — a more painful, depressing spectacle 
 rarely appears in the pulpit than this. This is the 
 deadest form of all public speaking, in which a 
 man reads off his memory, and is so anxiously 
 absorbed that he has not a tithe of the freedom 
 
342 OX PREACHING 
 
 the reader of the manuscript has. But where a 
 man can be at pains to master his subject, and 
 get thoroughly interested in it ; where he has 
 broken it up into natural consecutive divisions ; 
 where he has spent time in revising and selecting 
 his material, and so holds it in his mind freely ; 
 and where he is so sure of his grasp of the whole 
 that the presence of his audience only animates 
 and gives him his opportunity, — there you are 
 sure to have the utmost success the man is 
 capable of achieving. 
 
 And not only does carefully -prepared speech 
 tell on every one, and with tenfold more force 
 than written discourse tells on the few, but the 
 practice of such careful preparation reacts power- 
 fully and advantageously on your written style. 
 You acquire the habit of holding a complete sub- 
 ject in your mind : you are compelled to find a 
 plan which is distinct and memorable — else you 
 become entangled as you speak — and so you learn 
 to frame such plans, even for your written efforts ; 
 and in speaking to your audience you instinctively 
 choose modes of presentation, words and illustra- 
 tions, which are suitable. On the other hand, to 
 speak without writing is perilous, for written dis- 
 course tells as powerfully on spoken, as spoken on 
 written. You have the highest authority for the 
 
ON PREACHING 343 
 
 assertion that the habit of careful, slow, exact 
 writing, is the only school for ready and effective 
 speaking. ^'Stilus," says Cicero, ^^ ojMmus et prae- 
 stautissimus dicendi effedoi' ac magister." And in 
 addressing your predecessors in study in this city 
 one of the greatest of modern orators, Lord 
 Brougham, used these words : "I should lay it 
 down as a rule, admitting of no exception, that 
 a man will speak well in proportion as he has 
 written much." 
 
 I opened these scattered remarks by con- 
 gratulating you on your desire to know some- 
 thing of the work on which you are to spend 
 your life. I close them by congratulating you 
 on your having chosen preaching as the work of 
 your life. There is no work in which the oppor- 
 tunities are greater ; nor any in which the 
 stimulus is so constant and sufficient. It will 
 never cease to fill you with astonishment and with 
 delight, tempered by a sense of responsibility, to 
 see "" people, Sunday after Sunday, returning for 
 the express purpose of being influenced by what 
 you have to say. No doubt that is not the uni- 
 versal attitude of mind, but it is the general 
 attitude. Undeterred by past experience, for- 
 giving you all your past poverty, hoping always 
 the best, the people return and put themselves 
 
34-i ON PREACHING 
 
 under your influence. They wish to be im- 
 pressed ; they come open-mouthed for whatever 
 will truly feed the spirit ; they ^vatch and wait 
 for the merest crumbs of instruction or edification. 
 They hunger for the fruit of your study. 
 
 And this opportunity, grand as it is, is one 
 which every honest man who will faithfully stick 
 to his work can adequately use. I fear you may 
 have asked me to speak to you this evening under 
 some vague impression and hope that there is 
 some royal road to preaching, — that you have 
 only to learn the trick of the thing and it will 
 come easy. If so, I trust you are disappointed. 
 There is no royal road, and he that is not pre- 
 pared to live for his work, and to be at it from 
 week's end to week's end, will certainly fail. I 
 know one or two men who have every natural 
 qualification for good preaching ; they are sound- 
 hearted, intelligent, kindly men, with large know- 
 ledge of life and great accuracy of general 
 information, and, moreover, gifted with much 
 natural eloquence, and yet they fail as preachers. 
 AVhy 1 Simply because they do not work at 
 their preaching resolved that in that they shall 
 excel. Instead of beginning their work early in 
 the week, and being at it as their main business 
 always, they make a rush at it on Saturday or 
 
ON PEEACHING 345 
 
 Friday, and are carried through respectably, by 
 dint of their exceptional natural ability ; but they 
 fail regularly and throughout to make that im- 
 pression which they might make did they give 
 themselves to their preaching as their main work. 
 When I began preaching I greatly underrated 
 its importance, and consequently had far too little 
 ambition about it ; and I see nothing more clearly 
 than that I might have been helped to much more 
 effective work could I have seen from the first 
 what I now see of the very great importance of 
 the function. I would therefore say to each of 
 you, with all the earnestness that a conviction 
 wrought by experience can give : Eesolve that 
 you shall be a good preacher. Do not be content 
 with getting and keeping a church, but be resolute 
 to excel ; and, for this end, live for your preach- 
 ing ; make it your centre, round which all your 
 reading and observation revolve ; have stated 
 hours of work with which nothing is allowed to 
 interfere ; keep a severely true record of the 
 hours you have spent on work each day, of what 
 you have read and what you have written, and 
 do not think you are likely to preach well unless 
 you spend six hours of each day at your desk in 
 real hard work for your pulpit. Men will tell 
 you they cannot work save under pressure, and 
 
346 OX PREACHING 
 
 must put off till Saturday, that the steam, I 
 suppose, may be sufficiently compressed to become 
 fully energetic. Why is this 1 Simply because 
 they are lazy, and can do no work till compelled ; 
 and because they have trained themselves to 
 neglect their work till Saturday, until an un- 
 conquerable habit is formed. Another class of 
 men will tell you that they find they can per- 
 fectly well prepare on Saturday for their one 
 service on Sunday. To spend more time would 
 be waste, as much as if they spent an hour on 
 lacing their boots or brushing their hair. But if 
 a minister finds that this is so, he ought to be all 
 the more apprehensive of forming what I fear is 
 the great blot on our profession — lazy habits. 
 Unless a man is working hard all the week it 
 will become most irksome to work on Saturdays — 
 just as the first sermon after one's midsummer 
 holidays is the most difficult to write in all the 
 year. And nothing will persuade me that a 
 minister's life is healthy, if he is not working 
 hard for a certain number of hours each day in 
 his study. I know how plausible the excuses 
 are, and I know what relaxation of study results 
 in — laziness in the morning, increasing excesses 
 in the daily papers, increased interest in garden- 
 ing, several more pipes a day, and so forth. 
 
ON PREACHING 347 
 
 Breakfast comes finally to its long -deferred end 
 about ten, then there is a consultation with the 
 gardener — which is, of course, business, and makes 
 the idler feel that really his active habits are 
 returning ; then two letters have to be answered ; 
 then, just as he means to go to his study, he sees 
 Mr. Fritterday passing, and before he has finished 
 his colloquy over the hedge with him it is past 
 mid-day. When he does get to his study, Mac- 
 millan or Blackwood is lying on his table, and he 
 feels he cannot settle till he knows what is the 
 fate of the heroine of the current story ; or his 
 window overlooks the busy hayfield of his neigh- 
 bour, and he becomes ten times more interested 
 in that work than in his own ; and so his whole 
 forenoon is gone, and he is summoned to dinner 
 before he has earned his salt by one decent hand's 
 turn. And so his whole life goes ; and when he 
 is put under the sod by his people, they regret 
 the loss of a good-hearted, kindly friend, but they 
 inwardly resolve that whatever their next minister 
 is, he shall at all events be a student. 
 
 If you wish to maintain the respect of your 
 people, and what is much more, if you wish to 
 maintain self-respect, make a point of spending a 
 fixed number of hours in your study each day — 
 not merely reading, but studying, working reso- 
 
348 ON PREACHING 
 
 lately at something profitable, if not directly 
 bearing on the coming Sunday's sermon. You 
 may be perfectly sure that if you thoroughly 
 prepare yourself for a place of influence in the 
 Church, the place will one day be given you. 
 Good preachers are not so common among us 
 that one may easily be overlooked in the multi- 
 tude. And every hour of honest work you spend, 
 and especially every written thought you have 
 fabricated with care and effort, will stand you 
 in good stead before you are done with your 
 ministry. In a word, magnify your office, and 
 recognise it as rightfully claiming the whole effort 
 of your manhood, the most skilfully trained in- 
 tellect, and the utmost grace that pure and health- 
 ful living, constant prayer, and hopeful self-control 
 can secure to you. No work makes so constant a 
 demand on all our best energies, and none, there- 
 fore, yields so constant a return of keen and 
 healthful happiness. 
 
IX 
 
 MAECUS AURELIUS 
 
 It is much to say, yet I think it is true, that it 
 would he impossible to find among men a char- 
 acter more stainless than that of Marcus Aurelius. 
 When he died, his bereaved subjects felt that 
 Heaven had reclaimed its own : they thought of 
 him as still their patron above, and the young 
 men called upon "Marcus, my father"; the men 
 of middle age on "Marcus, my brother"; the old 
 men on " Marcus, my son." A century after his 
 death his bust was to be found in the house 
 of every Roman whose means could afford the 
 slightest decoration. Disturbed as the empire 
 was, there was no party in it that did not 
 acknowledge the integrity and unselfishness of 
 his character. Set in that "fierce light that 
 beats upon a throne and blackens every blot," 
 judged by the lofty standard his own philosophy 
 erected, no fault was found in him that the 
 
350 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 bitterest enemy could have dared to point at, 
 and no enemy was found who would have used 
 such opportunity had it been given. The one 
 solitary rebellion which a mistaken officer of his 
 own strove to raise against him only stood as 
 the occasion for one of the most signal acts of 
 magnanimity that history records. The consent- 
 ing judgment of his contemporaries is ratified by 
 the impartial and unsparing criticism of modern 
 times. It is the most authoritative critic of our 
 own day who says that Marcus Aurelius " is per- 
 haps the most beautiful figure in history. He is 
 one of those consoling and hope-inspiring marks, 
 Avhich stand for ever to remind our weak and 
 easily discouraged race how high human goodness 
 and perseverance have once been carried, and may 
 be carried again." Born with the disposition of 
 a Christian saint, his destiny made him a pagan 
 emperor : born amidst the dregs of pagan vice, 
 he lived to put to shame the effeminacy and 
 insincerity and selfishness of Christians. 
 
 From the year 96 to the year 180 the Eoman 
 Empire was governed by that succession of rulers 
 commonly known as the five good emperors : 
 Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and 
 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. These princes fol- 
 lowed one another in the occupation of the 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 351 
 
 imperial throne not by hereditary succession, but 
 by nomination or adoption. Marcus Aurelius was 
 the nephew and son-in-law of his predecessor, 
 and aided him in the government until his death 
 in the year 161. After this Marcus reigned as 
 emperor for nineteen years, dying on the 17th of 
 March 180, in his fifty-ninth year. While quite a 
 child, and known by his family name of Verus, 
 he had caught the fancy of Hadrian, who in 
 playful admiration of his bold candour and in- 
 tegrity used to call him Verissimus. 
 
 He was educated with the greatest care, and 
 was singularly fortunate in the society of wise and 
 faithful men. As he himself afterwards said, " To 
 the gods I am indebted for having good grand- 
 fathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, 
 good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly 
 everything good." From the hand of Aurelius him- 
 self we have a characteristic record which enables 
 us to form a tolerably accurate picture of his youth. 
 This record takes the form of an analysis of the 
 influences which entered into the formation of his 
 character, together with a grateful reference to 
 the various persons from whom those influences 
 were derived. "From my mother I learned to 
 abstain not only from doing evil, but even from 
 thinking it," and so forth. He records his thank- 
 
352 MAECUS AURELIUS 
 
 fulness that he had been brought up, not at a 
 public school, but at home, and amidst influences 
 which, while they compelled him to be hardy and 
 laborious, requiring the barest food, and content 
 with a plank bed and a skin, yet kept him out of 
 the vitiated atmosphere of Eoman life and laid 
 the foundations of a dignified and fearless man- 
 hood in a chaste, patient, and honourable youth. 
 His first tutor was Fronto, who, though a pedant 
 and a rhetorician, thoroughly won the boy-prince 
 to a love of study, of purity, and of truth, and 
 remained his friend for life. In the letters that 
 passed between Marcus and Fronto in after years 
 a side of the emperor's character comes out which 
 is apt to be lost sight of amidst the cares of 
 empire and the abstractions of philosophy. One 
 of these letters gives so clear an account of the 
 manner in which a young Roman of steady habits 
 spent his day in the country, and lets us so clearly 
 see how unchanging the greater part of human 
 life is, that I may quote it in full : 
 
 "I slept late this morning on account of my cold, 
 but it is better. From five in the morning till nine I 
 partly read Cato on Agriculture and partly wrote, not 
 quite such rubbish as yesterday. Then I greeted my 
 father, and then soothed my throat with honey water 
 without absolutely gargling. Then I attended my 
 father as he offered sacrifice. Then to breakfast. 
 
MAECUS AUEELIUS 353 
 
 What do you tliink I ate ? Only a little bread, 
 though I saw the others devouring beans, onions, and 
 sardines ! Then we went out to the vintage and got 
 hot and merry, but left a few grapes still hanging, as 
 the old poet says, "atop on the topmost bough." At 
 noon we got home again, and I worked a little, but 
 it was not much good. Then I chatted a long time 
 with my mother as she sat on her bed. My con- 
 versation consisted of, " What do you suppose my 
 Fronto is doing at this moment ? " to which she 
 answered, " And my Gratia, what is she doing ? " and 
 then I, " And our little birdie. Gratia the less ? " 
 And while we were talking and quarrelling as to 
 which of us loved you all the best, the gong sounded, 
 which meant that my father had gone to the bath. 
 So we bathed and dined in the oil-press room. I 
 don't mean that we bathed in the oil-press room, but 
 we bathed and then dined and amused ourselves with 
 listening to the peasants' banter. And now that I am 
 in my own room again, before I roll over and snore I 
 am fulfilling my promise and giving an accoilnt of my 
 day to my dear tutor. And if I could love him better 
 than I do I would consent to miss him even more than 
 I miss him now. Take care of yourself, my best and 
 dearest Fronto, wherever you are. The fact is that I 
 love you, and you are far away." ^ 
 
 Another letter gives us an equally pleasant 
 glimpse of a Roman domestic interior : " The 
 weather is bad and I feel uncomfortable, but 
 
 ^ Myers' translation. 
 2 A 
 
354 MAECUS AURELIUS 
 
 when my little girls are well, the sun shines and 
 my pains disappear." Fronto on his part sends 
 kind messages to the children, " kisses their fat 
 little toes and tiny hands " ; and records how well 
 rewarded he had been for visiting the country house 
 of Aurelius, since he was met on the slippery hill 
 road by two of the children, one munching a piece 
 of fine white bread such as a king's son might eat, 
 says the rhetorician, and the other tackling a hard 
 black crust, fit for the child of a philosopher. 
 
 But a new tutor brought into the lad's mind 
 thoughts that changed the boy into a man. 
 Eusticus, a Stoic philosopher, first taught him 
 to think, to look at things, not at words : " From 
 Rusticus I received the impression that my char- 
 acter required improvement and discipline ; and 
 from him I learned not to be led astray to 
 sophistic emulation, nor to delivering little hor- 
 tatory orations, nor to showing myself off as 
 a man who practises much discipline, or does 
 benevolent acts in order to make a display ; and 
 to abstain from rhetoric and poetry and fine 
 writing ; and to write my letters with simplicity ; 
 and to read carefully and not to be satisfied 
 with a superficial understanding of a book." To 
 Rusticus also he was indebted for a copy of the 
 discourses of Epictetus, of which he might have 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 355 
 
 said, as our own Southey said, " I carried Ej^ictetus 
 in my pocket till my very heart was ingrained 
 with it, as a pig's bones become red hy feeding 
 him upon madder." Epictetus was a slave; but 
 thought is as levelling as love, and the future 
 emperor, happily for himself and for us, sat at 
 the feet of the slave and learned how to live a 
 free man, superior to all earthly conditions, moved 
 solely from within, his own master, daunted by 
 nothing, allured by nothing. 
 
 But it was in his predecessor in the empire, his 
 adopted father Antoninus, that his natural virtue 
 found its most valuable stimulus. Antoninus was 
 a man of pure and simple tastes ; able to enjoy 
 the pleasures of life, but equally able to do with- 
 out them ; not curious, as his nephew tells us, 
 about what he ate or wore, but showing that it 
 was 25ossible to live in a palace without show, 
 without guards, without display and pomp, simple 
 without affectation, never indulging in love of 
 novelty or in petty and mean thoughts — living 
 as a private person, and yet not shirking any of 
 the responsibilities and duties of empire nor for- 
 getting the magnificence that on public occasions 
 befits a ruler. And what seems to have impressed 
 Marcus more than anything else was that amidst 
 the constant pressure of affairs of state, his uncle 
 
356 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 was always self-possessed and always had leisure 
 — to use his own expression, he never " carried 
 anything to the sweating point," was never fussy 
 and excited, never harsh, violent, or implacable. 
 To be a reproduction of his uncle would have 
 seemed to him a great attainment, as may be 
 gathered from this little address he makes to his 
 own soul : " Take care that thou art not made 
 into a Caesar, that thou art not dyed with this 
 dye ; for such things happen. Keep thyself then 
 simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation, 
 a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, kind, 
 affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Strive 
 to continue to be such as philosophy wished to 
 make thee. Reverence the gods, and help men. 
 Short is life. There is only one fruit of this 
 terrene life, a pious disposition and social acts. 
 Do everything as a disciple of Antoninus " (vi. 30). 
 An emperor who continually reminded himself that 
 "even in a palace life may be lived well" (v. 16), 
 might be expected to exert a salutary influence 
 on the manners of his time : and yet such were 
 the excesses and enormities that formed the every- 
 day life of the Romans that the good Ruler could 
 but turn away in abhorrence, exclaiming, " Come 
 quick, Death, lest I too should become like 
 them" (ix. 13). 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 357 
 
 The result of this training was a reign which 
 went far to justify the saying of Plato, that those 
 states only would be truly happy which were 
 governed by philosophers. Here at last was a 
 ruler who scorned the dissolute pleasure-seeking 
 of a Nero or a Domitian, and, to use his own 
 words, " found nothing better in life than justice, 
 truth, temperance, fortitude"; who, instead of 
 gloomily secluding himself like a Tiberius in fear 
 and hatred of his subjects, would live as on a 
 mountain and desired " nothing needing walls 
 and curtains," but imitated the Pythagoreans in 
 taking the naked and shining heavenly bodies as 
 his models, and reminded himself that " there is 
 no veil over a star." The errors and weaknesses 
 which might have been expected to betray the 
 philosopher, when called to govern so wide an 
 empire, he instinctively avoided. Not only did 
 he head the imperial legions and commit himself 
 to all the hardships of the Danubian frontier with 
 the daring and endurance of the first Caesar, but 
 he clearly perceived the limitation of philosophy, 
 and how impossible it was to make men good by 
 compulsion, or to bring the actual state into the 
 condition of an ideal commonwealth. " How 
 idle," he says, "are all these poor people who 
 are playing the philosopher in politics. . . . Do 
 
358 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 not expect Plato's republic, but be content if the 
 smallest thing goes on well in your hands. For 
 who can change men's principles ? And without 
 a change of principles, if you change men's con- 
 duct, you have only the slavish service of men 
 who groan while they pretend to obey" (ix. 29). 
 Yet his own idea of government must have been 
 as Utopian as any. " I have received," he says, 
 " the idea of a polity in which there is the same 
 law for all, a polity administered with regard to 
 equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the 
 idea of a kingly government which respects most 
 of all the rights of the governed " (i. 1 4). 
 
 It is, however, not as Emperor of Rome, but 
 as author of the Meditations, that he has become 
 endeared to all thoughtful men. Not by his 
 prowess among the marshes of the Danube, not 
 by his stemming for a year or two the resistless 
 tide of northern barbarism, but by the jottings 
 he set down in his commonplace book, as he lay 
 solitary in his tent at night, has he become one 
 of the truest benefactors of mankind. Men of 
 various types have found true spiritual encourage- 
 ment in the little notebook, which bears no mark 
 of having been intended for publication, and 
 which has been so little cared for in style that 
 it is often unintelligible. Cardinal Barberini 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 359 
 
 translates it and dedicates his work to his soul 
 " to make it redder than his own purple at the 
 sight of this Gentile's virtues." Eichter, greatest 
 of German humorists, tells us "what swimming 
 belts and cork -waistcoats for the deepest floods 
 he possessed in the Meditations of Antoninus." 
 It is one of the great books of the world, a kind 
 of Stoic's Bible, full of reality and helpfulness. 
 Some books are for the shelves, others for the 
 table ; this is for constant companionship. There 
 is no beauty of style, but you miss that as little 
 as you miss it in your friend's eager talk : and 
 the thoughts penned 1700 years ago in the wastes 
 of Sarmatia are as little obsolete as water or sun- 
 shine. 
 
 For in this volume Marcus presents us not 
 with a speculative philosophy, but rather with 
 detached thoughts regarding conduct. There is 
 in the book no systematic discussion or prolonged 
 treatment of any subject ; but only such jottings 
 as a very busy but keenly observant and pro- 
 foundly reflective man could make. It is easy to 
 gather from these scraps the kind of character he 
 accepted as his ideal, and the principles by which 
 he considered human life should be regulated. 
 There are also many considerations urged which 
 should induce men to live well ; indeed the book 
 
360 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 is very much the definite enunciation of the con- 
 siderations he habituall)'' urged upon himself — it 
 is the reflex of his own spiritual attitude. No 
 one with this book in his hand could be much at 
 a loss regarding conduct or practical ethics : and 
 no one can use it without seeing the reasonable- 
 ness of virtue and being drawn into a more 
 stimulating sympathy with goodness ; but the 
 authority which ethics derive from forming an 
 organic part of a philosophical system is not 
 possessed by the ethics of Aurelius. Matthew 
 Arnold says that in his character, " beautiful as 
 it is, there is something melancholy, circum- 
 scribed, ineffectual." I would say this rather of 
 his book than of his character. It lacks root in 
 a defensible scheme of the universe. 
 
 The character he aimed at may readily be 
 gathered from almost any page of his book. For 
 example, "Let the God within thee be the 
 guardian of a living being ; masculine, adult, 
 political, and a Roman, and a Ruler ; who has 
 taken up his post in life as one that awaits with 
 readiness the signal that shall summon him away. 
 Labour not unwillingly, nor without regard to 
 the common interest, nor without due considera- 
 tion. . . . Such a man, who delays no longer to 
 strive to be among the best, is as a priest and 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 361 
 
 servant of the gods, obeying that God who is in 
 himself enshrined, who renders him unsoiled of 
 pleasure, unharmed by any pain, untouched by 
 insult, feeling no wrong, a wrestler in the noblest 
 struggle, which is, that by no passion he be over- 
 thrown ; dyed to the depth in justice, and with 
 his whole heart welcoming whatsoever cometh 
 to him and is ordained " (iii. 5 and 4). Again : 
 "Every moment think steadily as a Roman and 
 a man, to do what thou hast in hand with perfect 
 and simple dignity and feeling of affection, and 
 freedom and justice"; " When thou hast assumed 
 these names — good, modest, true, rational, equal- 
 minded, magnanimous — take care that thou dost 
 not change these names ; and, if thou shouldest 
 lose them, quickly return to them. If thou main- 
 tainest thyself in possession of these names with- 
 out desiring that others should call thee by them, 
 thou wilt be another being, and wilt enter on 
 another life. For to continue to be such as thou 
 hast hitherto been, and to be torn in pieces and 
 defiled in such a life is the character of a very 
 stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like 
 those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who 
 though covered with wounds and gore still beg to 
 be kept till the following day, though they will 
 be exposed in the same state to the claws and 
 
362 MARCUS AUKELIUS 
 
 bites. Therefore fix thyself in the j^ossession of 
 these few names : and if thou art able to abide 
 in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the 
 Happy Islands." 
 
 One of the most stimulating qualities in the 
 ethics of Aurelins is his insistance on the possi- 
 bility of virtue in all circumstances. "Thou 
 sayest, ' Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy 
 wits.' Be it so ; but there are many other things 
 of which thou canst not say, ' I am not by nature 
 formed for these things.' Show those qualities 
 then which are in thy power — sincerity, gravity, 
 endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, con- 
 tentment with thy portion and with few things, 
 benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, 
 freedom from trifling, magnanimity. Dost thou 
 not see how many qualities thou art at once able 
 to exhibit, as to which there is no excuse of 
 natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou 
 still remainest voluntarily below the mark ? Or 
 art thou compelled, through being defectively 
 furnished by nature, to murmur, and to be mean, 
 and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor 
 body, and to try to please men, and to make 
 great display, and to be so restless in thy mind ? 
 No indeed ; but thou mightest have been de- 
 livered from these things long ago." In a similar 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 363 
 
 strain : " Thou hast not leisure to read. But thou 
 hast leisure to check arrogance : thou hast leisure 
 to be superior to pleasure and pain : thou hast 
 leisure to be superior to love of fame, and not to 
 be vexed at stupid and ungrateful people " (viii. 8). 
 In difficult circumstances and temptations he saw 
 only additional material for virtue, as in wood 
 heaped on the flame the fire finds only fuel. He 
 apprehended that virtue lay not in circumstances, 
 but in one's self. " Look within. Within is the 
 fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if 
 thou wilt ever dig." Even the opposition of men 
 whom he tried to benefit was not to prevent him 
 from continuing to act benevolently and for their 
 good. " Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in 
 pieces, curse thee. What can these things do to 
 prevent thy soul from remaining pure, wise, sober, 
 just 1 For instance, if a man should stand by a 
 limpid pure spring and curse it, the spring does 
 not cease sending up good water ; and if he 
 should cast clay into it or filth, it will speedily 
 disperse them and wash them out, and will not 
 be at all polluted. How then shalt thou possess 
 a perpetual fountain ? By forming thyself humbly 
 to freedom conjoined with benevolence, simplicity, 
 and modesty" (viii. 51). 
 
 The firmness with which he held that good 
 
364 MAECUS AURELIUS 
 
 must be done for its o\vn sake becomes particu- 
 larly striking when he shows that virtue is its 
 own reward. " One man when he has done a 
 service to another is ready to set it down to his 
 account as a favour conferred. Another is not 
 ready to do this, but still in his own mind he 
 thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows 
 what he has done. A third in a manner does 
 not even know what he has done, but he is like 
 a vine which has produced grapes and seeks for 
 nothing more after it has once produced its proper 
 fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when 
 he has caught the game, a bee when it has made 
 its honey, so a man when he has done a good act 
 does not call out for others to come and see, but 
 he goes on to another act as a vine goes on to 
 produce again the grapes in season. Must a man 
 then be one of these who in a manner act thus 
 without observing it ? Yes." Again : *' What 
 more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a 
 service ? Art thou not content that thou hast done 
 something conformable to thy nature, and dost thou 
 seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye demanded 
 recompense for seeing or the feet for walking 1 " 
 
 No profounder words have been uttered by 
 pagan morality. They enounce two truths which 
 lie at the very basis of ethics and yet are rarely 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 365 
 
 apprehended : first, that a man cannot be called 
 good until he produces good actions as naturally, 
 uniformly, and perfectly as a tree produces fruit ; 
 and second, that the reward of virtue is to be 
 virtuous. He who has grasped these two truths 
 has got past the stumbling-stones that prevent so 
 many from advancing in the knowledge and prac- 
 tice of virtue. The first truth is equivalent to 
 the demand that it is the man that is to be good, 
 and not only his actions : and the most radical 
 scepticism cannot question the statement that a 
 chief, if not the chief, end of man is to be as good 
 a man as possible. There may be a question as 
 to what is the best kind of man ; but that men 
 should aim at being the best kind cannot be 
 questioned. All creation, as evolution shows us, 
 groans and travails after perfection ; and if men 
 are to be at all they should be the best possible. 
 This is one of the immovable data of all ethics 
 since Aristotle. Again, the reward of the pursuit 
 of virtue is the attainment of it. The reward of 
 the care of health is to be healthy j the reward of 
 courage and purity in boyhood is to be courageous 
 and pure in manhood. The one inalienable re- 
 ward of all virtue is to be virtuous, to have 
 attained man's chief end. 
 
 It is interesting to see how Marcus disposes of 
 
366 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 other incentives to virtue. What charm could 
 fame have for a man whose reflections so often 
 take a cast like this 1 " Consider the times of 
 Vespasian. You see people marrying, bringing 
 up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, traflS ek- 
 ing, cultivating the ground, flattering, plotting, 
 ^vishing some one to die, grumbling about the 
 present, loving, heaping up wealth, thirsting for 
 consulship and kingly power. Well then, that 
 life of those people no longer exists at all. Pass 
 to the times of Trajan ; all is the same. Their 
 life too is gone. . . . For all things soon pass 
 away and become a mere tale, and complete 
 oblivion soon buries them. . . . And what is 
 even an eternal fame ? A mere nothing. What 
 then is that for which we ought to employ our 
 serious pains ? This one thing, thoughts just and 
 acts social and words which never lie, and a dis- 
 position which gladly accepts all that happens." 
 
 Neither had the hope of actual and conscious 
 reward in a life to come any influence with him. 
 Indeed he again and again candidly owns he does 
 not know whether there is any future at all for 
 men. In the prospect of death he comforts him- 
 self, not with the hope of happiness beyond, but 
 by the certainty that "death is according to 
 nature, and nothing is evil which is according to 
 
MAECUS AUEELIUS 367 
 
 nature" (ii. 17). "Death," he says, "is such as 
 generation is, a mystery of nature ; a composition 
 out of the same elements and a decomposition 
 into the same ; and altogether not a thing of 
 which any man should be ashamed" (iv. 5). 
 " The universal nature, out of the universal sub- 
 stance as if it were wax, now moulds a horse, 
 and when it has broken this up, it uses the 
 material for a tree, then for a man, then for 
 something else : and each of these things subsists 
 for a very short time. But it is no hardship for 
 the vessel to be broken up, just as there was 
 none in its being fastened together" (vii. 23). 
 " Is any man afraid of change 1 Why, what can 
 take place without change 1 Canst thou take a 
 warm bath unless the firewood undergoes a 
 change ? Can anything that is useful be accom- 
 plished without change ? Dost thou not see then 
 that for thyself also to change is just the same 
 and equally necessary for the universal nature 1 " 
 (vii. 18). "Thou hast existed as part of a whole; 
 thou wilt be absorbed into that which gave thee 
 birth, or rather in virtue of a change of state, 
 thou wilt be taken back into its Generative 
 Principle." "Do not act as if you had thousands 
 of years to live. Death hangs over thee : while 
 thou livest, while thou mayest, be good" (iv. 17). 
 
368 MARCUS AUEELIUS 
 
 Even when his own instincts bid him hope, he 
 prepares his mind for the other alternative and 
 falls back, as always, on his fundamental belief 
 that all things are wisely ordered : " How can it 
 be that the gods, having ordered all things rightly 
 and with good-will towards men, have overlooked 
 this thing alone ; that some men, virtuous indeed, 
 who have as it were made many a covenant with 
 heaven, and through holy deeds and worship have 
 had closest communion with the divine, that 
 these men, when once they are dead, should not 
 live again, but be extinguished for ever ? Yet if 
 this be so, be sure that if it ought to have been 
 otherwise the gods would have done it. For 
 were it just, it would also be possible ; were it 
 according to nature, nature would have it so." 
 
 In these passages we touch again and again the 
 radical idea of his philosophy, that all things 
 form one whole which is wisely ordered, and that 
 each part finds its good in ministering to the 
 good of the whole. " Consider," he says, " that 
 for whatever purpose each thing has been con- 
 stituted, for that it has been constituted and 
 towards that it is carried, and its end is in that 
 towards which it is carried, and where the end is 
 there also is the advantage and the good of each 
 thing. Now the good for the reasonable man is 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 369 
 
 society." Again : " If thou didst ever see a hand 
 cut off, or a foot, or a head lying anywhere apart 
 from the rest of the body, such does a man make 
 himself as far as he can who is not content with 
 what happens and separates himself from others 
 or does anything selfish. If you have detached 
 yourself from the natural unity — for you were 
 made by nature a part, but now you have cut your- 
 self off — yet in j^our case there is this beautiful 
 provision, that it is in your power again to unite 
 yourself" (vii. 34). "The soul of man does 
 violence to itself, first of all when it becomes 
 an abscess or tumour on the universe. For to 
 be vexed at anything which happens is a 
 separation of ourselves from nature. ... In 
 the next place, the soul does violence to itself 
 when it turns away from any man, or even 
 moves towards him with the intention of injur- 
 ing him" (ii. 16). This belief of the unity of 
 things, of all being one whole, he allowed to 
 guide him to the grand qualities of goodwill 
 to men and perfect resignation. "Men exist," 
 he says, " for the sake of one another. Teach 
 them then, or bear with them." "It is a satis- 
 faction to a man to do the proper works of a 
 man. Now it is a proper work of a man to be 
 benevolent to his own kind." "It is peculiar 
 
 2 B 
 
370 MARCUS AUKELIUS 
 
 to man to love even those who do wrong. And 
 this actually is the case, if when they do wrong- 
 it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen." And 
 nothing could be more absolute than his resigna- 
 tion or contentment with everything which 
 happens: "All things are harmonious to me 
 which are harmonious to thee, Universe. 
 Nothing is for me too early or too late which 
 is in due time for thee. All is fruit to me 
 which thy seasons, Nature, bear. From thee 
 are all things and in thee all, and all return to 
 thee. The poet says, ' Dear city of Cecrops ' : 
 shall I not say ' Dear city of God M " 
 
 This then is his creed : Nature is wise and 
 beneficent: whether air things are governed by 
 providence or by atoms, that is, by personal 
 intelligence or by the natural and inevitable 
 properties of matter, he does not know, but he 
 is sure that all things are well and wisely 
 ordered. Take the place therefore nature assigns 
 you ; be the best you can, and do the best you 
 can, and go when called. If you ask him what 
 we are to make of the distresses of life, of disease, 
 of the loss of friends, of the disappointments and 
 failures that pursue us and make life seem dreary 
 and vain ; he will tell you that these things are 
 but the shavings in the carpenter's shop, the 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 371 
 
 necessary waste and refuse thrown off in the 
 production of the great end. The eye should not 
 too regretfully rest on these things, but should be 
 fixed on the great work positively accomplished 
 by the world. AVhat each man has to do is to 
 maintain himself in loving harmony with other 
 men and with the course of nature, and in all 
 matters to do his best for the furtherance of what 
 is good, not moaning over personal pain and loss, 
 and not distressing himself about a future he can- 
 not penetrate and matters regarding which he has 
 no certain information. 
 
 This scheme of thought and belief, of which 
 I have tried to give you an inkling, has been said 
 to be "a kind of common creed of wise men, 
 from which all other views may well seem mere 
 deflections on the side of an unwarranted credulity 
 or of an exaggerated despair. Here, it may not 
 unreasonably be urged, is the moral backbone of 
 all universal religions" (Myers, p. 204). Of the 
 manner in which a man should carry himself in 
 life a truer picture can scarcely be drawn. A 
 character is sketched which commends itself to 
 every educated conscience, and the broad lines of 
 duty are laid down with unmistakable clearness. 
 There is no introduction of any doubtful sanc- 
 tions ; no demand is made for a belief that 
 
372 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 cannot be yielded. Attention is fixed upon what is 
 certain, and morality is based on conscience alone. 
 That is to say, we find here the scheme of thought 
 which is so anxiously desiderated by many at the 
 present day — a scheme in which duty and human 
 life shall stand upon their own feet, and in 
 which Ave shall not first of all be asked to 
 believe in things unseen and supernatural. Is 
 not this scheme of the Emperor's sufficient, 
 and why should we puzzle ourselves anj^ 
 more about miracles and immortality and a 
 personal God ? 
 
 The question is answered as soon as put. The 
 craving for a scheme of life which shall be inde- 
 pendent of all that is beyond common knowledge 
 is stayed as we read these earnest yet saddening 
 pages. Every reader is infallibly drawn to 
 admire and love this soul that is boldly pioneer- 
 ing through the jungle and cutting a path for 
 others while forcing his own way through. But 
 as you watch him you feel on the point of crying 
 out to him that already the true path is found 
 and cleared. For through all his manly cheeri- 
 ness and courage you see the expression of settled 
 melancholy on his face. It is the admirable but 
 most pitiable courage of the captain that stands 
 to the last on the bridge giving his orders steadily 
 
MARCUS AUEELIUS 373 
 
 while he knows that the ship is going down 
 beneath his feet. You admire, and love, and learn 
 from him, as you admire the blind man who 
 rapidly threads his way through the crowd, but 
 you cannot but think how pitiful it is that when 
 light is there he should not enjoy it. 
 
 For, after all, his scheme of thought and belief 
 is the offspring of his individual character, and 
 lacks that basis in reason which would fit it for 
 propagation among men of all kinds. He him- 
 self had strength enough to live a manly and 
 unselfish life, in the faith that all things are wisely 
 ordered, and that he was set in this world to 
 do his best. But if any one asked him why he 
 believed and acted thus, he had no answer. 
 Nay, he himself clearly saw the pettiness and 
 paltriness of human life ; he found it, to use 
 his own strong expression, "mere dirt and dark- 
 ness" (v. 10), and wished himself out of it. 
 What then was the inducement to do one's best 
 for such a world ? Was it for the world's sake 1 
 Why labour for a race which is continually in 
 a state of flux, one generation of fools and 
 greedy cowards giving place to another genera- 
 tion of the same 1 Was it for his own sake 1 
 AVhat was the inducement — to sacrifice pleasure 
 to strive and sweat and toil to attain a character 
 
374 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 ever eluding the grasp, and even at the last only 
 shining before him as an unattained ideal 1 Hope 
 was entirely awanting in his scheme, and with- 
 out hope for the race and for the individual, 
 most men, though happily not all, will prefer 
 and will defend the Epicurean motto, " Let us 
 eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
 
 In fine, the element of belief which our modern 
 philosophers struggle to discard is that very 
 element the absence of which proved fatal to the 
 ethics of Marcus. His system stands, like his 
 own statue, beautiful, perfect, but cold and in- 
 effective as marble. And that which it lacked 
 to give it life was the belief that there is an 
 unseen spiritual world and a life beyond the 
 grave. Spasmodic efforts will always be made 
 to find the meaning and reason of human life 
 within itself ; but all such efforts fail. You 
 might as well seek the reason of the earth's 
 orbit and of all the changes that pass in the 
 earth's climate in itself and with no reference 
 to anything beyond. 
 
 It is idle to ask men to live for virtue's sake, 
 if at the same time you tell them they must die 
 before they attain it ; and it is idle to bid men 
 labour for the improvement of the race, if the 
 race is a mere flux of insignificant ephemera 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 375 
 
 like themselves. Summon men to strive after 
 virtue on the understanding that they have 
 eternity before them to attain and to enjoy it, 
 and they will feel the incentive. Tell them that 
 the race for which they labour lives eternally in 
 God, and they cannot set before them a surer or 
 more animating hope. Let them know that the 
 ills of life are the ills of school, not of home; that 
 these ills work for us lasting good in a life that is 
 to be; and in that there seems reason and en- 
 couragement. But if these beliefs be discarded, 
 then not only is life an insoluble mystery, but 
 even the morality which has grown out of these 
 beliefs loses its nourishment and becomes a blood- 
 less, passionless, and feeble ghost. We must 
 learn a higher thing than the Stoic's resignation, 
 the Christian hope: we must learn a more fervid 
 enthusiasm for humanity than a procession of 
 decaying generations can inspire ; we must feel 
 our feet firmer on existence than a mere content- 
 ment with an inscrutable law of nature can fix 
 them. We must learn to pass through the manly 
 helpfulness of the Stoic emperor to the height at 
 which the modern moralist says : 
 
 " We men, who in our morn of youth defied 
 The elements, must vanish — be it so ! 
 
376 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 Enough, if sometliing from our hands have power 
 To live and act and serve the future hour, 
 And if as toward the silent tomb we go, 
 Through love, through hope, and faith's trans- 
 cendent dower 
 We feel that we are greater than we know." 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
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