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 PAGANISM

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PAGANISM

lae, and with the Logos. Two principles emerge as governing Greek thought — God must have the first place, oi yap wdpepyov Su irouio-ffat rdv Si6v, — and yet the nearer we ap]5roach Him, the less can we express Him, ^tdf evpetp T^ epyov^ evpbvra 5^ iKcp^pav ii> iroWoh aduvaTov (Pythagoras, Plato). To how many answers tentatively given does Euripides's sad prayer witness: "O Thou that upholdest earth, and on earth hast Thy Throne, whoe'er Thou be, hard to guess, hard to know — Zeus, be Thou law of nature, or human thought of man, to Thee I pray: for Thou, moving in silent path, in justice guidest all things mortal." To the im- manent, supreme Force, consciously exacting service, or, at least, blindly imposing obedience, Greek phi- losophy almost inevitably came, and, in spite of itself and its sceptical and mechanical premises, amounted to a religion. In the mouth of Epictetus God is still sung triumphantly — "What can I do, I, a lame old man, save sing God's praises, and call on all men to join me in my song'?" — till the Stoic current died out in Aurelius, .stunned to acquiescence, no more enthu- siastically uniting himself to the great law of God in the world.

But into neo-Platonism, coloured with Persian, Jewish, and even Christian language, the movement passed; already, in the "Isis and O.siris" of Plutarch, a pure mysticism and sublimity of emotion barely to be siu'passed had been achieved; in the "Metamor- lihnses" of Apuleius the syncretistic cult of the Egyp- tian goddess expresses itself in terms of tenderness and majesty that would fit the highest worship, and, in the concluding prayer of the Apuleian Hermes, an ecstatic adoration of God is manifested in language and thought never equalled, still less surpassed, save in the inspired writers of the Church. But all these efforts of pagan religious philosophy, committed nearly always to a rigid Dualism, entangled accord- ingly in mechanical and magic practices, tricked out in false mj-thology, risking and losing psychical bal- ance by the use of a nihilist asceticism of sense and thought, died into the miserable systems of Gnosti- cism, Manichieism, and the later neo-Platonism; and the current of true hfe, renewed and redirected by Paul and John, passed into the writings of Augus- tine. [Consult Zeller, "Phil, der Griechen" (Leipzig, 1879), tr. (London, 1881); Idem, "Grundriss, etc." (4th ed., Leipzig, 1908), tr. (London, 1892) ; Gomperz, "Gr. Denken" (Leipzig, 1903), tr. (London, 1901); of. Flinders Petrie, "Personal Relig. in Egypt before Christianity" (New York, 1909), unsatisfactory; J. Adam, "Religious Teachers of Greece" (Edinburgh, 1908); Dill, op. cit.; Idem, "Roman Society in the last century of the Western Empire", especially val- uable as a picture of the tenacity of the dying pagan cult and thought; Spence, "Early Christianity and Pa- ganism" (London, 1904); L. Habert, "Doctr. Relig. d. Philosophes Grecs" (Paris, 1909); L. Campbell, "Rehgion in Greek Literature" (London, 1898); E. Caird, "Evolution of Theology in Greek Philoso- phies" (Glasgow, 1904), "Evolution of Religion" (Glasgow, 1907); H. Pinardin "Revue Apolog^tique" (1909); J. Lebreton, "Origines du Dogme de la ' Trinite", I (Paris, 1910), where the summits reached by Greek and Hellenized Jewish rehgious endeavour are appreciated. On the general question : de Broglie, "Problemcs ct Conclusions de I'hist. des Religions", Paris, 1889.)

VI. Relations between Paganism and Revela- tion. — Ethnology and the comparative history of jjagan religions do not impose upon us as an hypothe- sis that primitive Revelation which Faith ascertains to us. As a hypothesis it would, however, solve many a problem; it was the easier therefore for the Tradition- alist of a century ago to detect its traces everj'where, and for Bishop Huet (" Demonstr. evangelica", Paris, 1690, pp. 68, l.')3, etc.). following Aristobulus, Philo, Josephus, Justin, Tertullian, and many another dis-

ciple of the Alexandrians, to see in all pagan law and ritual an immense pillage of Jewish tradition, and, in all the gods, Moses. I'he opposite school has, in all ages, fallen into worse follies. Celsus saw in Judaism an "Egyptian heresy", and in Christianity a Jewish heresy, on an equality with the cults of Antinous, Tro- phonius etc. (C. Cels., Ill, xxi); Calvin (Instit., IV, x, 12) and Middleton (A letter from Rome, etc., 1729) saw an exact conformity between popery and pagan- ism. Dupuis and Creuze herald the modern race of comparative religionists, who deduce Christianity from pagan rites, or assign to both systems a common source in the human spirit. Far wiser in their genera- tion were those ancient Fathers, who, not always see- ing in pagan analogies the trickery of devils (Justin in P. G., VI, 364, 408, 660; Tertulhan in P. L., I, 519, 660; II, 66; Firmicus Maternus, ibid., XII, 1026, 1030), disentangle, with a true historic and religious sense, the reasons for which God permitted, or directed, the Chosen People to retain or adapt the rites of their pagan ancestry or environment, or at least, reproaching them with this, recognize the facts (Justin, loc. cit., VI, 517; Tertulhan, P. L., II, 333; Jerome, ibid., XXV, 194, XXIV, 733, XXII, 677, is striking; Eusebius, P. G., XXII, 521; especially Chrysostom, ibid., LVII, 66, and Gregory of Nazianzus, ibid., XXXVI, 161, who are remarkable. Cf. St. Thomas, I-II, Q. cii, a. 2). The relation of the Hebrew code and ritual to those of pagan systems need not be discussed here : the facts, and, a fortiori, the comparison and construction of the facts, are not yet satisfactorily determined: the ad- mirable work of the Dominican school (especially the " Religions semitiques" of M. J. Lagrange; cf. F. Prat, S.J., "Le Code de Sinai", Paris, 1904) is preparing the way for more adequate considerations than are at present possible.

Whether Paganism made straight a path for Chris- tianity may be considered from two points of view. Speaking from the standpoint of pure history, no one will deny that much in the antecedent or environing aspirations and ideals formed a prcFparatio evangelica of high value. "Christo jam tum venienti", sang Prudentius, "crede, parata via est". The pagan world "saw the road", Augustine could say, from its hilltop. "Et ipse Pileatus Christianus est", said the priest of Attis; while, of Heraclitus and the old philos- ophers, Justin avers that they were Christians before Christ. Indeed, in their panegyric of the Platonic philosophy, the earlier Apologists go far beyond any- thing we should wish to say, and indeed made difficul- ties for their successors. Attention is nowadays di- rected, not only to the ideas of the Divine nature, the logos-philosophies, popular at the Christian era, but e.specially to those oriental cults, which, flooding down upon the shrivelled, officialized, and dying wor.'^liip of the Roman or Hellenic-Roman world, fertilized within it whatever potentialities it yet contained of purity, prayer, emotional rehgion, other-worldliness generally. A whole new religious language was evolved, betoken- ing a new tendency, ideal, and attitude; here too Christianity did not disdain to use, to transcend, and to transform.

Theologically, moreover, we know that God from the very outset destined man to a supernatural union with Him.self. "Pure nature", historically, has never existed. The soul is naluralUer Chrisliann. The truest man is the Christian. Thus the "human spirit " we have so often mentioned, is no human spirit left to itself, but solicited by, yielding to a resisting grace. Better than Aristotle guessed, mankind exei xi 0eToi'. For Chritstu/s cogilabatur. 'Aei irow? ri ^Qov, said the same philosopher: and all creation groans and travails together until the full redemption; "all nations of men " were by God " made of one blood for to dwell on all the face of the earth . . . that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might grope after Him and find Him." They failed, alas, though they had the irl-