Page:Job and Solomon (1887).djvu/286

 book, which, as Prof. Kleinert observes, leaves no room for freedom of the will, and fuses the conceptions of [Greek: eimarmenê] and [Greek: pronoia] (see especially chap. iii.). But such Determinism need not have been learned in the school of Zeno. It is genuinely Semitic (did not Zeno come from the Semitic Citium?) What is the religion of Islam but a grandiose system of Determinism? Indeed, where is virtual Determinism more forcibly expressed than in the Old Testament itself (e.g., Isa. lxiii. 17)?

Those who adopt the view which I am controverting are apt to appeal to somewhat late philosophic authorities. I cannot here discuss the parallelisms which have been found in the Meditations or Self-communings ([Greek: Ta eis heauton]) of the great Stoic emperor. Some, for instance, consider the [Greek: rhyseis kai alloiôseis] which 'renew the world continually' (M. A. vi. 15) and the [Greek: periodikê palingenesia tôn holôn] (M. A. xi. 1) to be alluded to in Eccles. i. 5-9. More genuine are some at least of the other parallelisms, e.g. Eccles. i. 9, M. A. vi. 37, vii. 1, x. 27, xii. 26; Eccles. ii. 25, M. A. ii. 3 (ad init.); Eccles. iii. 11, M. A. iv. 23 (ad init.); Eccles. vi. 9, M. A. iv. 26; Eccles, xi. 5, M. A. x. 26. I admit that there is a certain vague affinity between the two thinkers; both are earnest, both despair of reforming society, both have left but a fragmentary record of their meditations. But the 'humanest of the Roman race' stands out, upon the whole, far above the less cultured and more severely tried Israelite. Alike in intellectual powers and in moral elevation the soul of the Roman is of a truly imperial order. He is not, like Koheleth, a 'malist' (see pp. 201-202); he boldly denies evil, and his strong faith in Providence cannot be disturbed by apparent irregularities in the order of things. It is true that this does but make the sadness of his golden and almost Christian book the more depressing. But the book is 'golden.' Koheleth and M. Aurelius alike call forth our pity and admiration, but in what different proportions!