Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/98

 62 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE monies of their forefathers. Of the late schools of Greek philosophy the Epicureans had attacked religion as an evil and had advised each man to search intelligently after his own happiness. The opposite school of the Stoics made some effort to save the old myths by warning men not to take these tales about the gods too literally; but they had somewhat the same ideal of "the self-centered sage" as the followers of Epicurus, and thought that the good and wise man should not be affected by evils about him. The Stoics, however, laid stress on something other than selfish happiness, and emphasized, as we have seen in an New ideals earuer chapter, the existence of one law of nature of the Stoic to which all men should conform. But this, too, p i osop ers wag contrar y ^ Q c i v i c religion and substituted for narrow patriotism the brotherhood of man and a world- religion. Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor from 161 to 180 a.d. as well as Stoic philosopher, turned his thoughts in his famous Meditations, not to some particular city such as Athens, called by the poet "dear city of Cecrops" after its legendary founder, but to the "dear city of Zeus"; that is, to the whole world about him. "All things harmonize with me which are in harmony with thee, O Universe," he wrote; "all things are fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Na- ture; from thee are all things, in thee are all things, unto thee are all things." This was a noble conception, but for the time being it meant the death of that city religion which was the basis of so much in classical civilization and the root in especial of Greek and Roman patriotism. It is true that the state was now an empire, not one city; but after all it had grown from one city and was now not Failure of much more than a collection of cities. Anyway, emperor- ±he worship of the emperor, though more uni- worship as, i , ••«■«•« a state versal than a local city cult, did not prove an adequate state religion. It exerted a marked influence in some respects, particularly upon Roman art; but in the long run it did not satisfy the religious inclina- tions of the inhabitants of the Empire any more than the old city worships now did.