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ESSAYS. 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 mSTOEY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 
 IN THE WEST 
 
 DY 
 
 BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT, D.D., D.O.L. 
 
 ! 
 LOBD BISHOP OF DURHAM. 
 
 HONOEARY FELLOW OF TRINITY AND KINq's COLLEGES, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 HonDon 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1903 
 [The Right of Tramlatlon is reserved.] 
 
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 t 
 
 «Of>vr 
 
 First Edition printed March 1891 
 
 Reprinted September 1891 
 
 1903 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 rriHE Essays which are collected in this small 
 -'- volume are in part fragments of a design which 
 I formed very early in life. It seemed to me that 
 a careful examination of the religious teaching of 
 representative prophetic masters of the West, if I 
 may use the phrase, would help towards a better 
 understanding of the power of the Christian Creed. 
 Their hopes and their desires, their errors and their 
 silences, were likely, I thought, to shew how far the 
 Gospel satisfies our natural aspirations and illuminates 
 dark places in our experience. The expectation, 
 unless I am mistaken, will be found to be justified 
 even by these isolated and imperfect sketches. If 
 the student will extend the same method of inquiry, 
 as I had hoped to do, to Homer, Heraclitus, Virgil, 
 Epictetus, Plotinus— to name the men from whom 
 I believe we may gain most — he will learn, as perhaps 
 he can learn in no other way, what the apostolic 
 message is as a revelation, a revelation not in thought 
 but in life. It may seem to be a paradox — it ought 
 to be a truism — that the ^neid is the Roman 
 Gospel. The poem gives the ideal of the national 
 religious hero ; and few things are more surprising in 
 the histories of the apostolic age than that Virgil 
 
 109218 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 finds no place in the popular estimate of the influences 
 at work in moulding or expressing current opinion. 
 
 To the Essays on Plato, JEschylus, Euripides, 
 Origen and Dionysius, originally published in the 
 Contemporary Review {19>QQ, 1867, 1878, 1883)fwhich 
 formed part of my original design, I have added four 
 others which illustrate the general thought which is 
 suggested by them. The Faith welcomes all truth, 
 while it supplements external lessons by its own 
 peculiar witness, and places partial and limited ex- 
 pressions of truth in their right relations to one an- 
 other and to the whole. Nothing lies outside the 
 influence of its transfiguring power. Splendid visions 
 burst upon us from unexpected quarters, and we find 
 that they are included in that view of God the world 
 and man which lies in the fact of the Incarnation. 
 
 It is now about tive-and-twenty years since the 
 first Essay was written. Certainly in the days which 
 have passed since no call to effort has grown fainter 
 and no prospect less bright. If it was possible then 
 to make our own the memorable phrase with wliich 
 Socrates closed his summons to a life of faith Kakov 
 TO aBXov KoX -q ikirU jxeydXr}, it has been brought home 
 to us in the interval once and again by those who 
 have proved to the last struggle of life that the 
 Word for which Plato longed, as a sure support, has 
 been given to us in Him Whom St John has made 
 known. 
 
 B. F. D. 
 
 Auckland Oastlb, 
 Jan. 27, 1891. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Myths of Plato . . . , 
 The Dramatist as Prophet: ^schylus 
 Euripides as a Religious Teacher . 
 
 DiONYSIUS THE ArEOPAGITE . 
 
 OrIGEN and THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN PhILO 
 SOPHY 
 
 On some points in Browning's view of Life 
 The Relation op Christianity to Art 
 Christianity as the Absolute Religion . 
 Benjamin Whichcote 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 51 
 
 96 
 
 142 
 
 194 
 253 
 277 
 342 
 362 
 
€v\6y(t>s 6 8iSacr/ca\o9 tj/jcSv eXeyev 
 rfNecGe TpAnezTTAi AdKiMoi 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 " They that say such things declare plainly that they seek 
 a country. " 
 
 Hebbews xi. 14. 
 
 Truth is related to Faith as Being is related to Becoming.' 
 
 Plato. 
 
 TT is an old saying that Plato combined the charac- 
 -*- teristics of Lycurgus and Pythagoras with those 
 of Socrates. The lawgiver, the mystic, and the dia- 
 lectician appear by turns in his writings; and accord- 
 ing as the eye of the student is turned towards one 
 of these several aspects, that for the time appears to 
 be predominant. But even this triple form fails to 
 include the whole range of his teaching. He was 
 also, as Quintilian says, the rival of Homer in the 
 grandeur of his style, and "inspired by the spirit of 
 the Delphic oracle." He was at times, both in ex- 
 pression and in thought, a prophet. 
 
 So much has been done lately to bring out the 
 dialectic and negative elements in the Platonic 
 dialogues that it may not be without use to call 
 attention to this positive and (so to speak) prophetic 
 
2 THE MYTHS OF PT,ATO. 
 
 side of his work, which is now in some danger of 
 being forgotten. Not only will the outline of his 
 philosophic character be thus made more complete, 
 but especially his view of the relations of philosophy 
 and theology will appear in a striking light. Per 
 Plato more than any other ancient philosopher 
 acknowledged alike the necessary limits of reason 
 and the imperious instincts of faith, and when he 
 could not absolutely reconcile both, at least gave to 
 both a full and free expression. And so Platonism 
 alone, and Platonism in virtue of this character, was 
 able to stand for a time face to face with Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 The myths of Plato, taken as a whole, ofifer the 
 most complete and attractive summary of this pro- 
 phetic positivism. For the present it is assumed 
 that they constitute a whole. The review of their 
 substance will, it is hoped, be a sufficient proof that 
 the assumption is correct. At the same time it will 
 shew that they are not, in essence, simply graceful 
 embellishments of an argument, but venturous essays 
 after truth, embodiments of definite instincts, sen- 
 sible representations of universal human thoughts, 
 confessions of weakness, it may be, but no less bold 
 claims to an inherent communion with a divine and 
 suprasensuous world. They are truly philosophic, 
 because they answer to innate wants of man : they 
 are truly poetic, because they are in thought creative. 
 
 Nothing indeed can be farther from Plato's view 
 of what his myths are than the sense in which the 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 3 
 
 word is now popularly understood. A myth in the 
 common acceptation of the term is something unreal : 
 but Plato claims that his myths are above all things 
 true in spirit. Whatever question there might be 
 about details of form, the central idea of the myth is 
 aflfirmed absolutely, and in some cases the whole 
 story is distinctly asserted to be historicaP. He dis- 
 claims, in fact, the title myth in a disparaging sense 
 for the stories to which we now apply it. They 
 are, he says, real narratives (A-oyot) and not myths ^, 
 and where he does use the word, he still maintains 
 the existence of a substantial basis of fact for such 
 myths as admit of an historical test^ and attaches a 
 supreme moral value to their spiritual teaching''. 
 
 But though the word myth is commonly misap- 
 plied, it is far too valuable in its technical sense to 
 be abandoned to vague use. It is indeed most ser- 
 viceable, as expressing what the Platonic myths are. 
 A myth in its true techiucal sense is the instinctive *■ 
 popular representation of an idea. "A myth," it has 
 been said, ''springs up in the soul as a germ in the 
 soil : meaning and form are one : the history is the 
 truth." Thus a myth, properly so called, has points ^ 
 of contact with a symbol, an allegory, and a legend, 
 and is distinguished from each. Like the symbol, it 
 
 1 See Timseus, 20 d; 21 a, d; 26 c. And so Critias invokes 
 Memory to help him in relating the whole story, p. 108 d. 
 '^ Gorgias, 523 a. Compare pp. 627 a ; 526 d. Meno, 81 d, e. 
 
 3 Politicus, 268 K ; 269 a, b. 
 
 4 Po Kepublica, x. 621 b, c. 
 
 1—2 
 
4 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 is the embodiment and representation of a thought. 
 But the symbol is isolated, definite, and absolute. 
 The symbol, and the truth which it figures, are con- 
 templated apart. The one suggests the other. The 
 myth on the other hand is continuous, historical, and 
 relative. The truth is seen in the myth, and not 
 separated from it. The representation is the actual 
 apprehension of the reality. The myth and the 
 allegory, again, have both a secondary sense. Both 
 half hide and half reveal the truth which they clothe. 
 But in the allegory the thought is grasped first 
 and by itself, and is then arranged in a particular 
 dress. In the myth, thought and form come into 
 being together : the thought is the vital principle 
 which shapes the form ; the form is the sensible image 
 which displays the thought. The allegory is the 
 conscious work of an individual fashioning the image 
 of a truth which he has seized. The myth is the 
 unconscious growth of a common mind, which wit- 
 nesses to the fundamental laws by which its develop- 
 ment is ruled. The meaning of an allegory is prior 
 to the construction of the story: the meaning of a 
 myth is first capable of being separated from the 
 expression in an age long after that in which it had 
 its origin. The myth and the legend have more in 
 common. Both spring up naturally. Both are the 
 unconscious embodiments of popular feeling. Both 
 are, as it seems, necessary accompaniments of primi- 
 tive forms of society. The legend stands in the same 
 relation to history and life as the myth to speculation 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. D 
 
 and thought. The legend deals with a fact as out- 
 ward, concrete, objective. The myth deals with an 
 idea or the observation of a fact as inward, ab- 
 stract, subjective. The tendency of the legend is to 
 go ever farther from the simple circumstances from 
 which it took its rise. The tendency of the myth is to 
 express more and more clearly the idea which it fore- 
 shews. Yet in many cases it seems almost impossible 
 to draw a distinct line between the myth and the 
 legend. The stories of St Christopher, of St Bona- 
 ventura and his speaking Crucifix, of Whittington 
 and his Cat, and generally those which may be called 
 interpretative myths, will be called myths or legends 
 according as the thought or the fact in them is sup- 
 posed to predominate. 
 
 The Platonic myths \ while they are varied in 
 character, and present points of similarity with the 
 legend and the allegory, yet truly claim for the most 
 part to be regarded as essentially genuine myths. If 
 they are individual and not popular, they are still 
 the individual expression of a universal instinct. 
 Plato speaks not as Plato but as man. If at times 
 they are conscious, yet more frequently they are 
 taken from earlier and traditional sources. And in 
 that which is especially characteristic of the myth, 
 the relation between the lesson and the form, the 
 
 ' I regret that I have been unable to see Deuschle's esaay, 
 "Ueber die Platonischen Mythen," which, from Zeller's brief 
 references ("Die Philosophie der Griechen," ii. 363 anm.) 
 appears to be full of interest. 
 
6 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 idea is not prior to and distinct from the representa- 
 tion but coincident with it. The Platonic myth is, in 
 short, a possible material representation of a specula- 
 tive doctrine, which is affirmed by instinct, but not 
 capable of being established by a scientific process. 
 
 ' The myth is itself the doctrine so far as it is at 
 present capable of apprehension by men. 
 
 There are, however, some Platonic stories com- 
 
 , monly included among the myths, of which this 
 description will not hold true. Though Plato stands 
 alone in the adoption of the myth as the natural 
 expression of a common human instinct, others before 
 
 . him had made use of allegory as a graceful and agree- 
 able vehicle of popular instruction. Every one will 
 recall the exquisite story of the choice of Hercules, in 
 
 ' which Prodicus painted for all ages the rival charms 
 of Virtue and Pleasure, as they meet man when he 
 enters on the journey of life ; and the myth in the 
 
 I "Protagoras" indicates that this form of illustration 
 
 ^ was also employed by the Sophists in the discussion 
 of political subjects. It was natural, then, that in 
 this as in many other points of form, Plato should 
 avail himself of the example of his predecessors. We 
 may even say, without exaggeration, that the labours 
 of the Sophists made a Socrates and therefore a Plato 
 possible; and it is probably more than a mere fancy 
 which traces the artificial elegance of the Sophistic 
 style in the earlier Platonic dialogues. One example 
 
 ' of allegory modelled on this earlier type — the Birth 
 of Love — will serve as an instructive contrast, in 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. I 
 
 spirit and conception and application, to the genuine 
 myths wliich follow. Fruitful and expressive as we 
 feel the story to be, yet it is evident that the whole 
 conception precedes the imagery in which it is clothed, 
 and transcends it, and gains nothing from it but a 
 momentary distinctness. 
 
 The narrative is given by the "sage Diotima" in 
 answer to Socrates, who had spoken of Love as a 
 glorious god. She said', — 
 
 *' He is no god, Socrates, but a spirit (Aai/xcoi/), a great 
 spirit, one of those beings who occupy a middle place 
 between gods and men ; for God himself can hold no inter- 
 course with man, and all the fellowship which exists between 
 heaven and earth is realized through this intermediate 
 order, which bridges over the chasm between them. These 
 spirits, then, are many and manifold, and Love is one of 
 them. It is a long tale to give the history of his parentage, 
 but I will tell it you. At the birth of Aphrodite the gods 
 held a feast, and among them was Resource, the son of 
 Counsel. So after the banquet began. Poverty, knowing of 
 the good cheer, came there to beg, and lingered about the 
 doors. As the day crept on, Resource, having drunk freely 
 of the nectar — for wine, the drink of men, was not yet dis- 
 covered — went into the garden of Zeus and sank over- 
 powered to sleep. Poverty, when she saw it, thinking on 
 her own resourcelessness, sought his company, and accord- 
 ing to her desire, bore him, in due time, a son, who was 
 called Love. And so it is that Love is the attendant and 
 
 1 Symposium, 203 a, et seq. It must be remarked, once for 
 all, that the renderings of the myths are not close translations. 
 Condensation and paraphrase have been freely used when either 
 seemed desirable for the sake of space or clearness. 
 
8 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 squire of Aphrodite, bccau.se it Wiis on her birthday that 
 Poverty first met Kesource, and he is also naturally an en- 
 thusiast for the beautiful. Love, then, as being the child 
 of Poverty and Resource, has a strange fate. He is always 
 poor; and so far from being delicate and fair, as most 
 people suppose, is rough and squalid, unsandaled and 
 homeless, sleeping upon the bare earth beneath the open 
 sky, and, according to his mother's nature, is always mated 
 with want. But on the other hand, as he takes after his 
 father, he aims at the beautiful and the good, and is brave, 
 vigorous, and energetic, clever in the pursuit of his object, 
 skilful in invention, passionately fond of knowledge, and 
 fertile in resource, unceasingly devoted to the search after 
 wisdom, and withal an inveterate trickster, charlatan, and 
 sophist. Moreover, his being is neither truly immortal nor 
 mortal ; but in a single day he enjoys the full vigour of 
 life, and dies, and is raised to life again through the essence 
 of his father's nature. The resources which he gathers 
 melt away, and so he is neither resourceless nor wealthy. 
 He stands midway between wisdom and ignorance. He is 
 not like the gods, who do not seek wisdom because they 
 are wise. He is not like the ignorant, who do not seek 
 wisdom because they are ignorant. Love desires wisdom, 
 which is the noblest beauty, and strives to gain it, because 
 he knows what it is and that he needs it. This is the pre- 
 rogative of his birth." 
 
 Somewhat similar in nature is the story told by 
 Aristophanes of the origin of passion and the original 
 complete form of man, if it be not rather a dim re- 
 flection of an Eastern belief; and the myth in the 
 "Protagoras" has many allegoric traits, though in its 
 
 1 Symposium, 189 d, et seq. 
 
OF 
 
 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 9 
 
 present form it contains so much that is a prophetic 
 interpretation of the laws of life that it may be rightly 
 considered as a true myth. 
 
 But there is yet another story, which Plato him- 
 self calls a myth — a fable-— a mere poetic fiction, — 
 which claims notice as answering to the interpreta- 
 tive myths of popular tradition. It is a deliberate 
 endeavour to invent a semi-historical explanation of 
 difficulties which may practically remove them; and 
 the apology which is made for the pious fraud shews 
 with what earnestness of faith Plato must have held 
 to the truth of his genuine myths, for which he sets 
 up the claim of substantial reality. Socrates has 
 sketched the principles on which the education of the 
 different classes in his ideal commonwealth must be 
 conducted. It remains to find a bond of unity 
 between men whom he has thus widely separated in 
 work and dignity. With doubt and hesitation', and a 
 great show of unwillingness, he proposes his schemed 
 "We must have recourse," he says, "to a splendid 
 falsehood to win the State to our views. It has the 
 authority of poets in its favour, though now there 
 will be need of great power to convince men of its 
 truth." And then, in answer to the encouragement 
 of his friends, he continues, — 
 
 " I tell you my plan ; and yet I know not how I shall 
 arm myself for the task, or what words I shall use in ex- 
 
 1 Compare De Eepublica, ii. 377 b; 382 c, d. 
 ^ Ihid. iii. 414 D, et seq. 
 
10 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 plaining it. I shall, then, endeavour to persuade our rulers 
 and warriors, and afterwards our whole State, that in real 
 fact the training and education which we gave them was a 
 mere dream, that all they suffered and all that was done to 
 them was mere fancy, while they were in fact at that very 
 time being moulded and trained beneath the earth, where 
 also all their equipment and their arms were fabricated, 
 and that, when they were perfectly fashioned, then the 
 earth, their mother, sent them to the light above, and that 
 they must now take thought for the country in which they 
 are, and defend it against every foe, as believing that it is 
 ^ their mother and nurse, . and also regard all their fellow- 
 citizens as brethren, being, like themselves, children of the 
 earth. Tor all ye who are in the State,' we will say to 
 them, following out our fiction, 'are brethren; but God, 
 when He moulded you, at the time of your birth, mixed 
 gold in the substance of all of you who were fit to rule, and 
 therefore they are the most honoured. He infused silver 
 in the military caste, iron and bronze in the husbandmen 
 and craftsmen generally. The offspring of these several 
 classes will, as a general rule, preserve the character of 
 their parents. But if the signs of gold or silver appear in 
 the children of the bronze or iron castes, they must then 
 be raised to their due i)lace. And if bronze or iron appear 
 where we look for gold, that too must be reduced to its 
 proper rank.'" 
 
 He concludes, — 
 
 "We shall not persuade the first generation that this is 
 so, but it may be that in time their descendants will believe 
 our tale. And the belief would contribute greatly to their 
 devotion to the good of the State and to the good of one 
 another." 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 11 
 
 Elsewhere, as we shall see, Plato has a deeper 
 theory of the origin of the external differences be- 
 tween men. Here those points which are the true 
 mythical elements of the story, — the common origin 
 of mankind, the divinely appointed diversities of 
 human capacity, the general laws of the propagation 
 of character — are very slightly dwelt upon from their 
 spiritual side : or rather they are contemplated as 
 facts first, already assumed in the constitution of the 
 State, and simply combined in one striking picture. 
 Another difference between this story and the legiti- 
 mate myth will appear in the course of the exposition. 
 The latter, as it will be seen, belongs properly to 
 views of the Universe or of the Individual. The 
 instinctive power of which it is the expression strives 
 necessarily towards unity — the unity of the single 
 being, or the unity of the sum of being. The Mani- 
 fold is a stage of preparation or transition, and not a 
 limit of repose. 
 
 Thus there are two great problems with which the 
 Platonic myths deal, the origin and destiny of the 
 Cosmos, and the origin and destiny of man. Both^***^"^ 
 problems obviously transcend all experience and all '^, 
 logical processes of reason. But no less both are '^^* 
 ever present to the student of life, though he may ^^''*' 
 neglect them in the investigation of details, or delibe- 
 rately set them aside as hopelessly insoluble. Plato 
 can acquiesce in neither course, and therefore he fol- 
 lows his poetic instinct in interpreting and combining 
 the phenomena which force themselves upon his notice 
 
12 THE MYTHS OB' PT,ATO. 
 
 and the notice of all men. He sees more clearly, 
 but with the same power of vision as others : he 
 speaks more articulately, but with the same voice. 
 He looks upon the world as others look upon it; 
 but the truth which is for them a blurred and dim 
 picture is borne in upon his soul in grand and solemn 
 scenes : and each scene is transcribed in a m^'th. 
 
 II. 
 
 It is difTicult not to begin an examination of the 
 myths with the well-known portraiture which Plato 
 lias drawn of the fortunes of a human soul. But his 
 views will be more truly apprehended in their whole 
 bearing if we begin with the most general aspect of 
 the Cosmos, and pass from that to the Individual. 
 The Individual, according to him, exists only as a 
 part of the Cosmos; it is by reference to that alone 
 that he is seen in his full and just proportions. 
 
 Here we are met by three questions which can 
 never grow old, and never be so answered as to leave 
 nothing for future ages to ponder over in anxious and 
 mysterious doubt. What was the origin of the Cos- 
 mos, and the relation of man to it ? What are the 
 general laws by which the course of the Cosmos is 
 regulated? What are the special laws which affect 
 that part of it with which man is most closely con- 
 nected? Plato answers each question by a myth, 
 ^ and, as it seems, his words have yet a meaning which 
 we have riot outlived. His meaniu^i: has been often 
 
THE MYTFS OF PLATO. 13 
 
 obscured by the ingenuity of later Sophists, who 
 sought to extract by the understanding what must be 
 felt by the heart ; but it is none the less still intelli- 
 gible to the same common instinct of humanity of 
 which it is the utterance. 
 
 The origin of the Cosmos came about in this 
 way',— 
 
 " All existences are divisible into two classes. Of these, 
 the one consists of that which is always, and has no source, 
 and is comprehensible only by_reaspn ; the other, of that 
 which is always becoming but never really zs, and is cog- 
 nizable by sensation, and must necessarily be dependent 
 on some,_cause. To this latter class the Cosmos belongs, 
 for it is perceptible by the senses of vision and touch, and 
 it therefore must have had a Maker and Father^, whom it 
 is a hard matter to discover, and when one has discovered 
 Him it is impossible to declare Him to all. He=«, however, 
 was good, and a good Being is incapable of envy in any 
 case ; and therefore He wished everything to become as far 
 as possible similar to Himself And this wish was the 
 cause of the origin of the Cosmos. For when God found 
 the sum of visible existences in discordant and disorderly 
 movement, He brought the chaos from disorder to order 
 And as His work was made after an eternal and supra- 
 sensuous pattern* it was perfect of its kind, essentially one 
 and only-begotten (fiovoy€pqs)% including in itself every 
 absolute form of life, and at the same time endowed with a 
 rational and vital soul. And when the Father who gave 
 it birth saw it possessed of motion and life He rejoiced r.nd 
 
 1 Timaeus, 27 d. 2 j5j^_ 28 c. 
 
 & Ihid. din-, 308. 
 
14 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 was glad^, and to make the visible Cosmos more like to the 
 invisible and intelligible pattern, He called into being Time, 
 as a moving image of Eternity, and the bright Gods of 
 heaven, and to them He gave the charge of peopling the 
 world with the other orders of animal life'^. ' Gods of 
 Gods,' he said, ' Lords of the works (the stars) of which I 
 am Framer and Father, which as they have come into 
 being through Me are indissoluble if so I will. Everything 
 which is compound is dissoluble, yet an evil being only 
 I would wish to dissolve that which is fairly fitted together 
 I and fulfils its functions well. You therefore, since you 
 have come into being, are not absolutely immortal or indis- 
 soluble, but yet you will not be dissolved or sufier death, 
 for my will is a greater and surer bond of your natures 
 than those bonds by which you were first compacted. 
 Hear then my will. Three classes of mortal creatures are 
 still unformed. Till these are formed the Cosmos will be 
 incomplete. If I make them, they will be like Gods. Do 
 you therefore, as far as in you lies, imitate my action. 
 The immortal element, as far as such creatures may receive 
 it, I will supply. For the rest, do you form them by adding 
 a mortal element to an immortal, and bring them to their 
 full maturity, and when they die again receive them to 
 yourselves.' When He had thus spoken. He poured into 
 the bowl in which He mixed the soul of the universe, what 
 was left of the elements which He used before ; but they 
 were not now pure as at first. From this compound He 
 formed souls equal in number to the stars, to which Hg 
 attached each one severally, and shewed them the laws of 
 their future destiny. At their first embodiment each, He 
 said^, would be born a man, the most pious of creatures, 
 
 1 Timocus, 37 c. 2 jj,-^^ 41 ^^ 
 
 8 Ibid. 41 D. 
 
THE MYTHS OF PJ.ATO. 15 
 
 and ill life would have to master the temptations of sense 
 and passion. If he succeeded in doing this for the ap- 
 pointed terra he would pass to a home in his kindred star, 
 and live a congenial and happy life. If he failed of this, at 
 his second birth he would be born a woman. If in this 
 life also he lived badly, then he would in his next embodi- 
 ment assume some animal shape answering to his character, 
 and gain no respite from suffering till at length his reason 
 should be brought into harmony with the eternal reason, 
 and overcome the manifold accretions by which its action 
 was hindered. Thereupon the Supreme Father reposed in 
 His eternal rest, and His children fashioned the body of 
 man, imitating, as best they could, the laws which their 
 Father had followed in shaping the Cosmos. And to 
 supply the necessary waste of man's frame, they composed 
 another order of creatures — plants and trees i. And thus 
 the Cosmos was fully furnished, for beasts, and birds, and 
 reptiles, and aquatic animals, were produced by the trans- 
 formations of men 2." 
 
 Even in this brief summary some details are intro- 
 duced which are rather logical than mythical, and in 
 the "Timseus" itself the mythical basis is overlaid 
 with elaborate speculations which are wholly foreign 
 to the spirit of a myth. But the gTand outlines of 
 the conception, the origin of the Cosmos from the 
 infinite goodness of a heavenly Father, its inherent 
 unity and common life, the complexity of man's 
 nature, his divine soul implanted in him by God Him- 
 self, his possible affinity with lower beings, form a 
 noble answer to importunate questionings of the 
 
 1 Timaeus, 77 a. 2 jj^^, gip^ 
 
16 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 heart. The answer goes beyond and yet falls short 
 of the diviner lessons in which we rest, but it is no 
 less a precious witness to what man seeks to know 
 and what he craves to believe. 
 
 So the Cosmos came into being and was peopled. 
 And from the date of its origin it has been subject to 
 laws of cyclic change* : — 
 
 " Faint traces of the crises through which it has passed 
 are preserved in popular traditions, as when we read of the 
 age of Kronos, and that the course of the sun was reversed 
 in the days of Atreus, and that men were once born from 
 the earth. But these ancient legends are scanty and iso- 
 lated memorials of a great and marvellous truth, which is 
 this. The coiu-se of the universe is not always the same. 
 At one time God Himself assists in directing it in its revo- 
 lution, and again, when the measure of the time is full, 
 lie leaves it to itself ; whereupon, by its spontiineous power, 
 it revolves in the opposite direction, since it was endowed 
 with life and reason by its first Framer. The necessity 
 for this change happens thus : — To remain absolutely un- 
 disturbed and unchanged is the prerogative only of the 
 divinest existences ; and glorious as are the attributes of 
 the Cosmos, still it has a body. It must therefore be 
 liable to change ; but this change is the least which could 
 be, as it revolves about one axis with the least possible 
 deviation. But again, it cannot always move itself, for 
 that belongs to One only ; nor can a god (nor yet two gods) 
 move it in two contrary ways — as tradition shews it does 
 move. We are forced, then, to suppose that at one time it 
 is guided by a Divine power, during which period it ac- 
 quires fresh stores of life, and then again that it is left to 
 
 1 PoUticus, 2G8e, ct sc<i. 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 17 
 
 its own action under such conditions thcat it revolves back- 
 wards for many myriads of revolutions, because its weight 
 is balanced most nicely upon the delicate point on which it 
 revolves. The crises of transition are the greatest through 
 which the Cosmos can pass, and few living beings survive 
 them^. Those who do, suffer a marvellous change. The 
 progress from youth to age is checked, and life flows back- 
 ward ; grey hairs grow black, the bearded chin grows 
 smooth, the boy passes into the infant, the infant fades 
 away and vanishes, and then the order begins afresh, for 
 the dead rise up again from the earth in full maturity to 
 trace a backward life, — all at least whom God has not 
 transferred to another fate. At such a period Kronos is 
 said to reign over men, who find, without care, or pain, or 
 social efibrt, all they need ; and under him are other spirits, 
 who provide for all the wants of lower animals. Thus the 
 opportunities of men at these times are boundless 2. They 
 have leisure and capacity for intercourse with every crea- 
 ture. But they may miss their highest blessings, and fall 
 short even of our fortune, amidst the rich luxuriance of 
 their material happiness. However this may be, the ap- 
 pointed end comes. The Pilot of the universe lets go, so 
 to speak, the tiller of his vessel, and retires to his watch- 
 tower ; and with him follow the gods who had shared his 
 dominion. Fate and inborn Desire succeed to his place, 
 and, with an awful crash and ruin, the Cosmos revolves in 
 the opposite direction. By degrees order is restored, as it 
 recalls the lessons of its Framer and Father ; but these 
 lessons are again forgotten, and when all is on the verge of 
 destruction, God sees the distress of the universe, and, 
 placing Himself at the rudder, restores it to order and 
 endues it with a fresh immortality. But if we fix our at- 
 
 1 Politicus, 270 c, et seq. 2 jiji^^ 272 c, et seq. 
 
 W. E. 2 
 
18 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 tention on the course of the world when left, as at present, 
 to direct, with absolute power, its own course, we shall see 
 results in all respects the exact converse of those in the 
 reign of Cosmos. When the change from its former motion 
 first took place, the downward progress of life was at once 
 checked in those who survived the crisis. The infant, then 
 ready to vanish, grew towards maturity. The greybeard, 
 who had just risen from the ground, sank again into the 
 grave. Men were born of men, and not from a common 
 mother, Earth. All creatures, alike deprived of special 
 Divine rule, gave full play to their natural instincts. Then 
 was a time of dire distress and peril, till, with the needful 
 training, men received from the gods the gifts of fire and 
 arts and seeds, by the help of which they fashioned their 
 lives, following in their independent action the condition of 
 the whole Cosmos." 
 
 This remarkable myth, which finds no parallel to 
 its central conception in the Platonic writings, ap- 
 pears to derive its form simply from the popular 
 traditions of "earth-born" races, and changes in the 
 courses of the heavenly bodies \ So far it is simply 
 an interpretative myth. But its proper mythical 
 meaning lies deeper. In this respect it is an attempt 
 to work out the moral consequences of a paradisiacal 
 life as contrasted with our present life. A universal 
 instinct has led men to imagine a golden age of peace 
 and wealth and happiness, before the stern age of 
 struggle and freedom in which they now Hve. Plato 
 draws out the picture at length. We might be 
 
 1 The well-known passage in Herod. 11. 142, is a remarkable 
 example of these strange traditions. 
 
p 
 
 .THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 19 
 
 tempted to think that he has a vision of Eden before 
 him when he describes the intercourse of man and 
 animals, the maturity of each new-formed being, the 
 rural ease of a life which is a gradual disrobing of the 
 spirit from its earthly dress. But even so he shews 
 that the perfect order of a Divine government, and 
 boundless plenty, may leave man's highest nature 
 undisciplined. It may be that when God has left the 
 world to the action of a free will, not as forgetting or 
 neglecting, but only ceasing to control it, man, by 
 remembering the precepts of the Great Father which 
 he bears within him, and battling with opposing 
 powers, may yet live a noble and a godlike life, even 
 if year by year he gathers round him the material 
 chains of earth. His highest strength lies in the 
 right exercise of the freedom of his will, and not in 
 the circumstances of his condition. 
 
 In another dialogue, Plato has traced out some- 
 what more fully the progress of our present human 
 society, which is very rapidly sketched in the "Poli- 
 ticus." The myth is attributed to Protagoras, and 
 there is very much in the elaborate elegance of its 
 form which seems to have been derived from him* : — 
 
 " There was a time when the gods only existed ; but 
 when the appointed time came that mortal creatures 
 should come into being, the gods moulded them within 
 the earth, compounding them of earth and fire, and when 
 they were about to bring them to the light, they bade 
 Forethought (Prometheus) and Afterthought (Epimetheus) 
 
 I 
 
 ^ Protagoras, 320 c, et seq. 
 
 2—2 
 
20 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 array them severally with suitable powers. Afterthought 
 begged Forethought to allow him to make the distribution 
 alone: 'When I have made it,' he said, 'do you come to 
 see.' And so his wish was granted; and he proceeded 
 with his task, providing for the safety, the comfort, and 
 the support of the dift'erent tribes. Some he protected by 
 size, others by speed, others by weapons of ofience. One 
 kind he clothed in fur, another he covered with thick 
 hides. And he appointed to each their proper food. But 
 when his store of endowments was exhausted, he foimd to 
 his dismay that man was left unarrayed, naked and un- 
 armed, and the fated day was already close at hand on 
 which man must enter on the upper world. Forethought, 
 when he saw the fatal error, found but one way to remedy 
 it. He stole the craftsman's skill of Hephaestus and 
 Athene, and fire with it — without which art is valueless, — 
 and gave this to man. Thus man was furnished with all 
 he needed for his separate life ; but he had not yet the 
 wisdom by which society is formed. This wisdom was 
 kept in the citadel of Zeus, and into that awful sanctuary 
 Forethought could not enter. As time went on, the power 
 and weakness of man were seen^ He established ordi- 
 nances of worship ; he defined language ; he invented 
 clothing, and procured food for himself. But he lived in 
 isolation, and he was imfit for social union. Thus, if men 
 were scattered, they were in danger of perishing from wild 
 beasts. If they tried to combine, they were scattered 
 again by mutual violence. Thereupon Zeus, fearing for 
 the safety of our race, sent Hermes with self-respect (aldds) 
 and justice, that their presence among men might establish 
 order and knit together the bonds of friendship in society. 
 'Must I distribute them,' said Hermes, 'as the various 
 
 1 Protagoras, p. 322 a. 
 
r 
 
 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 21 
 
 arts have been distributed aforetime, only to certain indi- 
 viduals, or must I dispense them to alU' *To all,' said 
 Zeus; 'and let all partake of them. For states could not 
 be formed if they, like the arts, were confined to a few. 
 Nay more, if any one is incapable of self-respect and justice, 
 let him be put to death, such is my will, as a plague to the 
 state.'" 
 
 So it is, according to the myth, that states are 
 framed. The essential bond by which they are held 
 together is that which is common to all, while their 
 efficiency depends upon the diversity of gifts with 
 which their members are endowed. But the contem- 
 plation of any special state blinds us to the enormous 
 scale on which the life of man is exhibited in the 
 world. And so it was that the priest of Sais said to 
 Solon\— 
 
 "You Greeks are always children. I never saw an 
 aged Greek. You are young in soul — lost in the contem- 
 plation of your little fragments of history, over which your 
 own records reach : you cherish no ancient belief, borne 
 down by primeval tradition : you preserve no lesson gray 
 with the growth of time. Your fable of Phaethon— for at 
 first sight it seems a fable — is but a dim recollection of one 
 of the periodic catastrophes by fire to which the earth is 
 subject. Your history of Deucalion is but the story of one 
 cataclysm out of many by which nations have been and 
 wiU be submerged. Thus it happens that the memory of 
 the untold ages of the past is lost, through these crises of 
 secular ruin by fire and water, which few survive, unless, 
 
 I 
 
 * TimaBus, 22 b. 
 
22 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 
 
 as with us in Egypt, the character of the country averts 
 from some favoured spot the general desolation." 
 
 With this prelude Plato opens his discussion on 
 the Universe, on which we have already touched. It 
 is as if he wished to extend his view as widely in 
 time as in space. The outline is bold and clear, and 
 there is something strangely grand in this conception 
 of seons of human life, bounded by the result of the 
 accumulated action of natural causes, whose tendency 
 we can trace even in the little period of our own 
 existence. Moreover, just at present the theory is of 
 universal interest, because recent speculations lend 
 some support to the belief in secular physical cata- 
 strophes on which it rests. But Plato uses the myth 
 to illustrate a moral truth. Revolutions of the earth 
 recur, and history also tends to repeat itself. The 
 day before the dialogue of the "Timseus" was sup- 
 posed to be held, Socrates had developed his view of 
 a perfect state. Having done this, he feels, as he 
 says, like one who has seen animals only in painting 
 or at rest; he wishes now to see them in vigorous 
 action. For this pleasure he looks to the young 
 statesmen, Timseus and Critias and Hermocrates, who 
 have invited him to be their guest. Nor in vain: 
 Critias tells the story of what had befallen Solon in 
 Egypt, and Socrates hears, in what professes to be an 
 authentic record, the achievements of a primitive 
 Athenian state, constituted like his own. "Your 
 Greek traditions/' so the priest continues, in his 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 23 
 
 address to Solon \ "are little better than children's 
 tales; and — 
 
 " You do not know that the noblest and bravest race 
 upon the face of the earth once lived in your land. Yes, 
 Solon, before the last great flood, that which is now Athens 
 was the best and the best governed of all states. Its 
 exploits were the most glorious, and its institutions the 
 noblest, of all whose fame has reached us. What I speak 
 of happened nine thousand years ago, and I will now simply 
 indicate briefly the laws of the commonwealth and the 
 greatest of its triumphs. We will afterwards examine at 
 our leisure, with the help of the original documents, the 
 exact details of its history. For its laws, then, you will 
 find many parallels here in Egypt, as in the division of 
 castes (priests and craftsmen and warriors), and in the 
 style of arming, and in the provisions for learning. All 
 these ordinances your patroness Athene (who is the same 
 as our Neith) gave you, and she chose the spot in which 
 your forefathers dwelt, being herself devoted to war and 
 wisdom, because she saw that it was likely to bear men 
 most closely resembling her own character. Many, there- 
 fore, and great are the marvellous deeds of your city which 
 are recorded, but one deed surpasses all for grandeur and 
 courage. For our records tell of the mighty power from 
 the Atlantic which it checked in its proud advance against 
 all Europe and Asia. For at that time the Ocean was 
 accessible. In front of the Pillars of Hercules, as you call 
 them, lay an island larger than Libya and Asia, from 
 which you might reach the other islands, and from these 
 the mainland opposite, which extended along the real 
 Ocean. In this island, Atlantis (so it was named), a great 
 
 1 Timseus, 23 b. 
 
24 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 and wondrous league of kings arose, who conquered the 
 whole country, and many other islands and parts of the 
 mainland, and besides this they held dominion over Libya 
 as far as the borders of Egypt, and over Europe as far as 
 Tyrrhenia. So then, having combined all their forces 
 together, they essayed to enslave by one bold assault your 
 country and ours, and all the district of the Mediterranean. 
 "Whereupon your state, Solon, proved gloriously conspicuous 
 for valour and might ; for first at the head of the Greeks, 
 and then alone and deserted, as all else abandoned her, 
 pre-eminent in courage and martial arts, she was brought 
 to the extremity of peril, but at last triumphed over the 
 invaders, and saved for ever all who had not yet been en- 
 slaved from the fear of slavery, and generously restored 
 their freedom to all others within the Pillars of Hercules. 
 But at a later time, after unnatural earthquakes and 
 floods, a wild day and night followed, and all your warrior 
 race was swallowed up by the earth, and the island Atlantis 
 sank beneath the sea. And so it is that the sea there is 
 impassable, because all progress is hindered by the shallow 
 banks of mud which were caused by the sinking of the 
 islandi." 
 
 1 The existence of Atlantis has been a favourite subject of 
 discussion with modern geologists. Dr Unger, of Vienna, has 
 published a remarkable lecture upon the subject (translated in 
 the Journal of Botany, 1865, pp. 12, et seq.), in which he 
 shews, from the consideration of the Floras, that "in the 
 Tertiary period Europe must have been connected with North 
 America;" and again, that at a later period this "Atlantis 
 assumed the form of an island separate from both continents." 
 
 Plato expressly distinguishes the island from the mainland 
 beyond it. His shallow, muddy sea is an evident allusion to 
 the great sargassum-bed, of which Aristotle has an interesting 
 notice (De Maab. Aud., § 136). 
 
 1 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 25 
 
 The further development of this myth of epic 
 magnificence is reserved for the ''Critias," of which 
 only a fragment, as it seems, was ever written, but 
 that a fragment of unrivalled richness. The descrip- 
 tion of the wealth of Atlantis is almost Oriental in 
 the profusion of detail, and almost prophetic in its 
 anticipations of the triumph of modern commerce and 
 art. Every production of the earth was gathered to 
 the marts of the favoured people of Poseidon \ Their 
 docks were built of marble; their buildings were 
 varied in fanciful polychrome; their palaces were of 
 stupendous size and beauty; their walls were plated 
 with metal ; their harbours were crowded with vessels 
 from every quarter of the world, and filled day and 
 night with the voice of merchants and the manifold 
 din of ceaseless traffic. For a time they bore meekly, 
 as it had been a burden, the large measure of their 
 wealth. But at last the Divine element within them 
 was overpowered by human passion. Unjust aggran- 
 dizement and power seemed the greatest blessings, 
 and they were blind to their own shame ; whereupon 
 Zeus devised their chastisement, and called the gods 
 together to hear his purpose. . . And so the poem 
 ends; for in the "Critias" the myth has grown into a 
 poem. The conception of secular cataclysms is lost 
 in the episode of Athenian greatness, or the symbolic 
 struggle of martial wisdom against material power. 
 The teaching of instinct is replaced by the creations 
 of fancy. Yet even so the last picture in the noble 
 
 1 Critias, 113 b, et seq. 
 
 "e^ 
 
 v^^ 
 
26 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 series is one on which the Platonist, and not he only, 
 could look with devout thankfulness. For it taught 
 him that He who made the universe into a living 
 whole, and rejoiced when He looked upon it, — He 
 who with wise alternations of control and freedom 
 directs the cyclic periods of its common course, — He 
 who by the action of general laws renews the face of 
 the earth on which we live, — looks also to separate 
 nations, and ordains judgment for their excesses, 
 "that they may learn uprightness by correction ^" 
 
 in. 
 
 The Personal Myths of Plato, in which he deals 
 with the history of the individual soul, are better 
 known than the Cosmical Myths which we have 
 hitherto noticed, and have left a deeper impression 
 upon popular thought. They have also more obvious 
 and closer affinities with the genuine Socratic teach- 
 ing. It is indeed very significant that no cosmical 
 myth is attributed to Socrates. These broad and 
 venturous speculations are assigned to Timseus, the 
 physical philosopher of Locri; to an anon3maous 
 Eleatic stranger ; and to Critias, the brilliant and 
 unscrupulous statesman. Socrates applauds ^ it is 
 true, "the marvellous success of Timseus upon the 
 stage," in his view of the Cosmos, but it is impossible 
 not to feel that such investigations lie beyond the 
 limits of human morals, within which he purposely 
 1 Critias, 121b. " Critias, 108 b. 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 27 
 
 confined himself. It is otherwise with the personal 
 myths. These are all delivered by Socrates himself, 
 and all bear upon the questions to which his life 
 was devoted, the eternal principles of justice and 
 duty and truth. This contrast in the treatment of 
 similar forms of exposition is important, and not 
 without interest, as shewing under what restrictions 
 Plato felt himself at liberty to bring forward Socrates 
 as the interpreter of his own opinions. Socrates 
 speaks when the doctrine is that out of which his 
 lessons flowed, or in which they could find their 
 essential confirmation, or where the process of in- 
 quiry is itself the end : he listens when new topics 
 are opened, harmonious it may be with his practical 
 teaching, but larger in scope and farther removed 
 from life. 
 
 Plato's mythical history of the soul is given in 
 several distinct scenes. The slight sketch in the 
 "Meno" is elaborated into a complete picture in the 
 "Republic." Between the two come the descriptions 
 of the Soul in Heaven in the "Phsedrus," of the 
 Judgment in the "Gorgias," and of the Unseen World 
 in the "Phsedo," which severally bring out special 
 aspects of the one great subject. 
 
 In the "Meno," Socrates is preparing the way for 
 his assertion that knowledge is recollection. 
 
 " I have heard," he says, "from men and women wise in 
 divine matters a true tale as I think, and a noble one. 
 My informants are those priests and priestesses whose aim 
 it is to be able to render an account of the subjects with 
 
28 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 which they deal. They are supported also by Pindar and 
 many other poets, — by all, I may say, who are truly in- 
 spired. Their teaching is that the soul of man is immor- 
 tal ; that it comes to an end of one form of existence, which 
 men call dying, and then is born again, but never perishes. 
 Since, then, the soul is immortal, and has been often bom, 
 and has seen the things here on earth and the things in 
 Hades, — all things, in short, — there is nothing which it has 
 not learned, so that it is no marvel that it should be possi- 
 ble for it to recall what it certainly knew before about 
 virtue and other topics. For since all nature is akin, and 
 the soul has learned all things, there is no reason why a 
 man who has recalled one fact only, which men call learn- 
 ing, should not by his own power find out everything else, 
 should he be courageous and not lose heart in the search. 
 For seeking and learning is all an act of recollection i." 
 
 In the "Phsedrus" we read how that true and 
 absolute knowledge is gained, which it is thus the 
 highest object of an earthly life to recall. Socrates 
 has first given a metaphysical proof of the immortality 
 of the soul, after which he describes its nature, under 
 the famous image of a chariot, guided by a charioteer, 
 and drawn by two winged steeds, of which, in the 
 case of man, the one is good, the other not so^. He 
 then employs the image in one of his grandest myths. 
 At a certain time there is a great procession in 
 heaven^ ; — 
 
 " Zeus advances first, driving his winged car, ordering 
 all things and superintending them, A host of deities and 
 
 1 Meno, 81a. ^ pheedo, 246 a, Compare p. 253 o. 
 3 PhaBdrus, 246 e, et seq. 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 29 
 
 spirits follow him, marshalled in eleven bodies, for Hestia 
 remains alone in the dwelling of the gods. Many then and 
 blessed are the spectacles and movements within the sphere 
 of heaven which the gods go through, each fulfiUing his own 
 function ; and whoever will and can follows them, for envy 
 is a stranger to the divine company. But when they after- 
 wards proceed to a banquet, they advance by what is now 
 a steep course along the inner circumference of the heaven- 
 ly vault. The chariots of the gods, being well balanced 
 and well driven, advance easily, and others with difficulty ; 
 for the vicious horse, unless the charioteer has thoroughly 
 broken it, weighs down the car by his proclivity towards 
 the earth. Whereupon the soul is exposed to the extremity 
 of toil and effort. For the souls of the immortals, when 
 they reach the summit, go outside and stand upon the 
 surface of heaven, and as they stand there the revolution 
 of the sphere bears them round, and they contemplate the 
 objects that are beyond it. That super-celestial realm no 
 earthly poet ever yet sang or will sing in worthy strains. 
 It is occupied by the colourless, shapeless, intangible, abso- 
 lute essence which reason alone can contemplate, and which 
 is the one subject of true knowledge. The divine mind, 
 therefore, when it sees after an interval that which really 
 i«, is supremely happy, and gains strength and enjoyment 
 by the contemplation of the True, until the circuit of the 
 revolution is completed, in the course of which it obtains 
 a clear vision of absolute (ideal) justice, temperance and 
 knowledge ; and when it has thus been feasted by the sight 
 of the essential truth of all things, the soul again enters 
 within the vault of heaven and returns home. And there 
 the charioteer gives his steeds ambrosia to eat and nectar 
 to drink. This is the life of the gods. But the fate of the 
 other souls is far otherwise. The soul which follows God 
 closest, and is made most like to Him, lifts the head of its 
 charioteer into the super-celestial realm, and ao he is carried 
 
30 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 round ; but still he is constantly disturbed by the steeds 
 which he drives, and gains only with difficulty a clear 
 vision of the absolute truth of things. Another soul rises 
 for a time, and then sinks, and through the violence of its 
 steeds obtains only a partial view. The rest follow, all 
 eagerly desirous of reaching the upper region ; but being 
 unable to do so, are borne round within the elements of 
 the material Cosmos, struggling and trampling one another 
 down in their efforts to reach the foremost place. And in 
 the tumult and strife many souls are lamed, and many 
 have their wings broken, and all, in spite of their earnest 
 efforts, catch no sight of that which really is, and when 
 they return are forced to feed upon the food of fancy. 
 For the reason why they strive so zealously to see the 
 plain of truth is this, that the food which suits the noblest 
 element of the soul is found in the meadow there, and that 
 it is by the help of this the wings grow by which the soul 
 is lifted from the earth. So the procession ends, and the 
 irrevocable j udgment follows. Every soul which has gained 
 a clear vision of truth remains in the society of the gods till 
 the next time of review. The rest, which have been unable 
 to follow their divine guides, or have met with any acci- 
 dent, or have suffered forgetfulness to overpower them, oi 
 have lost their wings, are implanted in some human form, 
 varying in character according to the impressions which 
 each soul still retains of its former vision of truth i. Ten 
 
 1 Phsedrus, 248 d, e. The exact order is very remarkable, 
 
 and as it does not appear to be noticed by the commentators, 
 
 it may be worth while to indicate the law which it presents : — 
 
 Pure "1 ("Absolutely .... i. <iiA6<ro</K)s. 
 
 Spirit— /SotrL -iR^iflfivPiv/Morally . M.apxiKo^. 
 
 Soul. dominant | ^'^'^^^^IPhysically iii. owcofo/uiicds. 
 
 ) individually .... iv. yviLvaari.Ko^. 
 
 Man ] Soul neutralized v. /uavTwcds. 
 
 (Soul \ I C Individually . . . . vi. iroi-m-tKo^. 
 
 Body^ UoDY '" ■ 
 
 Pure 
 
 Matter— 
 
 Body. < 
 
 . \ I C Individually . . . . vi. n-oirp-tKos. 
 
 dominant ) ^'*"^®'y\Morally . viii. Sr,tioTtK6<:. 
 ^Absolutely .... ix. TvoawiKo^. 
 
 Absolutely .... ix. TvpawiKo^. 
 
I THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 31 
 
 thousand years pass before they can regain their former 
 state. The soul of the philosopher alone can recover its 
 _ wings in three thousand years, if at each time of choice it 
 faithfully chooses the same lot: for at the close of each 
 life follows a period of retribution for a thousand years, 
 after which each soul is free to choose its destiny. A 
 human soul may pass into a brute ; the soul of a brute, 
 which was once a man, may return to a man. For no 
 soul which has never seen the truth can reach the human 
 form ; for man must be able to understand general terms 
 which answer to ideas^ and he does so by recalling those 
 objects which his soul once saw when it followed in the 
 train of God, and was lifted above what we now say w, and 
 
 ^ gained a sight of that which is truly." 
 In no other place has Plato given so clear a state- 
 ment of his doctrine of ideas, which gives fixity to 
 the doctrine of recollection. And the reason is evi- 
 dent. The doctrine itself represents an intuition or 
 an instinct, and not a result. It is a beginning and 
 not a conclusion. And therefore a mythical exposi- 
 tion alone can place it in its true relation to the 
 general system of the universe. By using this, Plato 
 sketches in a few ineffaceable lines what he holds to 
 be the divine lineaments of the soul, seen in its power 
 to hold fellowship with God and apprehend absolute 
 truth. It may fall from the heights of heaven which 
 it has been privileged to climb, but even so the 
 transitory images of earthly things are for it potential 
 S5Tnbols, and memorials of glories which it has seen ; 
 and in its degradation it yet can feel that the way of 
 return to supra-celestial joy is not finally closed. 
 
32 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 The myth of the "Phsedrus" opens a glimpse of a 
 judgment after death. The judgment itself is por- 
 trayed in the "Gorgias." As suits the character of 
 the dialogue, the treatment of the subject here is 
 "most purely moral," and the accessories and scenery 
 of the myth are taken directly from the Homeric 
 poems'. Socrates has maintained that to act unjustly 
 is the greatest of evils. In illustration of the propo- 
 sition he says^ — 
 
 " * I will tell you a very beautiful story, which you, I 
 fancy, will regard as a fable, but I hold to be very truth. 
 Well, then, as Homer tells us, Zeus and Poseidon and 
 Pluto divided between them the empire which they received 
 from their father. In the time of Kronos there was a law, 
 which is still, even now as always, in force among the 
 gods, that after death men should go to the Islands of the 
 Blest, or to Tartarus, according as they had lived holy or 
 godless lives. TiU Zeus had reigned some little time, the 
 judgment took place on the day on which they were to die. 
 Judges and judged were living men. So, many errors were 
 committed, and when complaint was made to Zeus, he 
 said, "I will put an end to this. The present mode of 
 trial is faulty. The subjects of the trial are still clothed 
 when they undergo it, for they are yet living. And many 
 men with wicked souls are arrayed in beauty, and rank, 
 and wealth ; and at the time of their trial many come 
 forward to give evidence that they have lived justly. So 
 the judges are influenced by these witnesses, and moreover 
 are clothed themselves, for the veil of sense lies before 
 
 1 This is pointed out by Mr Cope— Gor^ias, Introd., 
 p. Ixxiv. 
 
 2 Gorgias, 523 a, et seq. 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 33 
 
 their souls. First, then, I must prevent men from know- 
 ing the time of their death ; and next, judges and judged 
 must be unclothed by death before the trial takes place, 
 and the judge must give his sentence as he regards simply 
 with his soul alone simply the soul of each, at the moment 
 after dissolution, when the subject is bereft of all his kins- 
 men, and has left on earth all the fair adornment in which 
 he was arrayed. This I had observed," he added, addres- 
 sing the complainants, "before you, and determined to 
 appoint as judges my own sons, Minos and Rhadamanthus 
 from Asia, and ^Eacus from Europe. After their death, 
 these shall give sentence in the meadow where the cross- 
 roads meet, of which one leads to the Islands of the Blest, 
 and another to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus shall judge the 
 dead from Asia, iEacus those from Europe. Minos shall 
 hold the supreme place of honour, and finally decide if the 
 two others are in any doubt, that the judgment which deter- 
 mines the road men must tread may be as just as possible." 
 'This,' Socrates continues, 'is the story which I have 
 heard, and believe to be true. And the conclusion which 
 I draw is this : — Death, in my opinion, is simply the separ- 
 ation of two things, soul and body, from one another. 
 And after their separation, each preserves the character 
 which it had when the man was alive. The body, as we 
 can see retains its natural characteristics, the results of 
 care and discipline, the traces of accident and suflfering. 
 So it is also, I believe, with the soul. When the soul is 
 stripped of its bodily vestment, it also presents all the 
 traits of nature, and the consequences of individual habits, 
 distinctly visible. And so, when the dead come to the 
 judges, the judge regards the soul of each, not knowing 
 whose it is: very frequently he lays hands on the great 
 King, or some other prince or potentate, and sees that his 
 soul is all rotten, covered all over with slavish scars, and 
 W. E. 3 
 
34 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 full of wounds inflicted by perjuries and injustice, which 
 his own conduct has impressed upon the soul of each ; he 
 sees that every member of it is distorted by falsehood and 
 ostentation and the utter absence of the disciphne of truth ; 
 he sees that it has lost every trace of harmony and beauty, 
 through licence and luxury and arrogance and intemper- 
 ance ; and when he sees it, he despatches the soul in 
 dishonour straightway to the prison-house, where it is 
 doomed to bear the sufterings which it deserves. For some 
 this suftering is remedial, for others it is simply exemplary^. 
 As it is on earth, so it is below. Those whose sins can be 
 healed, can be healed only by sorrow and pain, which here 
 and hereafter are used to restore them. Those whose guilt 
 is incurable, from the extreme magnitude of their crimes, 
 draw no longer any profit from their sufferings, for they 
 are past healing, but others draw profit from them, when 
 they see them sufi'ering for ever for their sins the greatest 
 and most terrible pains, hung up simply as examples in 
 the dungeon of Hades, as spectacles and warnings to all 
 the guilty who come there. And such characters are, I 
 fancy, generally found among the great, for these, if they 
 have the will, have also the power, to act most wickedly. 
 Whenever, then, Rhadamanthus^ finds such an one he only 
 knows that he is a guilty wretch, and nothing else about 
 him, neither who he is nor whence he comes, and so he 
 sends him away to Tartarus, affixing a mark upon him 
 to shew whether he seems to be curable or incurable. And 
 sometimes, when he has looked upon another soul, which 
 has lived with holiness and truth, —that of a plain citizen 
 it may be, or more frequently of a philosopher, who has 
 devoted himself to his own pursuits, and not meddled in 
 the affairs of others,— he is filled with admiration, and 
 
 1 Gorgias, 525 b, et seq. ^ lb. 52G b, et seq. 
 
THE MTfTHS OF PLATO. 35 
 
 sends it away to the Islands of the Blest. And thus also 
 does JEacus. And Minos looks on from his throne, alone, 
 holding a golden sceptre, as Odysseus says in Homer \ — 
 
 'There Minos, child of Zeus, sceptred with gold, 
 
 I saw dividing justice to the dead; 
 Who round his throne, in the wide-gated hold 
 
 Of Hades, stand or sit, and him, their head. 
 Cry to for judgment.'" 
 
 So pitilessly stern and impartial is the judgment 
 of the dead; and even according to Plato's instinct 
 there are some who cannot receive forgiveness "either 
 in this world or in the world to come," for whom the 
 wings of the soul are lost for ever. And it is remark- 
 able that the material aspect of the unseen world is a 
 subject on which he seems to delight to dwell. This, 
 in his imagination, has no likeness to the supersen- 
 suous region of ideas on which the unembodied souls 
 gaze, but akin to man, who is for a time its tenant. 
 So when Socrates had exhausted his arguments on 
 immortality, he is represented in the "Phsedo" as con- 
 cluding his last discourse with a mythic delineation 
 of the future resting-place of the blessed dead, and 
 the seats of torture for the wicked. There is, he 
 admits, adequate ground for questioning the truth of 
 his reasoning, from a consideration of the greatness 
 of the subject and the weakness of man ; but yet 
 practically he is convinced, himself, of his immor- 
 tality, and therefore of the infinite importance of 
 right action^, — 
 
 1 Od. xi. 576 (Worsley). » phaedo, 107 a, b. 
 
 3—2 
 
36 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 " For the souP takes with it to Hades nothing but the 
 results of its education and growth, which immediately 
 begin to manifest their effects. The story is, that after 
 death the genius to whom each man was committed during 
 his hfetime, proceeds to take him to a place where the 
 dead must be gathered together to obtain their sentence, 
 before they go to Hades in the charge of the guide to whom 
 the tiisk of conducting them is committed. And when they 
 have received there their due recompence, and remained 
 the appointed space, another guide brings them back to 
 earth. The road to Hades is not, then, so simple as ALs- 
 chylus tells us : ' One single path conducts tos to the shades.' 
 If it were so, there would have been no need of guides ; 
 but the road is really branching and circuitous. And so 
 the well-disciplined and wise soul follows the guide and 
 recognises its present position: that soul, on the other 
 hand, which is passionately attached to the body, fluttering 
 about it and the world of sense with lingering desire, after 
 a violent resistance and grievous suffering, is forcibly re- 
 moved by the appointed genius. And when such a soul, 
 stained by impurity and crime, reaches the common 
 gathering-i)lace, every one flies from it and avoids it : com- 
 panionless and guideless, it wanders about in dire distress 
 till the time comes when it must be carried to its appro- 
 priate habitation. But that soul which has lived in purity 
 and justice, after enjoying the companionship and guidance 
 of the gods, dwells in its proper place. Yes, and there are 
 many marvellous places in the earth ; and the earth is not, 
 either in natm-e or extent, such as geographers suppose. 
 For I am convinced ^ that we who live along the borders 
 of the Mediterranean are like frogs living around a swamp ; 
 and that there are many other basins like that in which 
 
 1 Phaedo, 107 d. 2 ^6. 108 et seq. 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 37 
 
 we live, similarly occupied, which are receptacles for a 
 sediment of water, and mist and air; and that the true 
 earth rises far above, all radiant and pure in the pure 
 radiance of heaven. But we who live in these deep basins 
 fancy we live upon the earth, whereas our case is just as 
 if creatures living at the bottom of the sea were to fancy 
 that they lived ii^pon the sea, and when they saw the sun 
 through the water, were to hold the sea to be heaven. 
 For we call our hollows earth and the atmosphere heaven, 
 and cannot any more than the tenants of the deep rise to 
 the surface of the element which covers us, and see the true 
 brightness of the celestial bodies, whose dimmed glory only 
 reaches us, and the true beauty of the objects of earth, of 
 which we see only starved and corroded and decaying 
 types. The earth, in fact i, when looked at from above, is 
 said to be like a particoloured ball, such as children play 
 with, marked out into regions of various hues, purple and 
 gold and white, and so on, brighter and purer and more 
 manifold than those which artists use. Even the hollows 
 in which we live, like lakes, add brilliancy to the assem- 
 blage of tints, and complete their harmony. So again the 
 trees and flowers in that higher region are proportionately 
 more beautiful than ours. The mountains are solid gems, 
 of which our jewels are little fragments. The precious 
 metals are seen everywhere ; to look upon the real earth 
 alone is happiness. There are also living beings there, and 
 men, some of whom dwell on the shores of the atmosphere, 
 others on islands which it encircles ; for oiu* atmosphere is 
 their sea, and their atmosphere is aether. Moreover, the in- 
 habitants have temples of the gods, in which the gods really 
 dwell, and hold intercourse with their worshippers. And 
 as there is this true earth above us, so are there awful and 
 
 ^ Phfledo, HO B, et seq. 
 
38 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 mysterious caverns below ^, through which flow immeasur- 
 able streams, and rivers of fire and torrents of mud, which 
 centre all in Tartarus. Of these, four rivers 2 are chiefly to 
 be noticed : Ocean, the gi'eatest of all, which flows outer- 
 most round the earth ; and opposite to this Acheron, which, 
 passing through desert places, comes to the Acherusian 
 lake, where the mass of the souls of the dead assemble. 
 The third river, directly after its rise, falls into a place 
 burning with fire, and forms a lake of boiling mud, and 
 after a circuitous course reaches the Acherusian lake, but 
 does not mingle its current with the water. This is Pyri- 
 phlegethon, and lava-streams are casual jets from its 
 molten flood. The fourth river falls into a dreary and 
 savage spot, where it forms the Stygian lake, and after- 
 wards passes through the Acherusian lake, without ming- 
 ling with it, opposite to Pyriphlegethon ; and this, the 
 poets say, is called Cocytus. This being so, when the dead 
 reach the place whither their genius carries them, they 
 obtain their sentence, and those whose lives have been 
 neither very good nor very bad are conveyed along Acheron 
 to the Acherusian lake, where they are purified of their 
 wickedness by punishment, and receive the rewards of their 
 good deeds. Those who are judged to be incurably guilty, 
 owing to the greatness of their sins, are thrown into Tar- 
 tarus, from which they never come out. Those, again, 
 whose sins are very great, but yet not past all cure, are 
 thrown, for so it must be, into Tartarus ; but after a year 
 they are carried by Cocytus or Pyriphlegethon to the Ache- 
 rusian lake, where, with loud cries, they call upon those 
 whom they wronged, beseeching them for pardon, that so 
 they may leave their place of torment and come to them ; 
 and if their prayer is heard, it is well ; if not, they return 
 
 1 Phsedo 111 c, et seq. 2 ^6. 112 e, et scq. 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 39 
 
 to their place of suft'ering, for they gain no respite till it is 
 granted by those whom they injured. Those, lastly, who 
 have lived with conspicuous holiness are they who are freed 
 from their prison-house in the lower realms, and rise aloft 
 to radiant habitations, and dwell upon the earth which 1 
 have described. And such as have purified themselves 
 sufficiently by philosophy live wholly without bodies for 
 the future, and rise to habitations more glorious than these, 
 which it were hard to paint ; and now time presses. But 
 I think what I have said shews that we must strive by all 
 means to gain virtue and wisdom in our lives. The pri/e 
 is glorious and the hope is great." 
 
 The words are surely memorable words, and in 
 the place which they occupy, of more than tragic, 
 interest. The last great discourse of Socrates in 
 Plato's narrative is like his last charge, which was 
 given so soon afterwards. There is the same spirit 
 in the injunction to offer the customary sacrifice* — 
 "the cock to ^sculapius"— as in the delineation 
 of the material paradise. In the final moments of his 
 earthly sojourn the philosopher seeks, as it were, 
 some sacramental pledge of his highest faith. He 
 clings dutifully to the rights of traditional worship 
 which he had sought to ennoble. He dwells lovingly 
 among the images of common beauty, which he trans- 
 figures with a diviner grace. In that supreme crisis 
 the man reposes not on the subtleties of argument, 
 but on the broad foundations of natural instinct. He 
 dies with the vision of a home still before his eyes, 
 
 1 Phffido, 118 A. 
 
40 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 such as he had known, but purer, brighter, abiding in 
 heaven. 
 
 One myth still remains, the story of Er the Pam- 
 phylian, with which the "Republic" closes. In this 
 the destiny of the soul is traced out with more com- 
 pleteness than in any other, and if it is inferior to the 
 myth of the "Timseus" in magnificence, and to that 
 of the "Phsedo" in pathos, it is yet on the whole 
 perhaps the richest in thought and the most artistic 
 in treatment of all the Platonic myths. Er, so the 
 story runs\ was slain in battle, and when his corpse 
 was recovered and laid on the twelfth day upon the 
 funeral pile, he came to life again, and thereupon he 
 related what he saw in the interval. He said, — 
 
 " When his soul left his body, it went with many others 
 to a mysterious place where there were two openings in the 
 earth, and two in the heaven opposite to them ; and be- 
 tween judges were sitting. These, after giving sentence, 
 ordered the just to go upwards to the right, fastening on 
 their breasts tokens of their decision: the unjust down- 
 wards to the left, carrying on their backs tokens of their 
 actions. When he went up to them, they said that he 
 would have to tell men what passed in the world below, 
 and straitly charged him to hear and observe everything. 
 So he saw some souls go away by the two openings above 
 and below, and others returning by the two corresponding 
 openings, of which those which descended from heaven 
 were pure and clean, those which ascended from the earth 
 were soiled and dusty. It seemed that they had come 
 from a long journey, and they were glad to meet in the 
 
 * De EcpubUca, x. pp. 614 u, et seq. 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 41 
 
 meadow and speak of their various lots during their passage 
 of a thousand years, the one class telling of their unspeak- 
 able enjoyments, the other, with tears and lamentations, 
 of their sufferings ; for the recompence of virtue and crime, 
 he said, was tenfold as great as the acts themselves. 
 Moreover, he saw one spirit asked by another where Ar- 
 diaeus the Great was, who had made himself a despot in a 
 city of Pamphylia a thousand years before, after murdering 
 his father and elder brother, and committing, as was said, 
 many atrocious crimes. * He has not come,' was the reply, 
 * nor will he come up here, for among other terrible sights 
 we saw this. When we were near the mouth of the pit^, 
 and on the point of ascending, we suddenly saw him, and 
 others with him, most of them despots; and when they 
 thought that they should ascend, the mouth would not 
 receive them, but began to bellow whenever one of those 
 who were incurably vicious, or had not yet paid the ade- 
 quate penalty of his guilt, endeavoured to ascend. Where- 
 upon ^ he continued, 'men savage of aspect and all fiery, 
 seized some of them and led them away, but Ardiscus and 
 others they bound hands and feet and head, to cast them 
 into Tartarus. And though we had suffered many and 
 manifold terrors,' he added, * this terror was the greatest of 
 all, lest we should hear the voice when we tried to ascend, 
 and we each rejoiced greatly that we were allowed to 
 ascend, as the mouth uttered no sound.'" 
 
 After they had spent seven days in the meadow, 
 Er said, they were obliged to resume their journey on 
 the eighth day, and after four days they came to a spot 
 from which — 
 
 "They saw a column of light like the rainbow, but 
 1 De Bepublica, x. 615 d, et seq. 
 
42 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 brighter and purer, which they reached in half a days 
 march, and then they saw that the Hght was the bond 
 which encircled heaven, and that through its extremities 
 passed the spindle of Necessity, round the base of which 
 revolved, as on the rims of gigantic cups fitting closely into 
 one another, the eight planets ; and as the spindle turned, 
 so too they turned with their proper motions, and on each 
 rim a Siren sat, giving forth a single note, so that from the 
 eight arose one grand harmony i. And three others sat 
 round at equal intervals, each on a throne, the daughters 
 of Necessity, the Fates, white-robed, with chaplets on their 
 heads, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, and sang to the har- 
 mony of the Sirens, Lachesis of the past, Clotho of the pre- 
 sent, Atropos of the future. The souls, he said, when they 
 came there, were obliged to go directly to Lachesis. Where- 
 upon a prophet first marshalled them in order, and then, 
 taking lots and samples of lives from the knees of Lachesis, 
 mounted on a lofty tribune, and said, ' souls of short- 
 lived men, now begins a new course of mortal existence. 
 Your fate will not be assigned to you : you will choose yoiu- 
 fate yourselves. Virtue is the peculiar prize of none. 
 Each, as he honours or dishonours her, will enjoy her 
 favour. Blame rests with the chooser : God is blameless.' 
 When he had so said he threw down the lots, and each 
 picked up that which fell beside him, except himself (for 
 he was forbidden), and saw the order of his choice. And 
 afterwards the prophet placed the samples of lives on the 
 ground before them, far more in number than those pre- 
 sent. These were of all kinds, he said, including those 
 both of men and animals, and marked by every variety of 
 gifts and failings in external station and personal endow- 
 ment. The character of the soul was alone left undeter- 
 
 1 De llepubhca, x, 617 b, et seq. 
 
 « 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 43 
 
 mined, for this necessarily depended upon the nature of 
 the life chosen in each case. The prophet thereupon ^ 
 warned the souls of the supreme importance of their choice, 
 and said, ' He who comes last in order, if he chooses with 
 intelligence and lives with energy and self-control, has the 
 assurance of a happy life. He who chooses first must not 
 be careless : he who chooses last must not despond,' On 
 this he to whom the first lot fell came up and grasped the 
 greatest sovereignty, and in his greedy folly he had not 
 observed that it included the necessity of his feeding on 
 his own children ; and when he discovered this on a calm 
 investigation, he began to bewail and lament his fate, ac- 
 cusing every one but himself of the evils of his destiny. 
 This, he said, was one of those who had come down from 
 heaven, and had lived in his former life in a -well-ordered 
 commonwealth, and been virtuous by habit without the 
 salutary disciphne of philosophy. And those who came 
 from heaven, he said, were thus deceived in their choice 
 quite as often as others, because they were undisciplined 
 by sufiering ; while those who came from the earth, since 
 they had suJEFered themselves, and had seen others suffer, 
 were generally slow and cautious in choosing. And from 
 this, among other reasons, the souls, as a general rule, ex- 
 XDerience a transition from good to evil, and the reverse; 
 though the sound pursuit of philosophy would go far to 
 secure happiness on earth, and a smooth and heavenly 
 passage through the shades below. It was indeed, he said, 
 a strange sight to watch the choice of lives — piteous at 
 once and ludicrous ; for the souls were chiefly influenced ' 
 by their former experience. For example, he saw the soul 
 of Orpheus choosing the life of a swan ; that of Ajax avoid- 
 ing a human destiny from the remembrance of his wrongs ; 
 
 1 De Kepublica, x. 019 b. 
 
44 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 that of Agamemnon taking the hfe of an eagle. Among 
 the last he saw the soul of the buffoon Thefsites choose the 
 life of an ape : and last of all, the soul of Ulysses went to 
 make its choice. This soul, cured of ambition by the re- 
 collection of its former sufferings, went about for a long 
 time in search of a life of a quiet, simple citizen; and 
 when it found it, after great trouble, lying in an obscure 
 corner, and neglected by all the rest, took the life gladly, 
 and said that it would have done the same if it had 
 the first choice. At the same time the souls of animals 
 passed into other animals and into men. And when . 
 the choice was completed, all went to Lachesis, and 
 she charged the genius which each had chosen, to ac- 
 company him through life, and accomplish the fate which 
 he had selected. Afterwards they visited Clotho and 
 Atropos, and passed forth through the throne of Necessity, 
 and all marched to the plain of Oblivion, through terrible 
 and suffocating heat. As it was now drawing towards 
 evening, they encamped by the stream Forgetfulness, whose 
 water no vessel can hold, of which all were forced to drink 
 a measure, and those who were not preserved by prudence 
 drank more than the measure ; and straightway the 
 drinkers forgot everything. They then fell asleep, and 
 when midnight came there was a clap of thunder and an 
 earthquake, and suddenly all the souls were carried, like 
 shooting stars, in different directions to their birth. He 
 himself, he said, was not allowed to drink the water ; and 
 yet he could not tell how he came into his body, but sud- 
 denly looking up in the morning he saw himself lying on 
 the funeral pyre. So the story was saved," Socrates con- 
 tinues\ "and not lost, and it will save us if we give heed 
 to it, and we shall then cross happily over the river of 
 
 ^ De Bepublica, x. 621 b, et seq. 
 
t 
 
 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 45 
 
 Oblivion, and not defile our soul. Yes, if we all give heed 
 to my counsel, and believe that the soul is immortal, and 
 capable of every woe and every good, we shall keep close to 
 the upward path, and practise justice with active wisdom 
 in every way we can, that we may be at peace with our- 
 selves and with the gods while we abide on earth, and when 
 we reap the rewards of justice, like victors in their trium- 
 phal course, and may ever fare well, not only in our present 
 life, but also in that pilgrimage of the thousand years which 
 we have described." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Such briefly are the Myths of Plato. Even when 
 thus presented they form undoubtedly one of the 
 most fruitful chapters in the history of the religious 
 thought of Greece ; for though scattered they have a 
 real unity, and though romantic they are truly Greek \ 
 The proof of their unity lies in the connection of the 
 stories among themselves, and it seems impossible not 
 to see in them a proper whole. But their unity is 
 derived not from any conscious plan, but from the 
 character of the subjects with which they deal, and 
 
 1 To point out the connection of Plato's myths with the 
 Ancient Mysteries, with Pythagoras, and with Egypt, would 
 require an independent essay. For it is not meant that the 
 conception of the Platonic myths is everywhere original, which 
 is manifestly untrue, but that Plato made what he borrowed 
 his own. He was himself perhaps the most catholic of Greeks, 
 and the myths are Greek in the same way that he is. 
 
46 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 the unconscious symmetry with which the works of 
 the highest genius are always invested. Each myth, 
 as will have been seen, stands alone as if it were a 
 single and complete creation ; and yet each gains new 
 fulness when placed in its true relation to the others. 
 They overlap and intersect each other, and yet room 
 is left for each separate development. Nothing, in- 
 deed, is more remarkable than the careless prodigality, 
 as it might seem, with which Plato brings out his 
 treasures, never again caring to look back upon them ; 
 and yet, with a master's art, he continues to the last 
 to throw new lights and fresh adornments on what he 
 might appear to have forgotten. 
 
 It is not, therefore, strange that the Myths were 
 accepted by common consent as the text for the deep- 
 est speculations of the later Platonic schools, and so 
 have contributed, through them, more largely than 
 any other part of Plato's writings to the sum of com- 
 mon thoughts. The popular notions of Platonism, 
 again, are almost exclusively derived from the myths. 
 And it is easy to see why it is so. The value of a 
 method may be estimated differently at different 
 times. The delight of mere discussion without result 
 at last ceases to charm. But there are subjects of 
 positive belief on which the soul is never wearied in 
 dwelling; and it is with these the myths deal. 
 
 In bold and vigorous outlines, they offer a philo- 
 sophy of nature, a philosophy of history, and a philo- 
 sophy of life, deformed, it may be, by crude specula- 
 tions in physics, and cramped by imperfect knowledge 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 47 
 
 and a necessarily narrow sphere of observation, but 
 yet always inspired by the spirit of a Divine life, 
 centring in the devout recognition of an all-wise and 
 all-present Providence, and in the inexorable assertion 
 of human responsibility. In form, in subject, in the 
 splendour of their imagery, and in the range of their 
 application, they form, if we may so speak, an Helle- 
 nic Apocalypse. And if we compare our popular 
 theories of the world and man with the aspirations 
 which they embody, we may well doubt whether we 
 have used the lessons of eighteen Christian centuries 
 as Plato would have used them. 
 
 The earnestness of Plato is indeed a strange con- 
 trast to our indifference in dealing with the same 
 topics; for as has been said before, the Myths were 
 not for him poetic fancies, but representations of 
 momentous truths. The details might or might not 
 be exact, but their general scope was that for which 
 he was ready to contend to the uttermost. Thus 
 Socrates says, at the close of the myth in the 
 'Th^do\"— 
 
 " To confidently affirm that the narrative which I have 
 given is literally true becomes no reasonable man. But I 
 do think it becomes him to beheve that what I have said 
 about our souls and their habitations is either literally true 
 or like the truth, if, at least, the soul is shewn to be im- 
 mortal ; and that it is worthy of him to face peril boldly 
 in such a belief, for the peril is glorious ; and such thoughts 
 he ought to use as a charm to allay his own misgivings : 
 
 I PhsBdo, 114 D. 
 
48 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 in which spirit I have myself dwelt thus long upon the 
 story." 
 
 The last words point to two characteristics of the 
 ^lyths which can now be appreciated better than 
 when they were first indicated in the opening section. 
 The Myths transcend the domain of pure reason, and 
 their moral power springs out of their concrete form. 
 In the first respect, to take an illustration which will 
 make the notion clear, they answer to Revelation, as 
 an endeavour to enrich the store of human know- 
 ledge ; in the second, to the Gospel, as an endeavour 
 to present, under the form of facts, the manifestations 
 of Divine Wisdom ^ 
 
 Whatever may be the prevailing fashion of an age, 
 the Myths of Plato remain an unfailing testimony to 
 the religious wants of man. They shew not only that 
 
 1 This idea is stated very forcibly by Mr Maurice, Moral 
 and Metaphysical Philosophy. — Plato : — "Plato... was... certain 
 that somehow or other all great principles must have an in- 
 vestiture of facts, and cannot be fully or satisfactorily pre- 
 sented to men except in facts. And if no such series of facts, 
 embodying and revealing truths, were within his reach, rather 
 than leave it to be fancied that his truths are bare, naked con- 
 ceptions of his mind, he will invent a clothing for them; it is 
 the least evil of the two. ...Then what pretence have those to 
 the name of Platonists who wish to believe that there is no 
 series of facts containing a revelation of supersensual and 
 transcendent truths, who think it an a priori probability, that 
 the deep want of such facts which Plato experienced has not 
 been satisfied, who are determined, even by the most violent 
 treatment of historical evidence, to prove that whenever a 
 supposed fact manifests a principle, it must be a fable?" 
 
THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 49 
 
 reason by its logical processes is unable to satisfy 
 them, but also in what directions its weakness is most 
 apparent and least supportable. They form, as it 
 were, a natural scheme of the questions with which a 
 revelation might be expected to deal, — Creation, Pro- 
 vidence, Immortality, — which, as they lie farthest 
 from the reason, lie nearest to the heart. And in 
 doing this, they are so far an unconscious prophecy, 
 of which the teaching of Christianity is the fulfilment. 
 
 But more than this : the Myths mark also the 
 shape which a revelation for men might be expected 
 to take. The doctrine is conveyed in an historic 
 form : the ideas are offered as facts ; the myth itself is 
 the message. With what often appears unnecessary 
 care, Plato appeals to popular tradition or external 
 testimony for the veracity of his mythical narratives. 
 He knows that their power of influencing life depends 
 directly upon their essential connection with life. If 
 the myth belongs really to our world, not as a 
 thought but as an event, it is homogeneous with man 
 as man in his complex nature. In this way, again, 
 Plato is an unconscious prophet of the Gospel. The 
 Life of Christ is, in form no less than in substance, 
 the Divine reality of which the Myths were an in- 
 structive foreshadowing. 
 
 It is well, then, that we should remember that 
 what we look back upon as accomplished events, were 
 once looked forward to as aspirations of the heart. 
 The problem of life is not changed by the lapse of 
 centuries, but the conditions are changed. What the 
 W.E, 4 
 
50 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 problem is, and what the conditions were in old times, 
 and what they are now, Plato himself may teach us'. 
 Socrates said to his friends on the evening of his 
 execution, — 
 
 " Do you think that, when I speak of my present fate 
 , as no misfortune, I am a less skilful diviner than the swans, 
 who sing longest and sweetest in the prospect of death, 
 because they are on the point of going to the god whose 
 servants they are ? Nay rather, I am bound by the same 
 service as they are, and devoted to the same god, and my 
 lord inspires me with prophetic insight no less than them, 
 and therefore I ought to depart fi'om life as cheerfully as 
 they do." 
 
 And Simmias answers : — 
 
 "Still, Socrates, I feel some difficulty. I think, and 
 perhaps you think with me, that it is impossible or ex- 
 tremely difficult to obtain distinct knowledge on such sub- 
 jects in our present life. On the other hand, it is utterly 
 unmanly to desist from investigating, by every means in 
 our power, whatever is urged about them, before we are 
 exhausted by a complete inquiry. For we must gain one 
 of two results. We must either learn or discover the truth 
 about them ; or if this be impossible, we must take the 
 best and most irrefragable of human words, and, supported 
 on this as on a raft, sail through the waters of life in per- 
 petual jeopardy, unless we might make the journey on a 
 securer stay, — some Divine Word, if it might be, — more 
 surely and with less peril." 
 
 The Word for which the wavering faith of Sim- 
 mias thus longed, has, we believe, been given to us; 
 and once again Plato points us to St John. 
 1 riiacdo, 85 a, et seq. 
 
THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 ^SCHYLUS. 
 
 ouToi, v6/xOv (J.T] ^xo''Tf5> iavTois elalv vofios' oirives ivdeiKWurai 
 TO ipyov Tou voiiov ypaiTTov iv rats Kupdiais avrCov. 
 
 Ep. ad lioM. ii. 14. 
 
 iaO^ 8irov TO 8eiu6v ed 
 
 Kal ^pevQv eirlaKoirov 
 
 dd fiiueiv KaO-qixevQV' 
 
 ^vfKpipei <TW(ppove'iv viro (TTivei. 
 
 EUMEN. 491. 
 
 TN reading the works of a Greek tragedian it is very 
 -*■ difficult to realize practically the circumstances 
 of their composition. Their similarity in form to 
 later dramas is constantly tending to hide their dif- 
 ference in idea ; and though otherwise a true under- 
 standing of the text is impossible, there is need of a 
 steady effort to feel that the play was essentially an 
 element of a religious rite : that those who took part 
 in its representation were for the time devoted to the 
 service of a god, and hallowed by his protection : that 
 the altar, in front of the stage on which it was acted, 
 
 4—2 
 
52 fHE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 was really destined for sacred use, and built on con- 
 secrated ground. The Greek theatre was indeed a 
 national temple; and, more than this, the tragic poets 
 were the national preachers. In the early days of 
 Athenian glory the teaching of philosophy was un- 
 heard or concealed. When it obtained a popular 
 voice in Socrates, his practical sagacity could not 
 save the strange doctrines from the condemnation of 
 impiety. Even when their influence was greatest, the 
 schools reached but a small section of the citizens : on 
 the general tone of thought and belief, their direct 
 influence was inconsiderable. The Athenian, the 
 typical Greek, received his characteristic training on 
 a grander field. His secular discipline came from 
 an active participation in the government of the 
 State ; his religious instruction — if we except the 
 initiation at Eleusis — from the sacred festivals, and 
 especially from the tragic representations at the Dio- 
 nysia. In a word, he learned the practice of life from 
 the debates of the public assembly; he learned the 
 theory of life from the poems of the theatre. 
 
 For it must ever be remembered that the Greek 
 tragedies were poems and not illusions : they were 
 interpretations and not pictures of life. The facts, 
 so to speak, were given; the business of the writer 
 was to explain their meaning and their lessons. The 
 outline of the plot was a familiar text; the filling up 
 was the sermon of the preacher. And so it is that 
 the remains of the Greek tragedians furnish a remark- 
 able picture of the history of popular religion during 
 
iESCHYLUS. 53 
 
 the period over which they reach. Or rather, when 
 we bear in mind the marvellous rapidity of the moral 
 and intellectual development of Athens in the fifth 
 century before our era, they shew the complete cycle 
 of forms of national religious thought, ending on the 
 one side in schools of philosophy which became more 
 and more estranged from the old belief, and on the 
 other side in the comedy of manners which was desti- 
 tute of all spiritual significance. 
 
 In this aspect, the position occupied by iEschylus 
 is of commanding interest \ He is the prophet of 
 Greek tragedy, as Sophocles is the artist, and Euri- 
 pides the realist. The succession of character is one 
 which reappears in every literature, but in this first 
 example it is most marked and most spontaneous. 
 Events are first viewed on their divine side, then on 
 the side of order or beauty, and lastly on the side of 
 nature. The same story which furnishes ^schylus 
 with an occasion for reconciling the claims of revenge 
 and forgiveness, the powers of earth and the powers of 
 heaven, furnishes Sophocles with a powerful dramatic 
 
 ^ The references to the plays are made throughout to 
 Mr Paley's ^Eschylus, "re-edited with an English Commen- 
 tary" (London, 1855), which has the signal merit (unless I 
 am mistaken) of being the first English edition of a Greek 
 tragedian in which the author is treated as a real poet. The 
 fragments are quoted from Dindorf 's Poetce Scenici. 
 
 Klausen's essay, Theologumena JEschyli Tragici, Berolini, 
 1829, is very full and instructive. He alone of the writers 
 whom I have consulted justly estimates the character of 
 Prometheus. 
 
54 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 study of female character, and Euripides with a 
 graceful picture of life. It is no reproach to the 
 later poets that they were different from the first. 
 The difference between the three was inevitable ; and 
 the respective value which is assigned to each of the 
 three views of life which they give will vary from age 
 to age. There is no supreme standard to which they 
 can be brought. Every critic will have a judgment 
 of his own. But to decide the question on absolute 
 principles would be as reasonable as to arrange on 
 the same method the colours of the rainbow in order 
 of beauty : for perfect light we need them all. 
 
 In his prophetic function, iEschylus stands in 
 relation to the fragmentary and inharmonious teach- 
 ings of antique rites and early religious traditions, as 
 we may believe Homer to have stood as a poet in 
 relation to the traditional ballads of a former genera- 
 tion. He takes up into his own teaching all that had 
 in it the element of divine life: he reconciles and 
 combines what had been separately and exclusively 
 wrought out before: he inspires — by the depth and 
 sincerity of his own faith, no less than by the gran- 
 deur of his genius — a spirit of unity into the whole 
 which he thus creates. The poems of Homer betray, 
 as we believe, the work of different hands: the reli- 
 gious teaching of ^schylus exhibits equally a diver- 
 sity of sources. His theology everywhere bears marks 
 of the conflict out of which it has arisen, and in two 
 of liis seven extant plays, he deals specifically with 
 the reconciliation of divine powers, which in some 
 
tESCHYLUS. 55 
 
 degree reason — in accordance with ancient legends — 
 represents as antagonistic. In this, indeed, his truest 
 prophetic work lay. It was his task to harmonize, as 
 best he might, the claims of fate and will, of law and 
 life, of God and man, in this present world ; to con- 
 nect suffering with sin, and strip guilt of the boast of 
 impunity; to indicate the majesty of Providence, and 
 the absolute wisdom of the Divine voice revealed in 
 appointed ways. 
 
 To fulfil this task ^schylus was fitted by great 
 external advantages. He was a native of Eleusis, 
 and so connected by his birth with the most solemn 
 mysteries of the Greek faith. He lived through the 
 great struggle with Persia, when gods and heroes were 
 still supposed to have fought on the side of Greece. 
 He belonged to a family of warriors. One brother, 
 the colleague of Miltiades, fell with signal glory at 
 Marathon ; another carried off the prize for bravery 
 at Salamis ; and he himself took part, not without 
 honourable wounds, in the battles of Marathon, 
 Salamis, and Plataese. His parents, moreover, were 
 noble, and so he was naturally connected with the 
 party of order and tradition, to whom reverence is a 
 ground of conviction, and interpretation the rule of 
 progress. Thus it was impossible that, being, born a 
 poet, he should not receive with a solemn awe all that 
 was consecrated by old belief; that he should not see 
 the action of gods everywhere, when he had witnessed 
 such marvels from their interposition ; that he should 
 not dwell upon the problems of retribution and the 
 
56 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 continuity of action, when he had lived through the 
 close of that great contest of the East and West, 
 which, according to ancient traditions, began with the 
 abduction of lo and Helen \ It does not fall within 
 our scope to discuss his genius. His writings shew 
 that that at least corresponded with his position. As 
 a religious poet, Dante alone stands by him; both 
 were children of their age, both were schooled in 
 sorrow, but both were above all that was merely 
 personal and local, and remain, to those who will read 
 them, prophets for all time. 
 
 II. 
 
 But though it is admitted that -ffischylus was 
 peculiarly qualified, by his historical and literary 
 position, to give an accurate and living portraiture of 
 Greek theology, it may be urged that his extant 
 tragedies are but a very imperfect fragment of his 
 actual works. Of ninety plays which he is said to 
 have written, only seven have been preserved, and 
 the remnants of his lost tragedies are comparatively 
 few and unimportant. It is indeed impossible to 
 estimate our loss. The first and last plays of the 
 Promethean trilogy, the "Niobe" and the "Ps5^cho- 
 stasia" (the Soul-weighing), would probably have 
 cleared up much that is now conjectural or obscure 
 
 1 This is brought out remarkably by the introduction with 
 which Herodotus opens his history : Herod, i. 1 — 5. 
 
iESCHYLUS. 57 
 
 as to his religious views; but on the other hand, the 
 selection of plays which remains is singularly rich. It 
 was apparently made of deliberate purpose out of a 
 larger number of extant tragedies; and both by its 
 variety and unity it is calculated to assure us that 
 the outline of the -ffischylean creed which it contains 
 is not deficient in any conspicuous article. 
 
 The manifoldness of the subjects of the >31schylean 
 tragedies prepares the way for the fulness of their 
 teaching. The " Prometheus " is purely mythical : 
 all the actors are divine, for lo is destined for divine 
 honours : the interest of the play is personal and 
 moral. The "Suppliants" brings us to the verge of 
 the heroic age : the gods take part in the action only 
 through the ordinances of their worship : the interest 
 of the play is national and religious. In the typical 
 heroic plays, the "Seven against Thebes" and the 
 "Orestea," we have the two great tragical legends of 
 Northern and Southern Greece drawn out in their 
 characteristic differences. In the former the State is 
 the centre, in the latter the family : the one closes 
 with death, the other with deliverance. Finally, in 
 the "Persians," a scene of contemporary history is 
 brought into clear relationship with mythical times. 
 "Whatever may have been the exact subjects of the 
 other plays with which it was grouped, it seems 
 certain that the object of the poet was to link the 
 events of his own day to the ages of gods and heroes, 
 and shew the fulfilment of a divine will in the actual 
 course of national fortunes. 
 
58 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 For however wide the field which ^schylus 
 covers, he sees all equally in the light of a divine 
 presence. Primitive myths, ancient traditions, his- 
 toric events, are alike regarded by him from a spiri- 
 tual point of sight. His view of life and society is in 
 every case theocratic ; and it is only by keeping this 
 truth steadily in view that we can gain the central 
 idea of his separate plays. No one of his tragedies is 
 complete in itself. A single episode, a single genera- 
 tion, was insufficient for the display of the dependence 
 of life upon life, and the moral infinitude of action, 
 which it was his design to exhibit. Thus he habi- 
 tually composed groups of three connected plays, 
 which gave full scope for the development of thought 
 and work. And so it happens that four of his seven 
 plays are really fragments of greater wholes. The 
 "Prometheus Bound," the "Suppliants," and the 
 "Persians," were the middle plays of trilogies; the 
 "Seven against Thebes" the concluding play\ In 
 the "Orestea" alone, and yet surely there in its most 
 complete grandeur, the full pattern of his mode of 
 treatment is visible. And from the "Orestea" we 
 can faintly imagine the outlines of the other trilogies, 
 of which parts only remain. 
 
 It would be out of place to attempt to give now any 
 detailed analysis of the tragedies. A slight indication 
 
 1 This is established, against the conjectures of earlier 
 scholars, by the express testimony of the Didascalioe given in 
 the Medicean manuscript. The other plays were Laius and 
 CEdipus. 
 
iESCHYLUS. 59 
 
 of the general conception of eacli will be enough to 
 show how ^schylus dealt with his materials, and in 
 what spirit he approached the interpretation of 
 national mythology. The "Prometheus" is neces- 
 sarily the foundation of his system, for it treats of 
 the original problem of life and revelation, the rela- 
 tion of the free will of a finite being to the supreme 
 will, of limited reason to divine wisdom, of their first 
 dissension, of their open antagonism, of their final 
 reconciliation. Unhappily the central piece of the 
 trilogy alone survives. We know little more of "Pro- 
 metheus the Firebearer" than the name: of "Prome- 
 theus Released," than the most meagre outline of the 
 plot. So it is that the "Prometheus Bound" is in 
 danger of being misunderstood. Throughout we are 
 spectators of what seems to be an undecided conflict. 
 There is no calm. From first to last the storms of 
 earth hide the clear light of heaven. While Zeus is 
 represented chiefly by the words of his adversaries, 
 Prometheus is represented by his own. We forget 
 that his sufferings were the consequence of an act of 
 faithless distrust in Zeus, and of disobedience to his 
 counsels. We forget again that his daring boasts 
 were afterwards exchanged for lamentations, and that 
 his threats against Zeus were mere idle vauntings. 
 For the time he appears as a martyr; but he was first 
 a rebel, and afterwards a pardoned subject. This 
 true view of his character is illustrated by the appear- 
 ance of lo, the second figure in the play. In Prome- 
 theus we have reason challenging Zeus: in lo, Zeus 
 
60 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 making himself known to men. The contact in both 
 cases brings for the present overwhelming suffering, 
 but in all other respects the fate of the two sufferers 
 is contrasted. Prometheus, strong in will and power, 
 has seized a divine boon; he is reckless of conse- 
 quences ; he forgets his own sufferings ; the conscious- 
 ness of his immortality assures him of final deliver- 
 ance: such is reason. lo has been the involuntary 
 recipient of divine fellowship ; she is lost in the great- 
 ness of her own suffering ; she has no self-dependence, 
 no foresight: such is feeling. And yet it was from 
 lo that the hero sprang by whose vicarious* sufferings 
 Prometheus was in due time delivered. The weak 
 woman w^as in the end stronger than the Titan ^ 
 
 The "Suppliants" is in every respect far simpler 
 in its structure. It is indeed little more than a 
 record of the reception of the daughters of Danaus, 
 descendants of lo, under the shelter of the gods of 
 Greece. Sought by their cousins in an unholy mar- 
 riage, they flee to Argos, and there make good their 
 claim to an inviolable sanctuary. There is no con- 
 trast or complexity of principles in the plot. The 
 whole interest of the play centres in the absolute 
 validity of external religious ordinances against self- 
 
 1 Prom. 1047. 
 
 2 One of the Greek commentators on the play notices that 
 the subject is treated episodically by Sophocles in one play, 
 and is not found in Euripides at all. The fact is itself a com- 
 mentarj-^ on the difference between the tragedians which has 
 been already pointed out. 
 
uESCHYLUS. 61 
 
 interest and force. The suppliant claims protection 
 with a divine right, and the right prevails. As the 
 complement to this view of what may be called the 
 power of external religion, the portraiture of Zeus 
 himself is singularly pure and majestic. In no other 
 play is he represented in more sublime and serene 
 grandeur; and he who appeared for a time in the 
 "Prometheus" as the betrayer of lo is here seen to 
 have wrought out blessings for men through her. 
 
 The *' Persians" has a singular interest. It is the 
 earliest extant Greek history, and it is a poem. It is 
 a record of one of the noblest achievements of human 
 courage, and the conception is wholly theological. 
 From the names of the other plays of the trilogy to 
 which it belonged', it seems certain that the triumph 
 of Greece over Persia was connected with ancient 
 prophecies of the time of the Argonauts, and probably 
 extended to the triumph of Greece over Carthage at 
 Himera^ The scope of the providential view of his- 
 tory would thus be more complete, but the play itself 
 preserves the full spirit of the treatment. The failure 
 of the Persians was due to the transgression of the 
 bounds which the gods had fixed to their empire. 
 The sovereignty of the sea was not for them^ The 
 destruction of their armies was a direct judgment for 
 their impiety. They had desecrated the temples of 
 Greece. And as if in mockery of human splendour, 
 
 1 Phineus and Glaucus Pontius (or Potnieus). 
 * Klausen, p. 81. Comp. iEsch., Tragm. 25. 
 » Peis. 102. 
 
62 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 the shade of Darius is called up to tell the tale, and 
 declare the lessons of humility. He is addressed as 
 a god, and his last words are, — And now 
 
 " I go beneath the gloom of earth below ; 
 But you be glad even in the midst of woes, 
 And give your souls to joy while it is day ; 
 For wealth, my friends, availeth not the dead." 
 
 The "Seven against Thebes" introduces us to a 
 new form of thought, the conflict of self-will with 
 national duties. Their relation to the State is the 
 test by which actions are weighed. Laius was warned 
 to save the State by dying childless ; and for a time 
 the sacrifice of Eteocles preserves it. It is only by 
 seizing this idea that we can enter into the catastro- 
 phe of the play rightly. Personally the claim of 
 Polynices was just : Eteocles broke a solemn compact 
 in retaining the sovereignty. But nationally his 
 attempt to secure his claim by violence, with the 
 help of strangers, was unnatural and impious. Eteo- 
 cles again, under the circumstances in which he was 
 placed, was right in defending his country to the 
 uttermost ; but in seeking to meet his brother face to 
 face he yielded to personal passion. The city was 
 saved and the brothers fell; but by the manner of 
 their death occasion was given for a fresh cycle of 
 woe. 
 
 Of the "Orestea" it is difficult to speak shortly. 
 No poet has ever drawn such another picture of 
 human selfishness and guilt, of divine judgment and 
 
 
mercy. Each play has its special burden, and so far 
 is complete in itself, and yet each is bound to the 
 others by a continuity of moral purpose. In the 
 "Agamemnon," human will is seen working out its 
 own designs, freely indeed, but with the shadow of 
 the curse behind. Paris indulges his impious pas- 
 sion ; Menelaus his unmanly uxoriousness ; Agamem- 
 non his inordinate ambition ; ^gisthus his cherished 
 hatred ; Cly temnestra her guilty love : and all succeed. 
 Each gains his selfish object, and by gaining it, opens 
 the way to his punishment. Even Cassandra — the 
 one remaining character — exhibits the working of the 
 same law. She had listened to the voice of Apollo 
 voluntarily, and deceived him. Her reward was to 
 know her fate and to be powerless to avert it. In 
 this her lot was the converse of that of lo. The 
 weakness of lo — the involuntary recipient of divine 
 love — issued in divine blessings : the strength of 
 Cassandra — the voluntary contemner of divine love — 
 issued in death. 
 
 "The Choephoroe" differs from the "Agamem- 
 non" in its whole conception. In the "Agamemnon" 
 man acts throughout of his own will. In the "Choe- 
 phoroe*' the action is at every point moulded by 
 divine interposition. Revelation pronounces on hu- 
 man duty, and man obeys in doubt and sorrow. 
 Thus the structure of the plot is simpler, but not 
 less subtle. Every point which marked the guilt of 
 Clytemnestra is reversed in the case of Orestes. She 
 acted simply from her own resolve; he by an express 
 
64 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 command: she had a guilty passion to gratify; he a 
 natural affection to conquer : she exults when the 
 deed is done; he is filled with remorse: she in her 
 blindness is ready to treat the old curse as satisfied ; 
 he looks forward to unknown sufferings : she enjoys a 
 present triumph; he is visited by present punishment: 
 and so the end is prepared; she dies, and he is 
 purified by sorrow and delivered by the gods. 
 
 This deliverance is the theme of the "Eumeni- 
 des;" and in this play again the action is divine. 
 Man throws himself wholly on the word revealed to 
 him, and his fellow-men are unable to pronounce a 
 judgment : their voices are equally divided. But the 
 god who destroyed Cassandra saves Orestes. The 
 divine counsel is justified by the divine wisdom. 
 And so it is that the special case of Orestes is merged, 
 at the end of the play, in the broader lesson which it 
 exhibited. Pallas not only restrains the action of the 
 avenging Erinyes, but converts them into beneficent 
 powers (Eumenides) ; and her victory is won, not by 
 force but by persuasion. The truth is an old one, 
 and yet perhaps it is not fully learnt yet. -ffischylus 
 could see that true worship and honour, the offerings 
 of a loyal and wise obedience, can convert into 
 sources of endless good the awful and inexorable laws 
 of the external world, whence come on him who does 
 them violence, untold plagues, and sufi'ering. 
 
 Such, in brief outline, appear to be the central 
 conceptions of the extant tragedies of jSIschylus. His 
 treatment of his subjects answers to their dignity, 
 
^SCHYLU^. 65 
 
 but of that nothing can be said now ; nothing of his 
 bold and pregnant language, which almost, like St 
 Paul's, breaks down beneath the pressure of thought 
 committed to it; nothing of the personal intensity of 
 his faith, which, like that of an old prophet, applies 
 to the present and the future the divine teaching of 
 the past; nothing of the personal devotion with which 
 he evidently bows himself before the beings whose 
 power he vindicates; nothing of the tragic irony, 
 more awful than that of Sophocles, with which he 
 draws the fate of the wicked; nothing of the uncon- 
 scious art by which he shews that pathos, no less than 
 sublimity, is within his reach. For the present we 
 listen to him simply as an exponent of religious 
 belief; and the sketch which has been given of his 
 position and his poems is sufficient to justify the 
 expectation that we may find in him the general 
 features of a theology consistent and tolerably com- 
 plete. 
 
 m. 
 
 The first characteristic, perhaps, of the ^schylean 
 theology which strikes a student is its true nationa- 
 lity ^ The gods of Greece were not less real divinities 
 
 1 Cicero's vague statement that ^Eschylus was "non poeta 
 solum, sed etiam Pythagoreus: sic enim accepimus" (Tusc. 
 ii. 10), if it refers at all to his religious opinions, rests on no 
 adequate authority, and is certainly not supported by internal 
 evidence. No passage characteristically Pythagorean can be 
 W.E. 5 
 
66 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 to ^schylus than tliey were to Homer, though they 
 are differently apprehended, -ffischylus approaches 
 them, not as a poet simply, who finds in old legends 
 ornaments for his work, — nor as a philosopher, who 
 uses a popular phraseology to veil new teaching, — 
 but as a devout believer, tracing out in life the reali- 
 zation of his faith. The sacred names which he uses, 
 are spoken with heartfelt reverence. The sublime 
 powers which he invokes are adored with genuine 
 awe. According to an early and constant tradition he 
 was accused of publishing the Eleusinian mysteries; 
 and, strange as it may seem, the charge is in itself 
 likely to be true. For him divine mysteries were 
 "open secrets." He lived face to face with them, 
 and they became axioms of life. For while he is a 
 believer he is a poet and a prophet too. He looks 
 beneath the manifold to the one : he translates, un- 
 consciously it may be, the symbol into the lesson. 
 He receives the common creed of his Athenian 
 countrymen, embodied in conflicting stories aud rival 
 ceremonies, and he gives it back again simplified and 
 harmonized. In his tragedies the will and destiny of 
 man are reconciled with the claims of sovereign jus- 
 tice. The conflicts of the gods are traced to the 
 necessary development of partial and imperfect attri- 
 butes. The hierarchy of Olyinpus is marshalled in a 
 noble order; and far above all weakness and change 
 
 pointed out in his writings; and, on the coniarary, his whole 
 teaching on a future state is eminently un -Pythagorean. 
 
uESCHYLUS. 67 
 
 Zeus is throned supreme, whose will is Right, and 
 whose name is the Saviour ^ 
 
 But these results are not gained by an arbitrary 
 eclecticism. On the contrary, the fulness of Greek 
 polytheism is nowhere more clearly seen than in 
 JSschylus^ His work, as he seems to have under- 
 stood it, was to reconcile and combine the conflicting 
 factors of fate and will of which life is made up — the 
 ofifspring of earth and the olBfspring of heaven, — and 
 not to ignore their antagonism, or suppress either 
 element in the great battle.' This he does even in 
 the earliest view which he opens of the dynasties of 
 heaven. Like a true Greek, he sees in the celestial 
 world the progress which he observes on earth. There 
 was a time when Zeus was not yet king. But under 
 his treatment the successive sovereignties of Uranus 
 and Cronus and Zeus are a noble parable of the 
 history of natural religious thought. The cycle of 
 change was inevitable, and its lessons fruitful to the 
 latest time. 
 
 Far back in the earliest ages, Uranus (Heaven) was 
 supreme. This was the first instinctive embodiment 
 of power. Men bowed themselves before the vast, 
 silent, changeless expanse which covered them. But 
 such a worship was soon supplanted by one more 
 definite. The progeny of Uranus and Gaia (Earth), 
 the manifestations of the forces of nature in their 
 
 1 The character of Zeus the Saviour is well brought out by 
 Miiller, Dissertations on the Eumenides, § 94 (Eng. Tr.). 
 
 2 Klausen, p. 5. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 fullest activity, succeeded to the homage of mortals. 
 The ancient ocean, the towering Atlas — which bore 
 heaven upon its shoulders, — the fiery volcano, the wild 
 storm, and all the brood of the Titans, with Cronus 
 at their head, were acknowledged as divine \ And 
 then was a time of strife and anarchy. The gods 
 themselves were divided. But meantime Earth, their 
 mother, revealed a nobler lesson, for she gave birth to 
 Themis (Right), by whose voice it was declared that 
 the \dctory should be decided by wisdom and not by 
 might. The Titans were deaf to her warnings. "No 
 power, they thought, could shake their rule of force," 
 and so they fell in turn. The cycle was at length 
 complete. Zeus, the son of Cronus, welcomed the 
 counsels of prudence, and seized the sceptre which 
 was offered him. The powers of nature were bound ^; 
 strength and force were made subject to will'; and a 
 sway of sovereign reason was established, rising out 
 of, and yet above, the grandest displays of physical 
 energy*. 
 
 In the portraiture of this reign of Zeus ^schylus 
 uses language of Eastern sublimity. Zeus is "Prince 
 of princes, most blessed of the blessed*," ^'Sovereign 
 of eternity^" "Almighty Father^," "the cause and 
 worker of all things"," "He who seeth allV 
 
 1 Prom. 356 et seq. ; 432 et seq. Suppl. 554. 
 
 2 Prom. 227. ^ Prom. 1 et seq. 
 * Ibid. 205, et seq.; comp. 978. ^ Suppl. 518. 
 " Ibid. 568. ^ S. c. Th. Ill; comp. Eum. 878. 
 8 Ag. 1461. » Eum. 999. 
 
iESCHYLUS. 69 
 
 cible*;" "His mind is an unplumbed abyss V' "His 
 providence bums everywhere as a great light, even 
 amidst the darkness of human life : his counsels meet 
 with no reverse : but tangled and dark are the ways 
 of his thoughts, inscrutable to mortal eye. He needs 
 no arms of force to work his purpose. Seated afar 
 upon his holy throne he carries it to its issue. For 
 him the word and work are one^." And so it is that in 
 life all is rightly referred to him, victory and defeat, 
 the decision of the wavering council, the distribution 
 of national power^ He "alone is free;" and "the 
 harmonious order of the worlds which he has fixed no 
 human plans can violate ^" 
 
 Nothing can be plainer than that the supremacy 
 of a Divine Will is affirmed here in every phrase ; and 
 yet it is commonly supposed that ^schylus placed a 
 fate above Zeus to which he himself was subject. 
 The difficulty is started by Prometheus, but the true 
 answer is indicated at the same time. "Zeus has no 
 refuge from the law of Fate," Prometheus says, when 
 he looks forward to his illusory vengeance, and the 
 Chorus answers, "Well, what is fated but his endless 
 reign?" The Fates themselves draw their power from 
 him*. Fate is, indeed, but another name for the will 
 of Zeus. "That which is fated will most surely be: 
 
 1 S. c. Th. 509. 2 Suppi. 1043. 
 
 3 Suppl. 81 et seq.; 588. The first passage is one of sublime 
 grandeur in the original. 
 
 4 Ag. 564; Pars. 534; Suppl. 617; Pers. 758. 
 6 Prom. 50, 561. « Ch. 288. 
 
70 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 no power can thwart the mighty will of Zeus*/* The 
 very commonest words for fate, — /xotpa, the lot as- 
 signed ; alo-a, fatum, the voice uttered, — bear witness 
 to its dependence on a personal will : and yet, when 
 once the allotment is made and the word spoken, 
 both, in a certain sense, work of themselves, and may 
 be contemplated apart from their first source. Thus 
 it comes to pass that there may be conflicting Fates, 
 since there are distinct orders of beings with charac- 
 teristic functions and powers. One law of life may 
 cross another, as indeed all life is made up of antago- 
 nisms, and the issue in such a case will be the 
 resultant of the forces which severally work their full 
 effect. A higher fate — a wider and more comprehen- 
 sive law — must keep in check that which is lower 
 and more personal, and so in the end the will of 
 Zeus, which includes in itself the separate action of 
 every other will, is finally accomplished^. This aspect 
 of fate is further illustrated by the corresponding 
 relation of Zeus to Justice. From one side Zeus 
 "holds the principle of right alone;" "he rules by 
 laws which are of his own making." When the judge 
 is called upon to decide as sworn to administer the 
 right, he is reminded that "an oath is not of greater 
 force than Zeus," if it can be shewn that his wiU is 
 against human conclusions^. And yet, on the other 
 hand, "he gives efTect to fate by law hoary with age." 
 
 1 Suppl. 1033. 2 Ag. 993. 
 
 » Prom. 194, 411. Eum. 521. 
 
iRSCHYLUS. 71 
 
 His award is unfailingly just : he judges by the truth 
 of things, and not by the pleadings of a skilful advo- 
 cate. His will is just, and so it may be said that "in 
 one sense he cannot help the wicked \" 
 
 While Zeus, whose simple will is law and truth, 
 rules in unapproached majesty, other divine powers 
 attend his court, as Prometheus scornfully says^ and 
 minister to the fulfilment of his counsels. Two stand 
 out beyond all others, — Pallas Athenfe, the embodi- 
 ment of Divine wisdom, and Phoebus Apollo, the 
 representative and organ of Divine revelation ^ But 
 both derive their authority from Zeus alone. "I trust 
 in Zeus," "Zeus gave me wisdom," are the springs 
 from which Pallas draws her arguments to soothe the 
 Furies ; and nowhere has an ancient poet drawn a 
 nobler figure than that in which the goddess is pre- 
 sented in the "Eumenides," — spotlessly pure, and yet 
 tender to the guilty ; confident in right and strength, 
 and yet gentle and conciHatory to her angry antago- 
 nists ; trusted by all, and in the end blest by all, for 
 "her sire regards those sheltered by her wings*." The 
 
 1 Supp. 657, 396. Ag. 786. Ch. 945. 
 
 2 Prom. 121. 
 
 3 Mr Gladstone has pointed out at considerable length 
 {Homeric Studies, ii. 139 et seq.) the similar position which 
 these deities occupy in the Homeric Olympus ; but the suppo- 
 sition that they embody "the disintegrated elements of a 
 primitive tradition" is opposed equally to all probability and 
 to the actual history of revelation. 
 
 « Eum. 790, 812, 952, &c. 
 
72 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 character of Apollo is more complex, but as he ap- 
 pears in the " Orestea/' where his character is most 
 fully drawn, he is the voice of his father's counsels 
 (Loxias). Thus it was that he charged Orestes with 
 his terrible mission, and, when he looks back upon 
 the sorrow wrought by its enforced accomplishment, 
 and addresses those to whom the final judgment upon 
 the righteousness of the deed was confided, pleads, 
 as if he could of himself go no further nor pronounce 
 an opinion upon it, — 
 
 '' "I never spake, in my prophetic seat, 
 
 Of man, of woman, or of state one word 
 Save what Zeus bade, sire of the gods above. 
 How strong this plea I straitly bid you learn, 
 And follow trustfully the Father's will. 
 An oath is not of greater force than Zeus^." 
 
 And when he has said this he commits to Divine 
 wisdom (Pallas) the justification of the Divine word. 
 
 Zeus the Saviour, Pallas, and Loxias (Apollo) 
 thus combine to represent Providence active for man, 
 guiding him amidst the conflict of duties, and deliver- 
 ing him in the last extremity of need. To them one 
 other deity must be added, Hermes, the messenger 
 between the realms of light and darkness, between the 
 gods of heaven (Olympian) and the gods of earth 
 (Chthonian). For though the Titanic earthborn 
 powers were subdued by Zeus, they were not de- 
 stroyed. The inexorable requirements of natural law 
 
 1 Eum, 586. Comp, Eum. 19 j Fragm. 79 (Dindf.). 
 
iESCHYLUS. 73 
 
 were modified but not removed by the sovereignty of 
 supreme intelligence. The antagonism between the 
 tyranny of material forces and the counsels of divine 
 mercy and benevolence was still necessarily un- 
 changed, even when the question of supremacy was 
 decided; and ^schylus delights to represent the 
 gradual process by which the antagonism itself was 
 reduced to the separate exertion of distinct and com- 
 plementary prerogatives, by powers which consciously 
 or unconsciously wrought out one end. Thus, in a 
 passage of deep significance, he traces the successive 
 steps in the history of revelation, as it passed from 
 the Chthonian to the Olympian powers. Earth her- 
 self was the first prophet. In the simplest pheno- 
 mena of nature she first spoke to men of the Divine 
 character and will. As time went on she gave place 
 to Right (Themis), a daughter who was born to her; 
 for the teaching of society and life carries us forward 
 in the knowledge of God. Right in turn gave place 
 to a (younger) sister Phoebe, the embodiment of light, 
 the symbol of spiritual intelligence. With her minis- 
 try the office of the earthly powers was fulfilled, and 
 she transferred her charge, not by claim of succession 
 but as a voluntary offering, to the bright God of 
 heaven, Phoebus, who himself adopted her name for 
 his own\ The transition from the higher to the 
 
 1 "First in my prayer I honour of the gods 
 The Earth, first prophetess; and Themis next, 
 Who second sat upon her mother's throne 
 Of prophecy, as legends tellj and third, 
 
74 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET 
 
 ^ 
 
 lower powers and forms of thought, which is unmis- 
 takable in this pregnant passage, may be seen also in 
 the ^schylean view of Prometheus and of the Erinyes. 
 The struggle of finite reason (Prometheus) against 
 the supreme will is necessarily grand and tragic. In 
 what exact mode the contest was brought to an issue 
 we cannot now tell. The end alone is clear. Prome- 
 theus gained his deliverance, through a suffering son 
 of Zeus, and ministered to the power which he had 
 defied. The Titans, according to the poetic imagery, 
 were no longer crushed and tortured, but placed in 
 the islands of the happy in the enjoyment of perfect 
 earthly bliss \ Under the completed sway of Zeus 
 the once rebellious powers of nature become genial 
 and beneficent. The reconciliation of the Erinyes to 
 the "new gods*" is the subject of the close of the 
 "Eumenides," and Pallas is naturally the deity by 
 whom it is effected. Their divine power is acknow- 
 ledged, and placed above the questionings of men. 
 In part they are established as the representatives of 
 conscience, in part as the fulfiUers of material law. 
 It is by the voice of divine wisdom only that a limit 
 
 By her good will, and not by violence, 
 Another Titaness, Earth's daughter, came, 
 Phoebe, who gave the power a birthday gift 
 To Phoebus, who bears Phoebe's name new-formed." 
 
 Eum. 1 et seq. 
 
 1 Comp. Fragm. 177—8. 
 
 2 The title is one which Prometheus and the Erinyes use 
 of the Olympian dynasty, by which their power was subdued. 
 (Prom. 154, 412. Eum. 156, 748.) 
 
AESCHYLUS. 75 
 
 is placed to their vengeance and their working. For 
 the rest, they are recognised as having an inevitable 
 power over the prosperity of men ; they are honoured 
 in all the crises of life; they are received as compa- 
 nions of Pallas herself. The immortals (Olympian 
 gods) admit their influence*. Terrible and loathsome 
 though they are, children of the night and dwellers 
 in subterranean gloom, they yet obtain the reverence 
 and offerings and even the love of men*. In human 
 worship the awful goddesses of inexorable retribution 
 are seated beside the Zeus-born goddess of wisdom. 
 
 But none the less the nether world remains ter- 
 rible and dark, "untrodden by Apollo, and sunless," 
 tenanted by empty shades and dread curses, ready to 
 take shape and torment the living^. Hermes alone of 
 the Olympians is in office a Chthonian deity also, 
 "herald of gods above and gods below''," the con- 
 ductor of the dead, the furtherer of righteous ven- 
 geance, the guide of the victim of the Erinyes*. For 
 the rest, the realms of light and gloom are wholly 
 separate. It is on earth that their powers meet, 
 and in the fortunes of man that the nature of the 
 Chthonian gods is best seen". 
 
 1 Eum. 762, 798, 855, 876, 910. 
 
 2 Ibid. 861. 
 
 3 S. c. Th. 853. Ch. 397. Eum. 395. Comp. S. c. Th. 
 69 et seq. Ch. 467. 
 
 4 Ch. 1, 117. 5 j5id. 611^ 796. Eum. 89. 
 
 8 Yet it must be noticed that the offerings to the Chthonian 
 powers — milk and honey, and wine and olives, and "woven 
 
76 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET 
 
 IV. 
 
 The picture which Prometheus draws of the con- 
 dition of men at the close of the Titanic rule is that 
 of helpless savages. Zeus, he says, proposed to 
 destroy them and give birth to a new race, when he 
 ordered his kingdom. This plan, however, was not 
 carried out. By the gifts of hope and fire, and the 
 common arts of life, Prometheus rescued them from 
 their impending fate, and Zeus himself deigned to 
 sanction the working of the blessings among men 
 while he punished their author for his disloyalty. 
 Yet it is remarkable that the highest endowments of 
 man, which spring from the development of his moral 
 and spiritual powers, are in no degree assigned to 
 Prometheus. These appear to have been derived 
 directly from Zeus, who, in course of time, sought 
 fellowship with the children of earth. Such inter- 
 course was for the moment full of suffering to its 
 immediate object, for the divine can only be appre- 
 hended by mortals with toil and pain ; but so heroes 
 were born, and with them heroic virtues became part 
 of the human heritage. In virtue of that old com- 
 panionship, the wise "held their place hard by the 
 side of Zeus." They could face their destiny in 
 memory of those from whom they were sprung, — 
 
 flowers, children of fruitful Earth" — bear witness to a time 
 when they were worshipped as the spontaneous givers of plenty, 
 and not the inexorable ministers of law (Pers. 611). 
 
^SCHYLUS. 77 
 
 " Men close akin to gods, men near to Zeus ; . . . 
 Men from whose veins the blood of deities 
 Was not yet wholly drained." 
 
 And such are the men whom -ffischylus represents. 
 The presence of a divine capacity and power in his 
 characters is never wholly hidden by wilfulness and 
 sin. The passions and temptations with which he 
 deals are of overwhelming magnitude ; the situations 
 which he plans are of terrible grandeur; the persons 
 whom he exhibits are gigantic: but yet there are 
 present everywhere the two conflicting elements of 
 fate and will, out of which all action rises. The scale 
 of representation is magnified, but the moral, when 
 reduced to its simplest principles, is that of common 
 experience. The life is human life, though the actors 
 are heroes. 
 
 It is commonly said, that the key to the moral 
 understanding of the tragedies of ^schylus is the 
 recognition of an inflexible fate, by which families are 
 doomed to destruction, without regard to the guilt or 
 innocence of the victims. If this were true their 
 highest value would be lost. But in fact the state- 
 ment is as false to ^schylus as it is to life. All life 
 includes the element of fate and circumstance as well 
 as the element of will and choice. The traditions 
 and beliefs in which we are reared, the memories 
 which we inherit, the tendencies and impulses which 
 go to form our character, the reputation in which we 
 are held for the deeds of others who belong to us, all 
 lie out of our power. If we allow our thoughts to 
 
78 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET 
 
 4 
 
 rest on these only, we can conclude that we are mere 
 puppets, whose conduct is determined by the action 
 of forces wholly external. But if we look within, 
 there is the consciousness of responsibility, the sense 
 of victory and defeat, the energy of opposition, which 
 by its elasticity and continuance bears witness at 
 least to the possibility of success, — in a word, the 
 intuition of personality, which supplies a power not 
 less strong than circumstance, by which we know 
 that our life is a struggle and not an evolution of 
 consequences, that if its purpose fails we are over- 
 come. And thus it is that JEschylus paints life. He 
 sets fate by the side of will, and lets them work. 
 Before our own eyes, fate, or as we say circumstance, 
 constantly prevails over infirmity of will, — more 
 rarely, an heroic will recognises its work and achieves 
 it. A first sin is swelled by neglect to reckless infa- 
 tuation; an inheritance of sorrow crushes the selfish 
 sufi'erer who rejects the discipline of woe ; a noble soul 
 trustfully obeys the voice of divine warning, and 
 wisdom is justified in the issue. This is the teaching 
 of ^schylus, and the teaching of natural experience. 
 For us indeed the area of life is widened; the faint 
 lights of an earthly government of God grow into the 
 brightness of a kingdom of heaven ; the strength of 
 man is perfected by fellowship with a divine Re- 
 deemer; but none the less we can see in the Greek 
 poet the outlines of the never-ending conflict of man 
 with evil, and marvel at the invincible constancy 
 with which he holds his faith in the sure supremacy 
 
^SCHYLUS. 79 
 
 of good, even when he looked upon the region beyond 
 the grave as shrouded in dismal gloom, and felt the 
 littleness of each single life. 
 
 Personal will then is, according to ^schylus, the 
 spring of the first sin, and the occasion of the after 
 manifestation of its malignant consequences. "Self- 
 willed arrogance," — the source of crime and ruin, — 
 
 "is in very truth 
 The child of godlessness ; but wealth, which all 
 Love and pursue with many a prayer, takes birth 
 From a sound, honest heart i." 
 
 When the Erinyes, the appointed ministers of 
 just vengeance, chant the dismal strain which 
 : - declares their power among men, they say, — 
 
 " We boast to be unswerving from the right : 
 No wrath from us assails with silent stroke 
 The man who holds to view unstained hands, 
 And free from harm he spends his term of years. 
 But to the man who after dread offence 
 Would fain conceal from sight hands red with gore, 
 Rendering an upright witness to the dead, 
 We shew ourselves exacting blood for blood. 
 Till the full debt be paid^." 
 
 It had been said in old time that simple prosperity 
 left a disastrous progeny of woe behind: the poet 
 adds, — 
 
 "But I think otherwise, though all alone. 
 It is the impious deed which leaves behind 
 
 1 Eum. 506. 2 Eum. 303. 
 
80 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 A numerous brood, like to the parent stock; 
 For aye the lot of righteous homes lives on 
 In noble issues." 
 
 Elsewhere arrogance is said to breed arrogance 
 worse than itself, and the pride of full prosperity and 
 unholy daring. But meanwhile justice sheds her 
 light in smoky cottages, where content dwells, and 
 leaves with averted eyes the gilded palaces of the 
 wicked, and guides everything to its end \ 
 
 "He shall not be unblest who of free will, 
 Without constraint, is just ; nor could he be 
 O'erthrown in utter ruin 2." 
 
 The language is clear. Victorious evil implies per- 
 sonal guilt. An appeal to fate is no justification of a 
 crimed 
 
 There is, however, another aspect of evil. The 
 evil which has been once evoked works on. There is, 
 so to speak, a conservation of moral forces. The law 
 of equal retribution for men and states is inexorable, 
 *' That he who did should suffer is an immemorial pro- 
 verb\" The guilty house must bear its own burden, 
 and find its remedy within \ The nation must receive 
 the exact measure of its evil deeds ^ There is no 
 sure rest till the whole debt is paid. While the trace 
 of guilt remains, the Erinyes call Havoc to the work 
 of vengeance. A hideous revel band occupies the 
 
 1 Ag. 727. 2 Emn. 621. ^ ch. 896. 
 
 4 Ibid. 305. Ag. 1540. Comp. Fragm. 267; Eum. 935. 
 
 « Ch. 462. « Persae, 809. Comp. Suppl. 427. 
 
iESCHYLUS. 81 
 
 polluted house. Drunk with blood, and not with 
 wine, they refuse to go from beneath its roof; and 
 instead of the joyous song they chant the sad story 
 of the primal woe \ 
 
 For the guardianship of the laws of retribution is 
 committed to appointed ministers. These are neces- 
 sarily Chthonian powers, for, as has been seen, it is 
 in them that we must look for the enforcement of 
 natural laws, which, indeed, they symbolized. Till 
 they are evoked, these have no power; but when once 
 aroused, they are irresistible till their work is done. 
 Nor, on the other hand, can they refuse their aid 
 against the wrong-doer. At one time the impious 
 deed alone arms them with power''; at another time 
 they are called to action by the curse of him who has 
 been wronged. Thus the curse of Thyestes first 
 roused the evil genius of the house of Agamemnon, 
 and the curse of (Edipus gave occasion to the death 
 of his sons. In one aspect the Erinys itself is a per- 
 sonification of the curse, — the will for vengeance 
 embodied, as it were, at once by the expression of it, 
 — and so it is even identified with the phantom of the 
 dead. When the Chorus looks upon "the trophy of 
 calamity" raised over Eteocles and Polynices, its 
 refrain of lamentation is simply, — 
 
 " Fate, giver of woe, 
 Woe fraught, O awful shade of (Edipus, 
 Thou dark Erinys, mighty is thy power ^" 
 1 Ch. 391. Ag. 1157. 2 suppi, C34. 
 
 3 S. c. Th. 972, 988. Comp. 70, 720. 
 W. B. 6 
 
82 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 But more frequently the Erinys has a distinct exist- 
 ence. It is like a foul bird defiling the roof on which 
 it sits. It rends with its claw the victim consigned 
 to its power. It perches on the body of the dead, 
 and sings exultingly its strain of victory. Or with a 
 more terrible significance, it is described as incorpo- 
 rate in the person of a guilty avenger, and working 
 thus the requital of the past\ 
 
 But none the less the power of evil prevails only 
 according to the personal character of him against 
 whom it is directed. It is finally triumphant only 
 over those whose sin is mortal. In every instance 
 where ^schylus describes ruin, he distinctly marks 
 the special guilt which merited it, whether the ofi'en- 
 ders were nations or men. Xerxes prepared the way 
 for his disaster by neglecting the limits which Provi- 
 dence had fixed for his rule ; the Persians were con- 
 demned for their desecration of the Greek sanctuaries. 
 Paris had violated the sacred laws of hospitality : the 
 Trojans had made his sin their own. Agamemnon, 
 in spite of divine warnings, had preferred his schemes 
 of selfish ambition and glory to the sacred duties of 
 family: the Greeks were involved in guilt by their 
 reckless and impious vengeance on the conquered 
 city^ Thrice Apollo had warned Laius to save the 
 State by dying childless. Cl3d;emnestra was stained 
 by an unholy passion before she sought retribution 
 
 1 Suppl. 636. Ag. 1639 (xv^v)- 1448, 1475. 
 
 2 Pers. 102, 803. Ag. 353, 685. Hid. 205, 510 (comp. 329). 
 
 / 
 
^SCHTLUS. 83 
 
 for her daughter's death. But nowhere is the great 
 truth so clearly brought out as in the contrasted fates 
 of Eteocles and Orestes. Both receive a terrible inhe- 
 ritance; both are placed in a position of unnatural 
 horror; both slay their nearest kin : but Eteocles dies, 
 and Orestes is restored to his ancestral throne. Yet 
 the catastrophe in each case is prepared from the 
 beginning. Eteocles accepts his fate with a hard and 
 proud indifference. He asks for no relief, no guid- 
 ance. For the State he prays half-scornfuUy, and 
 the State is saved ; but for himself he offers no 
 prayer. He rejects the entreaties of the Chorus to 
 seek help from Heaven : — 
 
 " The gods long since have left us to our fate : 
 One gift alone they prize from us — our death. . . . 
 Nay, since Heaven hastens on the deed amain, 
 Let the whole Laian race, which Phoebus hates, 
 Before the wind speed down the stream of woe. . . . 
 For my dear father's bitter, fatal curse. 
 Sits ever o'er my dry and tearless eyes, 
 Warning me death is better soon than late." 
 
 He surrenders himself to a mad pride, and finally 
 regards the prospect of fratricide as a last hope of 
 triumph \ Orestes, on the other hand, feels the full 
 terror of the task before him, and shrinks from fulfil- 
 ling it. Again and again he assures himself of the 
 reality of the divine message by which it was imposed. 
 At each crisis of action he wavers till the voice of Phoe- 
 
 1 S. c. Th. 76, 264, 686, 692, 699, 716. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 bus makes itself heard. Before the fatal moment, Pyla- 
 des, his mute companion, speaks once, and this once 
 only, to renew the divine sanction of the deed, being by 
 birth marked out as a minister of the god': "Hold 
 all to be thy foes before the gods," for their counsels 
 in the end will be justified. And when the paroxysms 
 of grief had come, and the Erinyes had wrought their 
 worst, he still reposes in faithful trust in the wisdom 
 of the counsel of Phoebus: "So far I am contented 
 with my lot." Before the judges he has but one plea, 
 the command of Apollo ; and when he is set free, his 
 deliverance is acknowledged as the work of Pallas and 
 Loxias and Zeus the Saviour. Death comes where 
 rebellious wilfulness goes before ; but for the obedient 
 and believing, the gods bring light, even from the 
 thickest gloom ^ 
 
 A sin, then, according to -ffischylus, when once 
 admitted, must bear to the full its bitter fruit, though 
 the power of individual will modifies its action. No 
 sooner is the crime committed than fate prepares an 
 instrument for retribution, forged ready beforehand 
 for justice to use when the time shall come*. But 
 the ways of divine Providence are mysterious, though 
 the end is reached in time, it may be in the broad 
 light of day, or in the evening twilight, or in the 
 night\ And herein lies a terrible irony of justice. 
 
 ^ As Miiller well remarks, § 47. 
 
 2 Oh. 261, 545, 886. Bum. 566, 581, 727. 
 
 3 Ag. 1513. Ch. 634. Oomp. Ag. 1400; Ch. 997. 
 
 4 Ch. 53. 
 
iESCHYLUS. 85 
 
 A man may become callous to the teachings of 
 sorrow, and the last punishment is that he is left to 
 himself \ An unholy boldness prompts him to new 
 crimes, and with iiTesistible violence he is carried 
 along with the presumptuous confidence of impunity. 
 Then it is that — 
 
 "Evil comes swift-footed in its course, 
 And sin to him who violates the right:" 
 
 Then it is that — 
 
 "Pollution, like a cloud, hangs o'er a man. 
 And folly hides the knowledge of his fall : " 
 
 Then it is that — 
 
 "Heaven begets occasion to mankind, 
 When it will wholly 'whelm a house in woe 2." 
 
 At last the storm breaks, and in the wreck of his 
 fortunes the miserable victim calls on those who do 
 not hear. For the deity laughs over the headstrong 
 man when he is exhausted by helpless woes, in spite 
 of his arrogant boasting, and he perishes for ever, 
 unwept and unremembered^. 
 
 ^ Some acts also are inexpiable but by death: Ag. 387. 
 S. c. Th. 677. Comp. Ch. 41, 58. 
 
 2 Fragm. 268. Eum. 355. Fragm. 151. The last passage 
 is quoted by Plato (Besp. ii. 380 a) with great disapprobation, 
 but it is undoubtedly to be interpreted of Providence furnishing 
 the wilful man with the occasion of self-destruction, and not 
 of the predestined destruction of the innocent. 
 
 3 Ag. 215, 376. Eum. 623. 
 
86 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 By these signal examples the gods shew the fatal 
 issues of indulged selfishness; but commonly the 
 discipline of life holds men back from the last fall. 
 As retribution comes from crime, so learning comes 
 from suffering. Nor can the weakness of human 
 nature dispense with the salutary discipline of 
 fear : — 
 
 "There is a time when awe must sit enthroned 
 And watch our thoughts. 'Tis well for men to learn 
 Self-conquest in the school of suffering." 
 
 Without this solemn dread, neither citizen nor State 
 would regard justice as they do'. By experience 
 justice brings to the guilty a knowledge of their fault ; 
 and thus the lesson of suffering opens the source from 
 which it springs, and averts its bitterest end. He 
 who has felt the anger of avenging powers knows 
 whence the blows of life come, and by timely submis- 
 sion escapes the heaviest fall. For else the sins of 
 former times consign him in his pride to the ministers 
 of death, and he perishes in silent ruin''. In part, 
 this fruitfulness of sorrow is the natural result of law, 
 springing up as the necessary sequence of enforced 
 reflection ; but still more it is due to the wise coun- 
 sels of Zeus, who tempers the affliction to its end, 
 and, by merciful constraint, compels mortals to think. 
 For he it is who — 
 
 "Guides men to wise thought, 
 And makes and clothes with sovereign power the law, 
 
 1 Eum. 491. 8 Ibid. 890. 
 
^SCHYLUS. 87 
 
 'By suffering learning.' Drop by drop in sleep 
 Remembered sorrows trickle by the heart, 
 And men against their will learn self-control. 
 For 'tis in truth a grace the gods bestow, 
 Throned on their awful seats with power to force i." 
 
 V. 
 
 Stern and severely just as this view of human life 
 is, with retribution ever dogging sin, and sleepless 
 avengers exacting its uttermost penalty; with deceit- 
 ful prosperity hurrying the guilty to helpless ruin, 
 and suffering alone raising the penitent to wisdom 
 and mastery of self, it has no relief from the opening 
 prospect of a life beyond the grave, -ffischylus has 
 not one word of true hope for a future state, not one 
 image of another field of labour, where the character 
 trained by sorrow here shall find exercise for its 
 chastened power. It is scarcely too much to say, 
 that for him the other world, and the powers by 
 which it is governed, exist only for the guilty. There 
 remains an awful and just punishment for all who 
 sinned in life against God, or strangers, or parents : — 
 
 "For Hades is a stern inquisitor 
 Of men beneath the earth, and views their deeds, 
 And writes them in the tablets of his mind.... 
 The lewd offender shall not, when he dies, 
 Escape arraignment in the shades below. 
 
 1 Ag. 170. 
 
88 THE DRAMATIST AS PKOPHET: 
 
 Even there, another Zeus, as legends tell, 
 Gives final judgment on the crimes of men." 
 
 I 
 
 And so it comes to pass that the retribution is 
 completed there which the Erinyes had begun on 
 earth'. 
 
 Before this final judgment, the injured dead them- 
 selves have some power to bring about their own 
 satisfaction. The resentment of the dead outlives 
 the funeral pyre, and shews itself in after time^. The 
 "awful shade of CEdipus" is placed in closest paral- 
 lelism with the Erinys which works his curse on 
 earth ^. The anger of Agamemnon, revealed in por- 
 tentous dreams, opens the ways to the vengeance of 
 Orestes. The shade of Clytemnestra, pointing to her 
 wounded breast, rouses the Erinyes to their office of 
 torture. Orestes himself, when he assures the Athe- 
 nians of the alliance of Argos through all time, in 
 gratitude for his deliverance, threatens that 
 
 "he will make 
 Those who transgress the tenor of his oath, 
 Though at that time a tenant of the grave, 
 Eepent them of their toil by ill-success, 
 Disheartening marches, and disastrous ways*." 
 
 But even so, the power of the dead depends, in a 
 great measure, upon the S5'inpathy of the living. The 
 impunity of Orestes upon earth was disgrace and 
 
 1 Eum. 268. Suppl. 226. Eum. 320, 166. 
 
 2 Ch. 315. 3 S. c. Th. 974. * Eum. 737. 
 
^SCHYLUS. 89 
 
 dishonour to Clytemnestra. His unceasing punish- 
 ment was to her "a matter of life or deaths" The 
 neglect of those above moved Agamemnon to express 
 his discontent. Offerings and prayers gladdened and 
 strengthened the shadowy phantoms which alone 
 survived I But only the voice of loud and constant 
 lamentation could reach their dulled ear and dark- 
 ened mind'; and from one passage it appears that 
 some fellow-feeling with the suppliant was required 
 to touch the dead with sense*. 
 
 Apart from this prerogative of retribution, which 
 the dead derive directly from their connection with 
 the Chthonian powers, their whole state is cold and 
 dreary. Death is said to be freed from woes, but 
 only so far as it is void of all feeling; "the dead have 
 lost the very wish ever to rise again ^." They sleep 
 "in light which is not light, but darkness visible^" 
 The semblance of ancient dignities remains, but their 
 joy and vigour is gone. Darius was a king below ; 
 but though a king, he charged his suppliants who 
 had evoked him, to reap pleasure while it was yet day, 
 "for the dead are shrouded in thick gloom, where 
 wealth avails not'." Agamemnon, on the other hand, 
 by being unavenged, had lost his royal place, to 
 which, if he had fallen in battle, his earthly kingship 
 would have entitled him". For so it was that neglect 
 
 1 Eum. 114. 2 Or. 475. 
 
 » Ch. 367, 151, 485. ■* j^id. 508. 
 
 6 Ag. 651. « Ch. 311. 
 
 f Pers. 687, 835. « Ag. 337 et seq. 
 
90 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 could neutralize the claims of sovereign descent. 
 The shadow of his former state followed a man to the 
 grave, but the disregard of his survivors could obscure 
 or obliterate it. His after-being was quickened and 
 nourished from earth; and, still more than this, his 
 true immortality not only depended on the living, but 
 was in the living. A positivist could hardly express 
 the idea more clearly than Electra, when she addresses 
 her father's shade for the last time ; for the sense of 
 his personal existence below is absorbed in his exist- 
 ence in his descendants above : — 
 
 "0 hear, my father, this my latest cry. . . , 
 And wipe not out the seed of Pelops' line; 
 For thus thou art not dead, though thou hast died ; 
 For children are a voice which saves a man 
 After his death : as corks lift up a net, 
 And save its flaxen thread from out the deep. 
 Listen : for thee I utter such laments ; 
 For thou art saved if thou regard'st my words." 
 
 VI. 
 
 At first sight, this sad and shadowy aspect of the 
 world to come must appear strange and even discor- 
 dant with the nobler and clearer views which ^schy- 
 lus gives of the action of Providence on earth. Few 
 who look at the outside of life can feel satisfied that 
 virtue receives its full reward here; and yet ^schylus 
 practically limits the recompence of the future to a 
 full discharge of the arrears of punishment unpaid on 
 
^SCHYLUS. 91 
 
 earth. We might be tempted to think that the 
 exigencies of composition had confined him to this 
 side of the subject ; that, deahng with crime and 
 suffering here, he limited himself to the exhibition of 
 its consequences hereafter ; that his view of the life to 
 come is tragic, just as his view of this life is tragic. 
 But it is evident that this explanation will not hold 
 good. The "divine counsellor," the "guileless" 
 Darius, a "prince among the dead," comes forth from 
 the nether world, oppressed by no guilt, obscured by 
 no neglect, and his figure answers to the image which 
 is suggested by the whole tenor of ^schylus' teaching 
 about the dead. The Dan aides, in the extremity of 
 their distress, when they prepare to appeal to the 
 Zeus of the dead if the Olympian gods fail to help 
 them, look for vengeance on their persecutors, and 
 for themselves seek simple release; but no brighter 
 vision of Elysian fields and active joy cheers them. 
 Under all circumstances, the view of the condition of 
 the dead, which ^schylus brings out into the clearest 
 light in describing the condition of the guilty, is con- 
 sistent. The fulness of human life is on earth. The 
 part of man, in all his energy and capacity for passion 
 and action, is played out here ; and when the curtain 
 falls, there remains unbroken rest, or a faint reflection 
 of the past, or suffering wrought by the ministers of 
 inexorable justice. The beauty and the power of life, 
 the manifold ministers of sense, are gone. They can 
 be regretted, but they cannot be replaced. Sorrow is 
 possible, but not joy. 
 
92 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 However different this teaching may be from that 
 of the Myths of Plato, and the vague popular belief 
 which they witnessed to and fostered; however differ- 
 ent, again, even from that of Pindar, with which 
 ^schylus cannot have been unacquainted', it is pre- 
 eminently Greek. Plato clothed in a Greek dress the 
 common instincts of humanity ; ^schylus works out 
 a characteristically Greek view of life. Thus it is 
 that his doctrine is most clearly Homeric^ As a 
 Greek he feels, like Homer, the nobility of our present 
 powers, the grandeur of strength and wealth, the 
 manifold delights of our complex being; and what 
 was "the close-packed urn of ashes which survived 
 the funeral pyre" compared with the heroes whom it 
 represented^? That "tear-stained dust" was the 
 witness that man — the whole man — could not live 
 again^ The poet, then, was constrained to work out 
 a scheme of divine justice upon earth, and this -31s- 
 chylus did, though its record is a strain of sorrow. 
 
 ' As, for example, in the fragments of his "Threni." 
 
 2 The well-known answer of Aphilles to Odysseus, who had 
 sought to give him comfort by reminding him of his power 
 among the dead, may serve to prove this : — 
 
 "Scoff not at death," he answered, "noble chief! 
 Rather would I in the sun's warmth divine 
 Serve a poor churl who drags his days in grief, 
 Than the whole lordship of the dead were mine." 
 Odys. xi. 488 (Worsley). 
 
 3 Ag. 422. -• Comp. Ag. 987; Eum. 617. 
 
^.SCHYLUS. 93 
 
 The thrice-repeated voice of the Chorus in the "Aga- 
 memnon" is the burden of his tragedies, — 
 
 "Sing woe, sing woe, but let tlie good prevail." 
 
 In this respect, it is impossible to overlook the 
 relation in which JEschylus stands to the Bible. He 
 appears as the interpreter of a divine law, just and 
 inevitable; and he is content to rest in the working 
 of it upon earth. Just so, the first form in which 
 revelation was clothed, was that of a law stern and 
 temporal. The claims of "the Law" to obedience are 
 peremptory, its condemnation of transgression inex- 
 orable. The sanctions of a future life form no part 
 of its system, though the fact of a future life is 
 implied in the idea of a covenant between God and 
 man. In both respects, the parallel between the 
 spiritual ideas expressed by the poet, and those en- 
 forced by the inspired Lawgiver, holds good ; but the 
 difference between the mode of their expression is not 
 less remarkable, ^schylus was, so to speak, an 
 intellectual witness ; his appointed task was to address 
 himself to individual reflection, and not to discipline 
 the faith of a people ; the truths which he taught 
 were left in words, often dark and mysterious, and 
 not embodied in a traditional and public ceremonial ; 
 they might be fruitful here and there in some devout 
 soul, but they contained no message which could 
 shape the common thoughts of a nation, or form the 
 solid basis for a development of religious life. None 
 the less, his teaching has still an office for us. It is 
 
94 THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: 
 
 often said, and even taken for granted, that the 
 severer aspects of the Christian creed are due to some 
 pecuharity of the "Semitic" mind; that they are 
 foreign to the more genial constitution of the "Japhe- 
 tic" type; that here at least the instinct which reve- 
 lation satisfies is partial and not universal. Against 
 such assumptions, the tragedies of ^schylus remain 
 a solemn protest. The voice of law addresses us even 
 from Athens. There is a stern and dark side to the 
 Greek view of life. The "Prometheus," the "Seven 
 against Thebes," and the "Orestea," contain a "na- 
 tural testimony of the soul" to the reality of sin and 
 the inevitable penalty which it carries in itself, and 
 to the need which man has of a Divine deliverer, to 
 check and control the consequences of violated law. 
 And the testimony comes with the greater force 
 because it is given by the poet who had witnessed the 
 most glorious triumphs of Greek power. It is an 
 utterance of outward strength, and not of exhaustion ; 
 it springs out of the fresh vigour of Greece, and not 
 from the despairing weakness of her decline. It is 
 indeed partial and incomplete, but its instructiveness 
 lies in the fact that, though partial and incomplete, 
 it was devoutly held, in virtue of the truth which was 
 in it. It was, in some degree, taken up into later 
 systems and variously supplemented, but for us its 
 chief significance lies in its simplicity. If Plato 
 tells us what are the aspirations of man, ^schylus 
 tells us what are the requirements of the law of God. 
 The one is, in some sense, a preparation for the other. 
 
 I 
 
^SCHYLUS. 95 
 
 The law comes first, and lays bare the powerlessness 
 of man in the full pride of his strength; and when 
 this is once recognised, faith becomes possible, — 
 though national hopes have faded away, — and with it 
 a deeper insight into spiritual truth. 
 
I 
 
 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS 
 TEACHER. 
 
 A MONG the services which Browning has rendered 
 "^^ to literature, not the least conspicuous is his 
 interpretation of Euripides. In "Balaustion's Adven- 
 ture" and "Aristophanes' Apology," he has not only- 
 given a poet's rendering of two characteristic plays, 
 the ''Alcestis" and the "Phrensied Hercules," but he 
 has given the student sympathetic guidance to their 
 deeper meaning. He has enabled English readers to 
 estimate at their true worth the criticism of A. W. 
 Schlegel, and at the same time he has opened a striking 
 view of speculations and desires which found a place 
 in the mind of a great Athenian when Athens was 
 greatest. Euripides is indeed the true representative 
 of democratic Athens. He was of honourable descent, 
 and had enjoyed the discipline of most varied culture. 
 Gymnast, artist, and student, he had made trial of all 
 that the city had to teach; and as holding a sacred 
 office in the service of Apollo he had an inheritance 
 from older religious feeling. It may almost be said 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 97 
 
 that Euripides lived and died with the Athens which 
 has moved the world. His lifetime included the 
 highest development of Athenian art and literature, 
 the rise and the fall of Athenian supremacy. He was 
 born on the day of Salamis (480 B.C.). He produced 
 his "Medea" in the first year of the Peloponnesian 
 War (431 B.C.). His "Trojan Women" was exhibited 
 in the year of the expedition to Sicily and the recall 
 of Alcibiades (415 B.C.). He died in 406 B.C., the 
 year before -Slgospotamos. He belonged wholly to 
 the new order which is represented by the age of 
 Pericles. Though he was only a generation younger 
 than ^schylus, his works, when compared with those 
 of his predecessor, represent the results of a revolu- 
 tion both in art and in thought. 
 
 But however different ^schylus and Euripides 
 are in their views of existence, and in their treatment 
 of life upon the stage, they are alike interesting to 
 the student of the history of religious thought. Both 
 speak with deep personal feeling. Both offer a partial 
 interpretation of mysteries which fill them with an 
 overwhelming awe. For both life with its infinite 
 sorrows is greater than art. In this respect they 
 differ from Sophocles, by whom they are naturally 
 separated. Sophocles is not the poet as prophet, but 
 the poet as artist. For him all that is most solemn, 
 or terrible, or beautiful in human experience becomes 
 simply an element in his work. He shews the per- 
 fection of calm, conscious mastery over the subjects 
 with which he deals, but he does not speak to us 
 w.E. 7 
 
98 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 himself. He has no message, no questionings, no 
 convictions, beyond such utterances as harmoniously- 
 complete the consummate symmetry of his poems. It 
 is otherwise with ^schylus and Euripides. Both are 
 deeply moved and shew that they are deeply moved, 
 by religious feeling, as a spiritual and not an aesthetic 
 force. But the feeling in the two cases is widely 
 different. 
 
 ^schylus is the exponent of the old faith of 
 Greece — stern, simple, resolute, strong in self- 
 restraint. Euripides, on the other hand, has to take 
 account of all the novel influences under which he 
 had grown up ; the speculations of Ionian philosophy, 
 the larger relations of national intercourse, the force 
 of a new domestic life. Once again Asia had touched 
 Europe and quickened there new powers. Greece had 
 conquered Persia only that she might better receive 
 from the East the inspiration of a wider energy. 
 
 At the same time the political circumstances under 
 which Euripides wrote helped to intensify the thoughts 
 which were stirred by the teachings of Heraclitus and 
 Anaxagoras. The glorious struggle of the Persian 
 war, in which -ffischylus had taken part, with its 
 apparently plain and decisive issue, was followed by 
 results widely different from that final triumph; and 
 Euripides had to witness the long horrors of civil 
 conflict, the shaking of the popular creed under unex- 
 pected disasters, paroxysms of popular fanaticism, the 
 moral dissolution of the plague. He felt the grievous 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 99 
 
 turmoil of opinion and action, and he reflected it. 
 His constitution fitted him for his work. He was by 
 nature inclined to ponder the problems of life and not 
 to enter upon affairs. He was a student of men in 
 books as well as in society ; and the popular tradition 
 which assigns to Anaxagoras a decisive influence over 
 his view of the world may certainly be accepted as 
 true ; though nothing is less likely than that he was 
 diverted from philosophy to the stage by the fate of 
 his master. For Euripides is essentially a poet, and 
 not a speculator. He deals with the mysteries of 
 being from the side of feeling rather than of thought. 
 A passionate fulness of human interest is the charac- 
 teristic mark of his writings, and the secret of his 
 power. He touched the common heart because he 
 recognised the difi"erent phases of its ordinary sorrows 
 and temptations and strivings. 
 
 The brusque lines of Philemon are a unique testi- 
 mony to his personal attractiveness : — 
 
 "If, as some say, men still in very truth 
 Had life and feeling after they are dead, 
 I had hanged myself to see Euripides." 
 
 His verses had a still wider persuasiveness. After 
 the disaster at Syracuse, prisoners found relief and 
 even freedom if they were able to recite passages 
 from his poems; and a chorus from the "Electra" is 
 said to have saved Athens from destruction when it 
 was taken by Lysander. 
 
 The significance of Euripides as a religious teacher 
 
 7—2 
 
100 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 springs directly from his position and his character. 
 He looks from the midst of Athenian society, a 
 society brilliant, restless, sanguine, superstitious, at 
 the popular mythology, at life, at the future, with the 
 keenest insight into all that belongs to man, and what 
 he sees is a prospect on which we may well dwell'. 
 
 In order to understand the treatment of the popu- 
 lar mythology by Euripides, we must bear in mind 
 the place which was occupied by the Homeric poems 
 in contemporary Greek education. It is not too 
 much to say that these were (if the phrase may be 
 allowed) a kind of Greek Bible. Every Athenian was 
 familiar with their contents ; they furnished the 
 general view of the relations of gods and men, of the 
 seen and the unseen, which formed a fixed back- 
 
 1 Though it is impossible to use isolated expressions of the 
 characters of a dramatist as evidence of his own belief, the 
 general convergence of their opinions may be fairly taken as 
 giving his judgment from various points of sight. In the 
 endeavour to obtain a just view of the teaching of Euripides 
 on the line of subjects mentioned above, I wrote out every 
 passage in his extant plays and fragments which seemed to 
 bear upon them, and the reader will judge how far they com- 
 bine to give an intelhgible result. 
 
 The references are given throughout to the edition of 
 Nauck in Teubner's "Bibliotheca." The translations are 
 sufficiently close, I hope, to enable the scholar to recall the 
 original words at once, and at the same time, to convey the 
 meaning faithfully to the English reader. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 101 
 
 ground to the common prospect of life. This being 
 so they produced the impression that the divine 
 forces corresponded with human forces, differing only in 
 intensity and range. The gods were held to be of 
 like passions with men, but stronger and wiser, with 
 the vigour of undecaying energy. Such a conception 
 affords an adequate basis for the ordinary duties of 
 worship, and was not superficially at variance with 
 morality. But more careful reflection shewed that 
 the beings of the Homeric Olympus failed to satisfy 
 the ideal of spiritual sovereigns ; that a mere increase 
 in the scale of human qualities could not supply a 
 stable foundation for reverence ; that the worshipper 
 must look beyond this crowd of conflicting deities if 
 he was to find an object on which he could rest with 
 supreme trust. 
 
 Such difficulties had not received a clear expres- 
 sion in the time of j3Eschylus, nor would he have been 
 disposed to deal with them. The wants and sorrows 
 of men vanish in his sight before the awful majesty of 
 an inscrutable divine purpose. "With Euripides the 
 case was different : Man, and not Destiny, was the 
 central subject of his art. His Orestes, for example, 
 is not the instrument of a divine will, prompted, 
 tortured, delivered by external powers, but a son 
 racked with Hamlet-like misgivings, and finding 
 within himself the justification and the punishment 
 of his deed. Euripides, in other words, regarded the 
 human and the divine as factors in life, alike real and 
 permanent. He aimed at dealing with the whole sum 
 
102 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 of our present experience. He was therefore con- 
 strained to bring the popular creed in some way into 
 harmony with absolute right and truth; to give a 
 moral interpretation to current legends ; to show that 
 life, even as we see it, offers ground for calm trust on 
 which man may at least venture to rest. Plato 
 banished poets from his ideal republic on account of 
 the moral difficulties raised by their representations 
 of divine things. Euripides endeavoured to find a 
 more practical remedy for an evil which he could not 
 but feel: he sought to penetrate through the words 
 and figures of the traditional teaching which the poets 
 adopted to the truths which lay beneath, and so to 
 preserve the symbols of primitive belief without 
 doing violence to moral instinct. 
 
 In attempting to fulfil this work, Euripides frankly 
 acknowledges its difficulty. All investigation of the 
 divine is, he lays down, necessarily beset by difficulty. 
 This difficulty is increased by a superficial view of 
 the course of human afi'airs. It is made insoluble 
 by the literal acceptance of the details of mythology. 
 
 Under various circumstances Euripides makes his 
 characters affirm the mysteriousness of the questions 
 involved in theology. They may not either be dealt 
 with or set aside lightly. The poet refuses to 
 acquiesce in those perfunctory utterances of profes- 
 sional diviners in which many found relief; 
 
 "Why do ye, seated at oracular shrines, 
 Swear that ye know the secrets of the gods ? 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 103 
 
 Men have no power to fashion such replies : 
 For he that boasts he knows about the gods, 
 Knows only this, the art to win belief i." 
 
 There is a complexity, a manifoldness, in the vicissi- 
 tudes of providential government which at once arrests 
 human attention and baffles it : 
 
 "What mortal dares to say that he has found 
 By searching what is God, or what is not, 
 Or what between — the utmost bound of thought — 
 When he regards the work of Providence 
 Moving with rapid course, now here, now there. 
 Then elsewhere, with a sudden change of fate. 
 Conflicting, unexpected ^ 1 " 
 
 This first difficulty is inherent in all religious 
 speculations; and the burden of ignorance may be 
 borne with patience as belonging to man's nature. 
 But a greater difficulty lies behind. The appearance 
 of injustice is harder to endure than darkness, and 
 Euripides dwells with sorrowful persistence on the 
 moral inequalities of life. He finds in this the sorest 
 trial of faith. The passionate exclamation of Bellero- 
 phon: 
 
 "'Tis said by some that there are gods in heaven. 
 There are not, are not ; if men will not still. 
 Bound by their folly, use the old wives' tale. 
 Nay, look yourselves 3," 
 
 finds frequent echoes in his plays. So it is that 
 
 1 Philoct. £r. 793. ^ Hel. 1137, ff. Comp. Hel. 711. 
 
 3 Beller. fr. 288. Comp. fr. 892, 893; Scyr. fr. 185. Con.- 
 trast, fr. 981, 
 
104 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 
 the herald Talthybius, looking at the prostrate form 
 of Hecuba, exclaims : 
 
 "Zeus, shall I say that thou regardest men? 
 Or that we hold in vain this false belief, 
 Thinking there is indeed a race of gods, 
 While fortune sways all human destinies^?" 
 
 And this apparent miscarriage of justice is as great 
 negatively as positively. The failure of virtue to 
 gain recognition is not less perplexing than unde- 
 served suffering. For — 
 
 " If the gods, to man's degree. 
 Had wit and wisdom, they would bring 
 Mankind a twofold youth, to be 
 Their virtue's sign-mark, all should see, 
 In those with whom hfe's winter thus grew spring. 
 For when they died, into the sun once more. 
 Would they have traversed twice life's racecourse o'er ; 
 While ignobility had simply run 
 Existence through, nor second life begun 2." 
 
 A final diificulty lies in the letter of the divine 
 legends. According to these, the gods act as no good 
 man would act. Euripides meets the difficulty boldly. 
 He affirms consistently that the legends about the 
 gods, which tend to confuse human intuitions of right 
 and wrong, of truth and duty, are not literally true. 
 When Heracles recovered from his phrensy, and 
 looked upon his murdered wife . and children in 
 bitterest sorrow and shame, Theseus sought to bring 
 
 1 Eec. 488. 2 Here. Fur. 635 (Browning). 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 105 
 
 him comfort by recalling facts from the popular 
 mythology; but Heracles rejects the consolation and 
 replies : — 
 
 " I neither fancy gods love lawless beds, 
 Nor, that with chains they bind each other's hands, 
 Have I judged worthy faith, at any time ; 
 Nor shall I be persuaded one is born 
 His fellow's master! since God stands in need — 
 If he is really God — of nought at all. 
 These are the poet's pitiful conceits ^" 
 
 Elsewhere Euripides refers to the legends of the birth 
 of Helen and the banquet of Thyestes, only to reject 
 them I The ground is given by Iphigenia — 
 
 "I think no Deity can be unjust." 
 
 And Bellerophon expresses the thought still more 
 decidedly — 
 
 " If gods do aught that's base they are not gods V^ 
 
 Following out this principle, Euripides ventures 
 to openly condemn the gods for the actions attributed 
 to them. At the close of the "Electra" the Dioscuri, 
 addressing Orestes, who stands awestricken by the 
 side of Clytemnestra, so pass judgment : — 
 
 " Just is her punishment, but not thy deed ; 
 And Phoebus, Phcebus— well, he is my king ; 
 I am dumb : though wise, not wise he spake to thee*." 
 
 1 Here. Fur. 1341 (Browning). Compare Antiope, fr. 209. 
 
 2 Hel. 21; El. 737; Iph. Taur. 389. 
 
 3 Beller, fr. 294, 7. * El. 1244. Compare 1301 fi\ 
 
106 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 And the messenger who relates the death of Neopto- 
 lemus at Delphi concludes: — 
 
 "So did he [Apollo] to Achilles' son, 
 Who offered retribution ; he the king, 
 Who giveth oracles to other men, 
 The judge of righteousness to all the world. 
 And bore in mind, like a malicious chm-l, 
 Old grudges; how could such a one be wise^!" 
 
 Here, then, Euripides is directly at issue with 
 much of the popular faith. How, it may be asked, 
 can such language, widely different from the reckless 
 banterings of Aristophanes, be reconciled with due 
 respect for the divine? The answer seems to lie in 
 the fact that Euripides draws a clear distinction 
 between the Olympian gods and the One Being to 
 whom they also minister. He was inclined to treat 
 the Olympian gods as in some sense personifications or 
 embodiments of human attributes. It is said that 
 Anaxagoras interpreted the Homeric stories as sym- 
 bolic^, and his scholar sought in the same line a 
 worthy meaning for the current mythology. In this 
 sense Hecuba, addressing Helen, gives a striking 
 interpretation of the Judgment of Paris. It was no 
 contest of actual deities, but of conflicting passions. 
 Aphrodite herself, could have moved Helen and 
 Amyclse to Troy without leaving Heaven. But the 
 
 1 Androm. 1161. Compare Ion, U4.fi.; Orest. 28, 162; 
 Iph. Taur. 35. 
 
 2 Piog, Laert, ii, 11, 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 107 
 
 Aphrodite who came with Paris and carried off the 
 bride of Menelaus was the feeling which Paris stirred 
 in Helen's breast \ 
 
 But while Euripides here finds in the soul itself 
 the powers which man is tempted to place wholly 
 without, it does not follow that he denies the objec- 
 tive existence of beings corresponding to human 
 passions. On the contrary, he seems to recognise a 
 correspondence between human feelings and impulses 
 and supernatural forces, of which the Olympian 
 deities were representatives. The origin of that 
 which is extraordinary is referred to divine agency. 
 Death and Madness are real powers external to man. 
 Strife and Ambition, Hope, Justice and Persuasion, 
 derive their force from something without which is 
 akin to them^ From time to time men move in a 
 mysterious intercourse with spiritual beings. Hippo- 
 lytus in his first joy can say to Artemis: — 
 
 "I feel thee near, and answer thee in word 
 Hearing thy voice, yet seeing not thy face=^." 
 
 It is not then surprising that imperfections should 
 be found in beings which, even when they are felt to 
 be most present and energetic, are essentially limited 
 and human in their characteristics. But they can 
 bring no repose or confidence to the soul. The poet 
 
 1 Tread. 969 fi. 
 
 2 Hel. 1002; Antig. fr. 170; Iph. Aul. 392; Phoen. 798; 
 631. Compare Hel. 560. Iph. Aul. 973. 
 
 3 Hippol. 85 J compare Ibid. 1391, 
 
108 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOQS TEACHER. 
 
 J 
 
 as a religious teacher must look beyond himself, 
 beyond the many gods — those colossal human figures, 
 symbols or sources of man's conflicting passions — for 
 that which gives unity to the view of existence \ 
 And here it is that the "theology" of Euripides 
 becomes of the highest interest. Philosophers had 
 sought the principle of unity in some primal element ; 
 Euripides, though his language is naturally vague, 
 seems rather to seek it in a vital force, which slowly 
 differentiates and moulds all things. The force is 
 distinct from the matter through which it is mani- 
 fested. Human thought is incompetent to define it 
 exactly or simply. Under one aspect it is revealed 
 as law, under another as intelligence, under another 
 as will. All are harmonised in that for which we feel. 
 Thus Hecuba gives expression to her prayer of thanks- 
 giving, when Menelaus declares his purpose of taking 
 vengeance on Helen, the curse of Troy : — 
 
 "0 Thou 
 That bearest earth, Thyself by earth upborne, 
 Whoe'er Thou art, hard for our powers to guess, 
 Or Zeus, or Nature's law, or mind of man, 
 To thee I pray, for all the things of earth 
 In right Thou guidest on Thy noiseless way 2." 
 
 1 The famous line with which the Melanippe originally 
 opened obviously pointed to the Zeus of mythology, as dif- 
 ferent from the Supreme Sovereign : — 
 
 "Zeus, whosoe'er Zeus is, for by report 
 I know him only." (Fragm. 483). 
 Compare Here. Fur. 1263. 
 
 2 It is interesting to contrast Euripides' view of the divine 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 109 
 
 From this point of sight the whole visible world 
 appears as a progressive revelation of the One source 
 of life. Euripides dwells on the prospect with evident 
 delight. Heaven (JSther) and earth symbolize for 
 him the force and the matter through whose union 
 all the variety of things come into existence. But he 
 teaches that even these two were once undivided. 
 Perhaps he thought of matter as the first self-limited 
 expression of force. Thus, in one . of his earliest 
 dramas, "Melanippe the Wise," he says: — 
 
 "Not mine the tale: my mother taught it me, 
 How heaven and earth were undivided once, 
 And when they grew distinct with separate form, 
 They bore, and brought to light all things that are — 
 Trees, birds, and beasts, the creatures of the sea, 
 And race of meni." 
 
 This primal marriage of Heaven and Earth finds 
 renewal in the vital processes of Nature : — 
 
 "The earth longs for the rain, when the parched land. 
 Fruitless through drought, lacks the life-giving shower ; 
 The glorious heaven longs, as it swells with rain, 
 To fall upon the earth, with deep desire ; 
 And when they meet commingled — earth and heaven — 
 They give to all, whereby the race of men 
 Lives and is glad, being and rich support 2." 
 
 origin of civilization (Suppl. 201) with Critias' view of the 
 human origin of theology in the Sisyphus (Plut. Plac. Phil. 
 1, 7, p. 880). 
 
 1 Tread. 884. 2 Melauippe, fr. 488. 
 
110 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 So things come into existence, and then in due time 
 they are dissolved. Nothing is lost, but each element 
 returns to its source, and enters into new combina- 
 tions as the great cycle of life finds fulfilment : — 
 
 " Great earth and sky supreme are source of all ; 
 The sky supreme is sire of gods and men, 
 And earth receiving fertihzing showers, 
 Gives mortals birth, gives birth to tribes of beasts 
 And that whereby they live ; so she is called 
 Mother of all, by just prerogative. 
 Then that which springs from earth to earth returns. 
 And that which draws its being from the sky. 
 Rises again up to the skyey height, 
 And nothing dies of all that comes to be, 
 But being sundered, each first element. 
 Freshly combined, displays some novel form^," 
 
 There is then nothing strained, when Euripides iden- 
 tifies the Heaven (-Either) with the One supreme 
 sovereign power : — 
 
 "See'st thou this boundless iEther high aloft. 
 Enfolding earth about with moist embrace, 
 Beheve that this is Zeus : hold this for God-." 
 
 For, according to his conception, it suggests at least 
 all that is contained in the sublime description of 
 God — than which he has no grander : — 
 
 "The Self-existent, who in heaven's expanse 
 Holds in His large embrace all things that are ; 
 
 1 Fragm. 890. Compare Msch. Danaid, fr. 38. 
 
 2 Chrysipp. 836. Compare fragra. 1012 ; and Vitruv. viii. 1. 
 

 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. Ill 
 
 Round whom the light, round whom in dusky shade 
 The chequered night and the unnumbered host 
 Of stars move gladly in unceasing dance^." 
 
 Euripides gains, in fact, from his dynamical view 
 of Nature a vivid practical belief in the divine ; — 
 
 "Wretched is he who when he looks on this 
 Perceives not God, and does not cast afar 
 The crooked cheats of airy speculators. 
 Whose baneful tongue hazards on things unseen 
 Words void of judgment I" 
 
 At the same time, the partial, fragmentary, imper- 
 fect deities are given back'. These, though not 
 absolute, bring the divine near to men. Through 
 these men may rise to that by which they also are 
 strong. The highest instincts of humanity can look 
 for satisfaction without. These, which are a divine 
 manifestation — 
 
 "In each of us our reason is a god*." 
 
 must have a perfect fulfilment in the divine. Men 
 may confidently attribute to the gods the consumma- 
 tion of that which is noblest in germ in themselves. 
 They can trust even to the severity of righteousness. 
 He who looks for weak forgiveness of wrong done is 
 faithless to his own heart : — 
 
 1 Fragm. 935. Compare fragm. 867, 911. Still, in another 
 sense, he speaks of ^ther as "the dwelling of Zeus." — Melan. 
 fr. 491. 
 
 2 Peirith. fr. 596. » Fragm. 905. 
 
 * Fragm. 1007. The line is attributed to Menander. 
 
112 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 "So thou dost think the gods are merciful, 
 When one by oath seeks for escape from death, 
 Or bonds, or deeds of foeman's violence ; 
 Or shares his home with blood-stained criminals: 
 Then truly they were less inteUigent 
 Than men, setting the kind before the just^." 
 
 And the course of life, with all its inequalities, offers 
 such glimpses of righteous retribution as are sufficient 
 to support faith in the final triumph of supreme 
 justice I 
 
 This faith springs naturally from the underljdng 
 sense of the unity of the source of all things. The 
 gods themselves, offspring like men of the one Being, 
 are bound by law. They are not arbitrary, capricious 
 powers, but subject to a sovereign right. Apollo may 
 not rescue Alcestis from death by his divine might, 
 though the task is open to the effort of a human 
 champion. Artemis bows to the ordinance which 
 limits the action of one deity towards another, though 
 obedience costs her the life of Hippolytus^ 
 
 " The gods are strong, and law which ruleth them ; 
 For 'tis by law we have our faith in gods, 
 And live with certain rules of right and wrong^" 
 
 Man, in other words, is born religious, and born with 
 the faculty to recognise that which claims his devo- 
 tion. 
 
 1 Fragm. 1030. 
 
 2 (Enom. fr. 581; Bacch. 1325; El. 682. Compare Here. 
 Fur. 347. 
 
 " Hec. 799. Compare Ibid. 847. * Hipp. 799. 
 
 I 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 113 
 
 We have seen that the many gods are in one 
 aspect ideals answering to human powers. Viewed 
 under another hght, they present different aspects of 
 the One to whom they are finally referred. In diffe- 
 rent circumstances men necessarily conceive of God 
 differently. He may bear this title or that, and the 
 worshipper may dimly realize the unity of characters 
 popularly divided : — 
 
 " I bear an offering of drink and meal 
 To thee that rulest all, whatever name 
 Thou lovest, Zeus or Hades ; and do thou 
 Receive this fireless sacrifice poured forth 
 Of earth's abimdant fruitage at my hands. 
 For thou amidst the gods that dwell in heaven 
 Wieldest Zeus' sceptre ; and o'er these beneath 
 Sharest the rule of Hades i." 
 
 Euripides, therefore, is perfectly consistent when 
 he affirms man's dependence on the gods, while he 
 denies the historic truth of the ancient legends : — 
 
 "No issue comes to men without the gods. 
 We strive for many things, led on by hope, 
 And toil in vain, as knowing nothing sure 2." 
 
 "Apart from God no man is prosperous. 
 Or comes to high estate. I rate at naught 
 The fruits of mortal zeal without the gods 3. 
 
 "Why do they say that miserable men 
 Are wise, Zeus? For we depend on thee, 
 And do but that which answers to thy will*." 
 
 » Fragm. 904. Compare Fragm. 938, 1011. 
 
 2 Thyest. fr. 395. » Fragm. 1014. * Suppl. 734. 
 
 W.E. 8 
 
114 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 For this is only to affirm in another form that unity 
 of being for which he searches. Man cannot isolate 
 himself. He is strong by sympathy. On the eve of a 
 battle, fought for the maintenance of a common right, 
 Theseus, the type of the true king, says— 
 
 "One thing we need, that the gods side with those 
 Who honour justice : heaven and right combined 
 Give victory ; but virtue profits naught 
 To mortals if it have not God to help \" 
 
 Fate and the divine will are not two adverse forces, 
 but complementary views of the same force. So the 
 Dioscuri declare that they were forced to yield to 
 "destiny and the gods," and counsel Electra that 
 "Henceforward she must do 
 What Fate and Zeus determined should be done^." 
 
 Such general convictions, while they destroy the 
 root of many superstitions, give a solemn sanction to 
 the obligations of reverence and worship. 
 " He hath no reason who lays cities waste ; 
 Temples and tombs —shrines sacred to the dead — 
 He desolates, and then is lost himself^. 
 
 "Three virtues thou must put in act, my son; 
 Honour the gods, thy parents, and the laws, 
 
 1 Suppl. 594. Compare Hec. 1029. 
 
 2 El. 1247 ; Hel. 1660. For Euripides' view of Providence 
 and Fate, see Hippol. 1102 S. ; Heracl. 608 ff. ; Fragm. 149, 
 217, 264, 354, 494, 1167; and the common refrain with which 
 he closes the Alcestis, Andromache, Bacchse, Helen, and Medea. 
 
 3 Tread. 95. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 115 
 
 The common laws of Greece. So shalt thou win 
 The victor's glorious wreath of fair renown i." 
 
 And Heracles in a remarkable phrase connects the 
 success of his descent to Hades with his initiation in 
 the Mysteries I 
 
 But Euripides has strong words of condemnation 
 for the unworthy use which men had made of reli- 
 gious feelings. The right of sanctuary, which had 
 been designed to protect the innocent, was unjustly 
 turned into defence for the guilty : — 
 
 " If a man 
 Seek refuge at an altar, stained with crime, 
 I will myself, regardless of the law, 
 Drag him to justice, and not fear the gods: 
 For evil men must bear an evil fate^." 
 
 Especially he dwells upon the impostures of sooth- 
 saying, by which the real voice of the gods was cor- 
 rupted. 
 
 " The oracles of Loxias are sure ; 
 As for man's art, I will have none of it*." 
 
 "He has the true diviner's skill 
 Who has the gods for friends ^" 
 
 "He is best soothsayer who guesses well''." 
 
 1 Antiope, fr. 219. ^ Here. Fur. 613. 
 
 » Fragm. 1036. * Elect. 399. 
 
 «* Hel. 759. Compare lUd. 753. 
 
 8 Fragm. 963, The line is also attributed to Menander. 
 Compare Iph. Aal. 955. 
 
 8—2 
 
116 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 It is not the form of religious service, but the 
 spirit which is precious. Acceptable worship must 
 be accompanied by piety and effort. 
 
 "Who ofifers sacrifice with pious heart 
 Obtains salvation, though his gift be small K" 
 
 "Do what thou canst, and then invoke the gods. 
 God helps the man who toils to help himself^." 
 
 From what has been already said, the profound 
 significance of the Dionysian worship for Euripides 
 will be at once clear. In that worship Nature found 
 the fullest recognition as the revelation of the Divine. 
 Man sought fellowship with God in the completeness 
 of his being. The organ of knowledge was confessed 
 to be, not the intellect, but life. Thus the BacchcB 
 is no palinode, but a gathering up in rich maturity 
 of the poet's earlier thoughts. Man cannot, he shows 
 with tragic earnestness, attain to communion with 
 the divine by pure reason, a part only of his consti- 
 tution. He must keep himself open to every influ- 
 ence, and so by welcoming the new in time prove his 
 loyalty to the old. The aged seer Teiresias strikes 
 the keynote of the play when he afiirms the coequal 
 supremacy of ancestral belief and present revelation. 
 In this way the majesty of the living whole of human 
 existence is vindicated against philosophic or cere- 
 monial one-sidedness. 
 
 1 Fragm. 940. Compare Dan. fr. 329. 
 
 2 Hippol. 435. Comp. Ipb. Taur, 910; El. 80. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 117 
 
 "We trust no human wit in things divine. 
 The faith our fathers handed down, and that 
 Which we have welcomed, growing with our growth, 
 No reasonings shall o'erthrow, even though it find 
 The subtlest treasures of man's loftiest thought i." 
 
 The fresh unfolding of the divine bounty requires, he 
 pleads, grateful acknowledgment : 
 
 "Two powers there are 'mong men, 
 First before all, youth: our mother Earth, 
 Demeter, call her by which name thou wilt, 
 Who stayeth mortals with the staff of life ; 
 And the late-come, the son of Semele, 
 Who formed the rich draught of the clustered vine 
 And brought the gift to men 2." 
 
 Seen in this light, the Dionysian worship is the wit- 
 ness to a real belief in the vitality of religion as 
 answering to the completeness of man's nature. It 
 does not aim at superseding that which went before, 
 but at bringing it nearer to actual experience. Men 
 must worship as men, feeling at once the richness and 
 the limits of their endowments : — 
 
 "Dwelling afar in heaven the Deities, 
 Behold the deeds of men : 
 It is not wisdom to be wise 
 And follow thoughts too high for mortal ken'." 
 
 "Blest above all of human line, 
 Who, deep in mystic rites divine, 
 
 1 Bacch. 200. 2 Bacch. 274. 
 
 3 Ibid. 392. 
 
118 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHEB. 
 
 Leads his hallowed life with us, 
 
 Initiate in our Thiasus ; 
 
 And purified with holiest waters, 
 
 Goes dancing o'er the hills with Bacchus' daughters^." 
 
 So in manifold and solemn strains, unsurpassed in 
 classical literature for calm sweet strength, Euripides 
 lays open the joy of worship. The joy of the Diony- 
 sian worship with which he begins passes into the 
 larger joy of universal piety : — 
 
 "'Tis but light cost in his own power sublime 
 To array the godhead, whosoe'er he be; 
 And law is old, even as the oldest time, 
 Nature's own unrepealed decree 2." 
 
 " Hold thou fast the pious mind ; so, only so shall glide 
 In peace with God above, in peace with men on earth. 
 
 Thy smooth painless life. 
 I admire not, envy not, who would be over-wise : 
 Mine be still the glory, mine be still the prize, 
 
 By night and day 
 To live of the immortal gods in awe: 
 
 Who fears them not 
 Is but the outcast of all law^." 
 
 n. 
 
 The theology of Euripides takes its shape from his 
 conviction that all Nature and all Life is a manifes- 
 tation of one Divine Power. His view of human life 
 
 1 Bacch, 72 (Milman). 
 
 2 Ibid. 893 (Milman) ; comp. Heracl. 902. 
 
 3 Ibid, 1002 (Milman). 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 119 
 
 corresponds with this conviction, and his view of 
 being is concentrated in his view of humanity. All 
 that is human claims his sympathy ; and it may be 
 said conversely that all that claims his sympathy is 
 seen in its connexion with man. He practically anti- 
 cipates Browning's judgment that "little else is worth 
 study than the incidents in the development of a 
 soul." 
 
 This largeness of sympathy with all that is hu- 
 man is shown by the great range of his characters. 
 Heroes, Greeks, barbarians, peasants, slaves, women, 
 children, play a part, and a noble part, in his dramas. 
 It was a reproach against him that he made all utter 
 great thoughts alike. The charge is so far true that 
 he strives to give to each the voice of a common 
 humanity. He admits no exclusive prerogative of 
 race, or sex, or birth. The yeoman in the "Electra" 
 is as chivalrous as Achilles in the " Aulic Iphigenia." 
 
 Euripides thus deals frankly and gladly with all 
 the elements of life, and he deals with actual life as 
 he saw it. There is much that is mean and frivolous, 
 and even repulsive, in the portraiture, but still the 
 picture never ceases to be true to experience. His 
 characters are not ideal, but the strangely mixed 
 beings who are fashioned in the turmoil of passion 
 and interest. It is perhaps for this reason that his 
 women are both better and worse than his men. 
 Through them Nature is revealed more directly; and 
 it is a singular injustice of traditional criticism that 
 the poet should be represented as a woman-hater who 
 
120 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 has left more types of female self-devotion than any 
 other dramatist. The plays which exhibit the spon- 
 taneous intuitive sacrifice of Macaria; the thoughtful, 
 reasoned resolution of Iphigenia; the tender, wifely 
 dutifulness of Alcestis ; the romantic love of Evadne, 
 show the strength of woman in the most varied phases 
 of its characteristic beauty. 
 
 Not less striking are the sketches of children 
 which Euripides has given. Eumelus in the "Alces- 
 tis," Molossus in the "Andromeda," the sons of the 
 father chiefs in the "Suppliants," add characteristic 
 touches to the action ; and the appeal of Iphigenia to 
 the infant Orestes to plead for her life with silent 
 tears, is conceived with pathetic tenderness*. 
 
 Generally, indeed, the stress which Euripides lays 
 on domestic life is worthy of study. The scene between 
 Menelaus and Helena is a unique example in Greek 
 tragedy of the love of husband and wife^. Again and 
 again the affection of parents for children, and of 
 children for parents, is presented as full of supreme 
 joy: "Children are men's souls," "A Heaven-sent 
 charm of awful power^." 
 
 "Lady, this splendour of the sun is dear, 
 And fair the broad calm of the watery plain, 
 But nothing is so bright or fair to see 
 As to the childless, stung with long desire, 
 The light of new-bom children in the home^" 
 
 1 Iph. Aul. 1124. 2 Hel. 622 flf. 
 
 3 Audr. 417; Alcm. fr. 104. ■* Dauae, fr., 318. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 121 
 
 "Wretched the child 
 WhQ serves not those that bare him with the meed 
 Of noblest toil. One gives and gains again 
 From his own children what he gave himself i." 
 
 The relations of the family lead up to the rela- 
 tions of the State, and when the claims of the family 
 and State come into conflict the latter must prevail ; 
 for all life has a social destination and duty. In the 
 "Erechtheus" the queen offers her daughter willingly 
 for the deliverance of Athens. "Children," she says, 
 "are bom to us 
 
 "That we may save our altars and om* land. 
 We may call the city one, and many find 
 Their home there : how can I then ruin these 
 When I may give one life to ransom all 2?" 
 
 But Euripides had a keen sense of the perils of public 
 life', and there can be no doubt that he describes his 
 own ideal in the lines : — 
 
 " Happy the man whose lot it is to know 
 The secrets of the earth. He hastens not 
 To work his fellow's hurt by unjust deeds, 
 But with rapt admiration contemplates 
 Immortal Nature's ageless harmony, 
 And how and when her order came to be. 
 Such spirits have no place for thoughts of shame*." 
 
 1 Suppl. 361. Comp. Fragm. 848. 
 
 2 Erechth. fr., 362, 14. 
 
 « Ion, 595, ff. ; Med. 294, ff.; Hec. 254, ff. 
 ♦ Fragm. 902. 
 
122 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 And again in a lighter, more joyous strain : — 
 
 " Well ! I am not to pause 
 Mingling together — wine and wine in cup — 
 The Graces with the Muses up — 
 Most dulcet marriage; loosed from Muses' law, 
 No life for me ! 
 But where the wreaths abound, there ever may I beM" 
 
 Thus Euripides takes account of the manifold 
 fulness of human existence, but the whole effect of 
 life, as he sees it, is, in its external aspect at least, 
 clouded with great sorrow. There is no music to 
 charm its griefs At the best it is chequered, like 
 the face of the earth, with storm and sunshine — 
 
 "I say the heaven men call so, as time rolls. 
 Shows in a parable the fate of men. 
 It flashes forth bright light in summer-time ; 
 And deepens winter's gloom with gathered clouds ; 
 And makes flowers bloom and fade and live and die. 
 So too the race of men with happy calm 
 Is bright and glad, and then is clouded o'er. 
 Some live in woe, some, prosperous for a while, 
 Fade like the changes of the changeful year^" 
 
 " Such is the life of miserable men. 
 Not wholly happy, nor yet wholly sad. 
 Blest for a while, and then again unblesti" 
 
 For the most part, however, pain outweighs pleasure. 
 The consciousness of the instability of joy disturbs 
 
 1 Here. Fur. 673 (Browning). » Med. 195. 
 
 3 Daval. fr. 332. 4 Antiope, fr. 196. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 123 
 
 present delight with the prospect of inevitable change. 
 There is no prerogative of immunity from suffering : — 
 "He must not think that he will ever find 
 Unaltered fortune who has had no fall; 
 For God, I ween, if God He must be called, 
 Wearies of dwelling always with the same. 
 A mortal's joy is mortal. They who make 
 The present bind the future in their pride 
 Prove when they suffer what man's fortune is^." 
 
 Death is the one certain limit of suffering'*, and, 
 therefore, it is not strange that to men in some moods 
 it should seem "better not to have been born^;" or, 
 as it is expressed at length, — 
 
 "'Twcre well that men in solemn conclave met, 
 Should mourn each birth as prelude to great woes: 
 And bear the dead forth from their homes with joy 
 And thanksgiving, as free at last from toils*." 
 "Life is called life, but it is truly pain^." 
 " Not to be born is one, I say, with death ; 
 And death is better than a piteous life^." 
 
 Nevertheless, those who are born to suffering cling to 
 
 life— 
 
 "Mortals are sad 
 In bearing earth to earth : yet it must be. 
 Life must be reaped, Hke the ripe golden grain. 
 One is and one is not^" 
 
 1 Fragm. 1058. Comp. Andromeda, fr. 152; Alex. fr. 63; 
 Ange. fr. 275; (Ed. fr. 558. Suppl. 331. 
 
 2 Fragm. 908. 3 Pragm. 900. 
 4 Cresph. fr. 452. e Fragm. 957. 
 
 6 Troades, 636. Contrabt ibid. 632. ? Hypsip. fr. 757. 
 
124 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 For there is, after all, a mysterious uncertainty about 
 the future, and men shrink from that which is beyond 
 their experience. They — 
 
 "Long to look upon the coming day 
 Bearing a burden of unnumbered woes. 
 So deep in mortals Hes the love of life, 
 For life we know, but ignorant of death, 
 Each fears alike to leave the sun's dear light \'* 
 
 Meanwhile, man has a hard struggle to maintain, but 
 he is able to maintain it. Whatever we may be 
 tempted to think. Justice is a real and a present 
 power. She does vindicate her authority, not in a 
 remote future and on some other scene, but essentially 
 here and now — 
 
 "Thinkest thou 
 To overcome the wisdom of the gods? 
 That justice has her dwelling far from men ? 
 Nay, she is near : she sees, herself unseen, 
 And knows whom she must punish. Thou knowest not 
 When she will bring swift ruin on the base. 
 'Tis true the working of the gods is slow, 
 But it is sure and strong 2." 
 
 There is no ever-present, overwhelming weight of 
 physical or moral necessity which crushes him. He 
 is allowed from time to time to see that greater 
 labours are the condition and the discipline of greater 
 natures. And in spite of the obvious sorrows of life 
 
 1 Phcenix, fr. 813. Comp. Hippol. 193. 
 
 2 Bacch. 882. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 125 
 
 he can discern that a divine purpose is being wrought 
 out which will find accomplishment. "There is at 
 present great confusion in the things of gods and 
 men*." But the source of the disorder lies not with 
 God but with man I And in due time the inequalities 
 and injustices which form the bitterest trial of the 
 good will be righted, and that on the present scene of 
 human conflict and failure, not by any sudden divine 
 intervention or startling catastrophe, but by the sure 
 working of the forces which are already in action : — 
 
 "Think you that deeds of wrong spring to the gods 
 On wings, and then some one, on Zeus' book, 
 Writes them, and Zeus beholding the record 
 Gives judgment? Nay, the whole expanse of heaven 
 Would not suflBice if Zeus wrote there man's sins ; 
 Nor could he send to each his punishment 
 From such review. Justice is on the earth, 
 Is here, is by us, if men will but see^." 
 
 The criminal is alarmed by unreal terrors, and then 
 comforted by an unreal security : — 
 
 "Justice will not assail thee, fear it not, 
 Not thee nor any other that doth wrong, 
 And pierce thy heart ; but moving silently 
 With lingering foot, whene'er the hour is come, 
 She lays her heavy hand upon the base*." 
 
 1 Iph. T. 572. 
 
 2 Pel. fr. 609. 
 
 • Melanippe, fr. 508. Comp. Andromeda, fr. 150. 
 
 * Fragm. 969. Comp. Fragm. 266, 588, 646, 1030. 
 
126 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 For it is said truly "that Justice is the child of 
 time," of time "that looketh keenly, he that seeth 
 alP." But in the end she makes herself felt: — 
 "The man that for the passing hour doth wrong, 
 And thinks the gods have failed to see the deed, 
 Thinks evil, and is taken in his thought. 
 When Justice finds a space of quiet time. 
 He pays full vengeance for the wrongs he did"." 
 
 "Slow come, but come at length, 
 In their majestic strength. 
 Faithful and true, the avenging deities ; 
 And chastening human folly. 
 And the mad pride unholy 
 Of those who to the gods bow not their knees 3." 
 
 The retribution which is thus indicated is often not 
 complete at once. The sins of parents are visited on 
 their children*, even as a later generation gathers the 
 ripe fruit of earlier labour. A larger field than that 
 which is offered by a single life is necessary for the 
 revelation of this fulfilment of a just will; and it is 
 a characteristic of the tragedies of Euripides that 
 he introduces gods not so much to solve immediate 
 difficulties in his plots, as to point out how in the 
 future a righteous result will be assured. In no 
 less than thirteen plays divine characters disclose the 
 future issues of the action which will vindicate the 
 
 1 Antiope, fr. 223: Melanippe, fr. 509. Comp. Beller. fr. 305. 
 
 2 Phrix. fr. 882. 
 
 3 Bacchse, 882 (Milman). 
 
 4 Fragm. 970; Alcm. fr. 83. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 127 
 
 mysterious course of Providence. And in this wider 
 view of life the personal fate of the individual actors 
 finds hardly any placed 
 
 A wide view of life is required for the discernment 
 of the justice of the divine government; and a wide 
 view of life is necessary also for the fulfilment of 
 human destiny. One chief cause of the sufferings 
 and failures of men lies in the partial and inadequate 
 view of the claims of being which is taken by those 
 who are noble and good within a narrow range. This 
 truth is brought out with impressive power in the 
 characters of Pentheus and Hippolytus. Both are, 
 up to a certain point, blameless and courageous, but 
 they are unsympathetic to that which lies beyond 
 their experience and inclination. They contemp- 
 tuously cast aside warnings against self-will. They 
 refuse to pay respect to the convictions of others, or 
 to admit that their view of life can fall short of ful- 
 ness. With tragic irony Pentheus is led to his ruin 
 by a guilty curiosity, and Hippolytus, in the pathetic 
 scene of his death, lays bare his overwhelming self- 
 confidence. He can forgive his father, but he is 
 defiant to the powers of heaven, and in the terrible 
 line, 
 "Would that the curse of men might reach the gods^" 
 
 he reveals at once the strength and the weakness of 
 his character. 
 
 1 Comp. fr. 21. » Hippol. 1415. 
 
128 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 In this connexion Euripides appears to indicate 
 one use of suffering. The discipline of life as he 
 regards it is fitted to give to men a truer and larger 
 sense of human powers and duties than they were 
 inclined to form at first. This lesson comes out 
 prominently in the "Alcestis." In one aspect the 
 drama is the record of a soul's purification. Admetus 
 obtains life at the price which he was ready to pay 
 for it, and he finds that it ceases to be the blessing 
 which he sought. He sees in his father the full image 
 of himself, and fiercely condemns the selfishness which 
 he has shown. Little by little he fully reahzes that 
 what he has gained by consciously sacrificing another 
 to himself is of no avail for happiness, and he is 
 prepared to receive, cleansed in heart, that which 
 has been won for him by the spontaneous eff'ort of 
 Heracles. This contrast of the two sacrifices and 
 the two prizes is of the deepest meaning. Man cannot 
 simply use another at his will for his own good ; but 
 he can enjoy the fruits of another's devotion. The life 
 which Alcestis gave for her husband at his entreaty 
 proved to be only a discipline of sorrow ; the life which 
 was wrested from death by human labour could be 
 imparted to one made ready to welcome it. 
 
 In Pentheus and Hippolytus, Euripides has shown 
 the failure of partial virtues ; in Heracles — the man 
 raised to heaven through toil — he seems to have 
 wished to show a type of the fulness of life. The 
 hero in the "Alcestis" keenly enjoys the pleasures of 
 the feast in the close prospect of a terrible labour; 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 129 
 
 and when he hears of his friend's loss he hastens to 
 meet death with a kind of natural joy. He proves in 
 act that the reward of victory is a new conflict, and 
 with genial vigour accepts the condition of progress. 
 
 But even here there is a want. Man, as he is, 
 cannot with impunity wrestle with Death and rob 
 Hades of its ten-ors. At the moment when Heracles 
 seems to have prevailed over the common enemy, and 
 to have brought deliverance to his own house, Mad- 
 ness comes, and he works himself the ruin which he 
 had just averted*. He, too, must feel his weakness. 
 And so it is that in this last trial he rises to his 
 greatest height. He sees the full measure of his 
 calamity. He acknowledges that for him hencefor- 
 ward there is no hope. Where he looked for glory 
 and joy, there can be only horror and pain. And 
 feehng this, at the bidding of Theseus, he dares to 
 live. In a fuller sense than before he has conquered 
 death^, and he is ready for his elevation. The con- 
 ception rises to the height of spiritual grandeur, and 
 there is no nobler picture in Greek literature than 
 that of the broken-hearted hero leaning on the friend 
 whom he had rescued from the shades, and patiently 
 going to meet exile and irremediable griefs Toil 
 consecrated by self-surrender could not but lead to 
 heaven. 
 
 1 Hero. Fur. 922 ff. Comp. Hartung, Eurip. restit. ii. 29. 
 
 2 Ibid. 1146. 
 
 3 Ibid. 1398 ff. 
 
 W.E. 9 
 
130 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 m. 
 
 A hero like Heracles is raised to heaven, but what 
 has the unseen world for common men ? To this 
 question Euripides has no clear answer. He looks, as 
 we have seen, for the vindication of righteousness on 
 earth. His references to another order are few and 
 vague. In this respect he holds the common attitude 
 of the Athenian in the presence of death \ There are, 
 as Professor Gardner has pointed out, no traces of 
 scenes of future happiness, or misery, or judgment, 
 on early Greek funeral sculptures. The utmost that 
 is represented is the farewell of the traveller who is 
 bound for some unknown realm. And in the inscrip- 
 tions which accompany them the future practically 
 finds no place. The world to come is not denied so 
 much as left out of sight. It is not a distinct object 
 either of hope or of fear. Euripides, indeed, has 
 recognised, twice at least, in memorable words the 
 mystery of life and death, the powerlessness of man 
 to attain to a true conception of being : 
 
 "Who knows if Life is Death, 
 And Death is counted Life by those below? 
 "Who knows if Life, as we speak, is but Death, 
 And Death is Life 2?" 
 
 But in the latter place he seems to shrink back from 
 
 * Compare Professor Gardner, C.E., Dec. 1877, pp. 148 ff. 
 3 Polyid. fr. 639; Phrix. fr. 830. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 131 
 
 the positive hope which he has called up into mere 
 negation, and he continues — 
 
 " Nay, lay the question by ; 
 But this at least we do know : they that live 
 Are sick and suffer ; they who are no more 
 Nor suffer further, nor have ills to bear." 
 
 Elsewhere dim visions are given of the possibility 
 of new modes of existence hereafter, and he suggests 
 that the clinging love of earthly life is not more than 
 an instinctive shrinking from the unknown : — 
 
 "We seem possessed by an unhappy love 
 Of this strange, glittering, being upon earth, 
 Because we know not any other life, 
 And cannot gaze upon the things below, 
 But yield to idle tales i." 
 
 But more commonly his characters give unqualified 
 utterance to the dread of Death : — 
 
 "This light is very sweet to men to see. 
 The realm below is naught. He raves who prays 
 To die. 'Tis better to live on in woe 
 Than to die nobly 2." 
 
 " Death, my dear child, is not all one with Life ; 
 For Death is nothing, but in Life Hope lives ^." 
 
 Death, under this aspect, is presented as extinction, 
 dissolution, in which there seems to be no room for 
 further restoration : — 
 
 1 Hippol. 193; comp. Ion, 1066: Iph. Aul. 1507. 
 
 2 Iph. Aul. 1250; comp. ibid. 537: contrast ibid. 1368 ff. 
 
 3 Tioad. 032. 
 
 9—2 
 
132 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 " He that but now was full of lusty life, 
 Quenched like a falling star, hath rendered back 
 His spirit to heaven^." 
 
 "Suffer the dead to be enwrapped in earth, 
 Suffer each element thither to return 
 Whence first it came ; the spirit to the sky. 
 The body to the earth. For 'tis not ours, 
 But lent to us, to dwell in while life lasts, 
 And then the earth which formed it takes it back 2." 
 
 " Bless thou the living : every man when dead 
 Is earth and shadow : nothing turns to nothing \" 
 
 But, of all the utterances of the future, the most 
 pathetic in its utter hopelessness is that of Macaria. 
 With generous and unhesitating devotion she offers 
 herself for the deliverance of her kindred. She bids 
 farewell to her aged guardian, lolaus. She prays for 
 the efficacy of her sacrifice. She asks for burial as 
 her just recompense. And then she concludes : 
 "This" — this salvation which I have bought, this 
 grateful remembrance which I have gained — 
 
 "This is my treasure there, 
 In place of children, for my maiden death, 
 
 1 Fragm. 961. 2 guppi. 531. 
 
 3 Meleag. fr. 536 ; Comp. Suppl. 1140. This conception of 
 the dissolution of the elements of man's being is of frequent 
 occurrence in funeral inscriptions. It occurs on the monument 
 to those who fell at PotideBa in 432 b.c; though sometimes 
 a personal continuance of the soul ''in the realm of the blest'* 
 seems to be implied. — Comp. Prof. Gardner, I.e. pp. 162 £F. 
 Lenormant, "La voie sacree Eleusinienne, " i. 51, 62 f. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 133 
 
 If there be any life beneath the earth. 
 I pray there may be none. For if there too 
 We shall have cares, poor mortals doomed to die, 
 I know not whither we can turn ; for death 
 Is held the surest medicine for woes^" 
 
 Once only, as far as I know, is there any reference 
 in Euripides to future punishment. The words have 
 been regarded as an interpolation ; but the fact that 
 they occur in the " Helena" justifies the thought that 
 the poet may have allowed himself to adopt in part 
 an Egyptian belief, with which he could not have 
 been unacquainted. Theonoe, a prophetess, sister of 
 the king Theoclymenus, who wished to marry Helen 
 by force in violation of the laws of hospitality, pro- 
 mises Menelaus her help in rescuing his long-lost 
 wife. She cannot, she admits at once, be partner in 
 her brother's crime : — 
 
 "Vengeance there is for this with those below, 
 And those above, for all alike. The mind 
 Of those that die lives not, indeed, but has 
 Immortal feeling, grown incorporate 
 "With the immortal ajther^." 
 
 The thought suggested by the last lines is, as far as 
 I know, unique. The isolated life of the individual 
 appears to be contrasted with a conscious participa- 
 tion in the divine life as man's final destiny. This 
 participation is necessarily limited by Euripides to a 
 
 1 Heracl. 591. Comp. Antig. fr. 176; Ale. 937. 
 
 2 nel. 1013. 
 
134 EUHIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 I 
 
 part of man's nature ; but in fashioning the thought 
 he seems to have reached the loftiest idea accessible 
 before the Gospel. 
 
 If, however, this be, as I believe, a true expression 
 of the mind of Euripides, it is a solitary flash of light 
 in the general gloom. When he speaks, as he does 
 rarely, of the dead as still conscious, he does not con- 
 ceive of them as more than the cold shadows of the 
 Homeric Hades. Neoptolemus invites the spirit of 
 Achilles to drink the blood of Polyxena offered in his 
 honour\ Theseus, in reply to Heracles, says that in 
 Hades he was weaker than any man^ Those beneath 
 the earth have no strength, no joy^ At one time 
 they are supposed to be conscious of things above, 
 and then again to be ignorant of them. Hecuba, in 
 the same play, speaks of Priam as ignorant of her 
 calamity, and anticipates the protection of Hector for 
 his son Astyanax in the realm of the deadl Orestes 
 addresses his ftither in Hades as he shrinks from 
 fulfilling the terrible duty required of him, and Electra 
 nerves his indecision with the reply: — 
 
 "All this thy father hears. 'Tis time to go^," 
 
 Megara, in the "Hercules Furens," appeals to her 
 lost husband in words which perfectly express the 
 conflict of vague hope and fear: — 
 
 1 Hec. 536. 
 
 2 Here. Fur. 1415. 
 
 3 Orest. 1084; Crespli. fr. 454. 
 
 4 Troad. 1314; 1234. 
 
 5 Iph. Aul. 682. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 135 
 
 "Dearest, if any mortal voice is heard 
 In Hades, Heracles, to thee I speak .... 
 Help, come, appear, though but a shade to me, 
 For coming thou wouldst he defence enough i." 
 
 Once, in the "Hecuba," Euripides has ventured 
 to introduce the dead upon the stage. The Ghost of 
 Polydorus opens the crowning tragedy of the fall of 
 Troy. With natural inconsistency the disembodied 
 spirit speaks now of itself, and now of the unburied 
 body as the ''!": — 
 
 "I leave 
 The chamber of the dead and gates of gloom. 
 
 "I lie upon the shore-." 
 
 Yet even here the shadowy vitality is only a transi- 
 tory manifestation. The spirit, it is true, has left the 
 body by its own act ; it has obtained from the sove- 
 reign of the nether realm the power to appear. But 
 all that it desires is burial and a tomb, the symbol of 
 untroubled rest and posthumous remembrance'. 
 
 This representation of the Ghost of Polydorus 
 offers an interesting parallel to that of the Ghost of 
 Darius in the "Persse." Widely different as ^schylus 
 and Euripides are in their views of man and gods, 
 they are alike in their general conception of Hades. 
 The Great King, as ^schylus describes him, though 
 
 1 Here. Fur. 490. 
 
 2 Hec. i. 28. 
 
 ^ Comp. Hec. 319. The reference to "the third day" is 
 remaikable. — See St John, xi., 39 note. 
 
136 EUKIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 a joyless prince below the earth, appears in ignorance 
 of his people's disaster. He knows the future only 
 as men may know it — from the oracles of the gods. 
 The lesson which he has to give, to those who can yet 
 follow it, is to rejoice in the present blessings of 
 life:— 
 
 " I go beneath the gloom of earth ; 
 But you, ye elders, though in woe, bo glad ; 
 And give your souls to joy while the day lasts, 
 For wealth avails not to the dead below'." 
 
 There is one partial exception to the general dark- 
 ness which Euripides allows to fall over the grave. 
 The plot of the "Alcestis" gives greater play to hope 
 than is allowed elsewhere. The devotion of the heroic 
 wife and the joyous strength of Heracles in the face 
 of trials, which grow with each victory, inspire the 
 spectators with confidence that even the terrors of 
 death may be overcome at last : — 
 
 "On each soul this boldness settled now, 
 • That one who reverenced the gods so much 
 Would prosper yet^" 
 
 But the confidence, so far as it exists, rests on the 
 unique merits of Alcestis, and not on the common 
 destiny of man. She is addressed with a prayer as a 
 "blessed deity ^" Still, for her also. Hades is sun- 
 less ^ The future which Admetus looks forward to 
 
 1 Persae, 839, * Alo. 604 (Browning). 
 
 3 Ale. 1003. ^ Ale. 436. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 137 
 
 is, at best, a reflection of the present'. And doubt 
 dashes the loftiest expectation : — 
 
 "If there — aye there— some touch 
 Of further dignity await the good, 
 Sharing with them, mays't thou sit throned by her, 
 The bride of Hades, in companionship 2." 
 
 But Alcestis herself does not rise beyond the 
 legendary picture of the gloomy region of Hades. 
 She sees the two-oared boat and Charon, and the 
 darkness of the abode of the departed, and no ray 
 of light falls upon it from the splendour of her 
 devotion'. 
 
 There are, indeed, some few who are exempted 
 from the cheerless lot of the common dead. The 
 kindred of the gods can reach to Heaven. Thetis 
 promises Peleus that she will hereafter make him an 
 immortal god, and that he shall dwell with her in the 
 palace of Kerens'*. Heracles rises to Heaven itselP. 
 Achilles and Menelaus are to live in the island of the 
 blest^; and the Muse, his mother, promises Rhesus 
 she will obtain for him life as "a human deity" 
 though she will never see his face'^. But in speaking 
 of these unusual blessings Euripides keeps within the 
 limits of the epic legend. He repeats the old tradi- 
 tions, but he does not extend them. With these 
 
 1 Ale. 363. 2 AIc. 744 (Bro\7ning). 
 
 3 Ale. 252 ff. ■* Andr. 1254, ff. 
 
 5 Heracl. 9, 871, 910 fE. « Andr. I.e.; Hel. 1676. 
 ' Rhes. 967. 
 
138 EUKIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 exceptions even the gods, who show in the future the 
 triumph of righteousness, are silent as to the retribu" 
 tion of an unseen state. They promise no happiness, 
 they denounce no suffering in the invisible order. 
 The powers of the unseen world do not come within 
 their view. This is shown most remarkably at the 
 close of the "Hippolytus." Artemis appears in order 
 to bring consolation to her dying worshipper. It 
 might have seemed almost necessary that she should 
 draw a bright picture of future unhindered com- 
 panionship, of free fellowship untroubled by passion, 
 of purity triumphant and unassailable. But of 
 this there is not a word. All that she offers is the 
 prospect of a pitiful vengeance and the honour of 
 celebration upon earth. 
 
 Vitruvius mentions that the tomb of Euripides 
 was still a place of frequent resort in his time (c. B.c. 
 15). It was situated, he says, just above the con- 
 fluence of two streams. The waters of the one were 
 noxious and unfit for human use; the waters of the 
 other were pure and refreshing, and pilgrims drank of 
 them freely \ The description reads like a parable of 
 the position of the living poet, and it is completed by 
 a tradition preserved by Plutarch. The tomb, he 
 relates, when it was completed was touched by fire 
 from Heaven, in token of the favour of the gods. 
 This divine consecration was given besides only to the 
 tomb of Lycurgus". 
 
 1 Vitruv. viii. 16. ^ piut. Lye, 31. 
 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 139 
 
 Euripides certainly suffered, and thought and 
 wrote, at the meeting-point of conflicting currents of 
 opinion and hope. He reflects and, to a certain 
 extent, interprets the effects which followed from the 
 dissolution of the old life and the old faith under the 
 calamities of the Peloponnesian war and the influence 
 of foreign culture. He treated the drama as Socrates 
 treated philosophy; he brought it to the common 
 concerns of daily experience, to the trials and the 
 passions of simple men and women. So it is that he 
 is the most modern of the ancient tragedians, because 
 he is the most human. 
 
 The view of man's condition and destiny which he 
 gives is unquestionably sombre. He has visions of 
 lofty truth from time to time, but he does not draw 
 from them any abiding support for trust. In his 
 tragedies, the sorrows and failures of the good make 
 themselves felt in their present intensity ; the antici- 
 pations of ultimate retribution rest rather upon a 
 rational conviction that it must be, than upon that 
 sense of a divine fellowship which draws from the 
 fulfilment of duty an inspiration of joy under every 
 disappointment. 
 
 The religious teaching of Euripides corresponds, 
 in a word, with that most touching and noble sen- 
 tence which Plato, in this case perhaps with more 
 than usual truth, quotes from a conversation with 
 Socrates on the evening of his death. "In regard to 
 the facts of a future life, a man," said Phnedo, "must 
 either learn or find out their nature ; or, if he cannot 
 
140 EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 
 
 do this, take at any rate the best and least assailable 
 of human words, and, borne on this as on a raft, per- 
 form in peril the voyage of life, unless he should be 
 able to accomplish the journey with less risk and 
 danger on a surer vessel — some word divine'/' 
 
 We can then study in Euripides a distinct stage 
 in the preparation of the world for Christianity. He 
 paints life as he found it when Greek art and Greek 
 thought had put forth their full power. He scatters 
 the dream which some have indulged in of the un- 
 clouded brightness of the Athenian prospect of life : 
 and liis popularity shows that he represented truly 
 the feelings of those with whom he lived, and of those 
 who came after him. His recognition of the mystery 
 of being from the point of sight of the poet and not 
 of the philosopher, his affirmation of the establish- 
 ment of the sovereignty of righteousness under the 
 conditions of earth, his feeling after a final unity in 
 the harmonious consummation of things in the 
 supreme existence, his vindication of the claims of 
 the fulness of man's nature, are so many testimonies 
 of the soul to the character of the revelation which 
 can perfectly meet its needs. Let any one carefully 
 ponder them, and consider whether they do not all 
 find fulfilment in the one fact which is the message 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 It cannot be a mere accidental coincidence that 
 when St Paul stood on the Areopagus and unfolded 
 
 1 Phced. p. 85, o. 
 
EURIPIDES AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. 141 
 
 the meaning of his announcement of "Jesus and the 
 Kesurrection," he did in reality proclaim, as now 
 established in the actual experience of men, the 
 truths which Euripides felt after — ^the office of feeling, 
 the oneness and end of humanity, the completeness 
 of man's future being, the reign of righteousness, 
 existence in God'. 
 
 1 Actsxvii. 2311. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AEEOPAGITE. 
 
 JO^(X^JJ-> 
 
 'E7W ixh ovK oX5a irpos "EWrjvas rj irpos eripovt dtrtav, dpKetv 
 olSfxevos dyadoh. ap8pd<Tiv el to dXrjdh avTO i<p' eavrou dwijcroivTO 
 Kai ypwpai kuI (Itciv y 6vt(j)% ?x^i. 
 
 Dion. Areop. Ep. vii. 
 
 IT is the fate of books even more than of men to 
 exert a profound influence when their individual 
 existence is forgotten. If it be true in one sense of 
 men that the dead are sovereign over the Hving, the 
 saying has a deeper appHcation to literature. A par- 
 ticular phase of thought is taken up into some 
 broader intellectual development, and works its full 
 effect under the changed circumstances ; but the 
 writings to which it owed its origin, or in which it 
 first found expression, are forgotten, or, if remem- 
 bered, lose their true significance. The movement 
 goes on from life to life, but the first motor remains 
 stationary, and few are willing to make the mental 
 effort which alone can render its primary action in- 
 telligible. And this effort necessarily becomes more 
 
I 
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 143 
 
 difficult and more distasteful in proportion as the 
 subject to which it has to be applied is removed 
 from our sympathies. Still, any form of speculation 
 which has at any time powerfully influenced human 
 thought will repay the study which is spent in under- 
 standing it, and sooner or later claim fresh regard. 
 The variations of human nature are too limited to 
 place any of its developments wholly beyond the pale 
 of our interest. An oscillation in popular feeling 
 brings back what was for a time forgotten. Old 
 problems rise again, upon a higher level, it may be, 
 but yet so that the old answers are not without their 
 use ; or even if we can now see a surer way of meet- 
 ing them, it is none the less invigorating to know 
 that they have been met and in some sort solved in 
 former times. 
 
 So it is that by a partial revolution of thought in 
 the present age Scholastic Philosophy has lately re- 
 ceived far more attention than was held to be due 
 to it in the last two centuries. Our own discussions 
 have made the difficulties with which it dealt, and 
 the methods which it employed, more capable of 
 realisation. At the same time that which has ceased 
 to be formidable becomes capable of a calm analysis. 
 But while we are tolerably familiar with the good 
 and evil of scholasticism, and not unwilling to ac- 
 knowledge its permanent effects on modern habits 
 of mind, the mysterious writings out of which it 
 sprung, and under the shelter of whose venerable 
 title it was first fostered, have as yet received no 
 
144 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 popular recognition. Few even among students of 
 theology read the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, 
 "out of which/* to quote the enthusiastic words of 
 their editor, "the Angelic Doctor drew almost the 
 whole of his theology, so that his 'Summa' is but the 
 hive in whose varied cells he duly stored the honey 
 which he gathered from them." 
 
 There is, indeed, very little in the writings to 
 attract a reader. Their style is, as a rule, monoto- 
 nously turgid. The sentences are cumbrous and 
 involved ; the words are frequently uncouth and 
 barbarous. The same thought is continually re- 
 stated with a wearisome iteration ; and emphasis or 
 distinctness is sought simply by an accumulation of 
 details. But yet, on the other hand, a greater fami- 
 liarity with the works reveals in them a real earnest- 
 ness of purpose and many great thoughts. Even in 
 the exaggerations of language there remain noble 
 signs of the wondrous flexibility of Greek ; and there 
 are here and there a few passages in which the author 
 proves himself to have been not an unattentive stu- 
 dent of Plato's manner. One of these may be quoted 
 as shewing better than a description would do, the 
 generous and loving spirit in which he engaged in 
 his work*. 
 
 A monk who had assailed a priest for dealing too 
 
 1 In translating the quotations from Dionysius, I have 
 exercised much freedom in dealing with his cumbrous and 
 involved style. A literal rendering would be intolerable in 
 English. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 145 
 
 leniently, as he thought, with a penitent, had applied 
 to Dionysius for his support. In reply, he rebuked 
 him severely for his want of mercy, and concludes : — 
 
 " If you please I will recount a divine vision of a saintly 
 man ; and smile not at it, for it is a true story. Once upon 
 a time when I visited Crete, I was entertained by the holy 
 Carpus. He was a man qualified beyond all others by the 
 purity of his soul for the vision of GoD An un- 
 believer, so he told me, had once grieved him by leading a 
 Christian astray to godlessness, while the days of rejoicing 
 over his baptism were still being celebrated^. And so 
 when he ought to have prayed for both in sincere charity, 
 that by God's help he might convert the one and overcome 
 the other,. . . . though he had never been so afiected 
 before, he allowed rancorous enmity and bitterness to sink 
 into his heart. In this evil state he fell asleep, for it was 
 evening ; and at midnight, when it was his habit to awake 
 to recite the divine hymns, he rose from troubled and 
 broken slumbers, and even in the midst of his very com- 
 munion with God was agitated by unholy sorrow and 
 indignation, as he pleaded that it was not right that un- 
 godly men should live, perverting the straight paths of the 
 Lord. And so saying he prayed God to slay both the 
 offenders, without pity, by a bolt from heaven. As soon 
 as the prayer was uttered, he said that he thought that the 
 house in which he stood was suddenly shaken with great 
 violence and cloven in twain from the roof, and that a line 
 of fire, exceeding bright, streamed down from heaven to the 
 place where he was ; and that heaven itself was opened, 
 and that upon its edge was Jesus, with innumerable angels 
 
 1 This seems to be certainly the sense of the passage. The 
 term Hilaria is simply transferred to a Christian use. 
 
 W.-E. 10 
 
146 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 in human shape standing beside him. This was what he 
 saw above, and as he looked on it he marvelled. But when 
 he bent downwards he said that he saw the earth rent 
 asunder with a dark and yawning chasm, and the men 
 whom he cursed standing before him at the edge of the 
 chasm, trembling and piteous, and their footing was so 
 unsteady that by reason of that alone they were on the 
 point of falling into it ; moreover snakes crawled up from 
 the gulf below and gliding about their feet .... sought 
 by every kind of terror and fascination .... to cast them 
 into the pit. There were men also among the snakes who 
 at the same time assailed the two guilty ones with violent 
 shakings and thrusts and blows ; and it seemed that they 
 were about to fall half-willingly, half-unwillingly, as they 
 were gradually constrained or seduced by their evil cir- 
 cumstances. And Carpus said that he was delighted to 
 look down, and forgot what was above ; nay, that he was 
 indignant and dissatisfied that they had not already fallen, 
 and vexed that his repeated efforts to this end had failed of 
 success ; and that he cursed them still. And having with 
 difficulty lifted his eyes upward he saw heaven again, as he 
 had seen it before, and Jesus in pity rise from His throne 
 and descend to the wretched men and reach to them a 
 loving hand, and the angels helping Him and supporting 
 the men on all sides. And he thought that Jesus said to 
 him, when his hand was now stretched out to smite, 
 ' Smite Me, if you will ; for I am ready to sufier again to 
 save men anew ; yea, I would gladly endure this to rescue 
 others from sin. But see if it be well for thee to make thy 
 abode with snakes in the pit rather than with God and the 
 good angels to whom men are dear ! ' 
 
 "This is what I heard, and I believe that it is trueV 
 
 ' Ep. viii. G. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 147 
 
 If the style of the dream is not wholly unlike 
 that of Plato, the conception of it is not unworthy 
 of Jean PauP; and at the same time it reveals the 
 tenderness with which the writer sought to fulfil his 
 Christian mission. He had been trained, as it seems, 
 in some heathen school, probably that of Proclus, 
 and in leaving that teaching for a nobler faith, he 
 had not cast aside his old love. Like Justin, he 
 wears the robe of the philosopher when he expounds 
 the mysteries of the Gospel. His object, as he ex- 
 plains it elsewhere, was not to destroy, but to con- 
 struct ; or rather to destroy by construction ; to 
 conquer error by the full presentment of truth ^. 
 His method was sound even where his applications 
 were false. Very much in his system, as will be 
 seen, was faulty and defective, and yet his power of 
 sympathy made him the fitting medium through 
 whom the last results of Greek speculation should 
 pass into the treasury of the Church, 
 
 II. 
 
 The earliest mention of the Dionysian writings 
 
 1 The double action of the power of sense to constrain and 
 attract will remind some of Goethe's exquisite lines in " The 
 Fisherman," which must have the same meaning : — 
 **Sie sprach zu ihm, sie sang zu ihm; 
 Da war's um ihm geschehn: 
 Halb zog sie ihn, halb sank er hin, 
 Und ward nicht mehr gesehn." 
 ^ See particularly the short letter, Ep. vi. 
 
 10—2 
 
148 DIONYSIUS THE 'AREOPAGITE. 
 
 occurs in the record of the conference between the 
 Severians (a Monophysite sect) and the orthodox at 
 Constantinople, in a.d. 533. The Severians quoted 
 them in defence of their views ; but their adversaries 
 rejected the evidence as of more than doubtful au- 
 thenticity. "These so-called works of the Areopa- 
 gite," they said, "were unknown to Cyril and Atha- 
 nasius, and if no one of the ancients quoted them, 
 how can you establish their truth?" But though 
 their first appearance was thus suspicious and sus- 
 pected, they soon won their way to popular favour. 
 In the next century they found a zealous champion 
 in the saintly Maximus (t662), who illustrated them 
 by short notes. Yet even then they were not uni- 
 versally admitted as genuine. The first book noticed 
 by Photius in his " Bibliotheca " (c. 845) is an essay 
 by Theodorus, a presbyter, in defence of the "genuine- 
 ness of the volume (^t)8A.os) of Saint Dionysius." 
 The controversy was therefore probably active at 
 that time, and Photius' note seems to indicate that 
 he considered Theodorus' arguments not so weighty 
 as the objections which he endeavoured to meet. 
 The objections were fourfold, and they may be quoted 
 here, for they sum up excellently the proof of the 
 late origin of the treatises. Firstly, then, it is said 
 that they are not quoted by the earlier Fathers; 
 next, that they are not mentioned in the catalogues 
 of writings in Eusebius ; thirdly, that the growth of 
 the Church customs was slow, and that it is " against 
 all likelihood, or rather a mere forgery, to represent 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 149 
 
 Dionysius as discussing results which were reached 
 a long time after his death ; " lastly, that he quotes 
 an epistle of Ignatius, which was written on his way 
 to martyrdom, in the time of Trajan, a manifest 
 anachronism. " These four difficulties," Photius adds, 
 " Theodorus strives earnestly to solve, and so to esta- 
 blish (as far as in him lies) the genuineness of the 
 volume." But in the eighth and ninth centuries 
 criticism was of little avail against possession, and 
 the Dionysian writings were accepted as the real 
 works of the Areopagite by the greatest writers of 
 the Greek Church, from the end of the century in 
 which they were first brought forward, by Leontius 
 of Byzantium (c. 590), by Sophronius of Jerusalem 
 (c. 638), by John of Damascus (c. 730), by Simeon 
 Metaphrastes (c 901), and by Euthymius Zigabenus 
 (c. 1116). 
 
 In the west the Dionysian writings were first 
 referred to on hearsay by Gregory the Great (c. 600), 
 and afterwards distinctly quoted by Adrian I. in 
 a letter to Charles the Great. But the beginning of 
 their real influence was somewhat later and more 
 romantic. In the year 827 Michael the Stammerer 
 sent a copy of the books to Louis I., the son of 
 Charles. They were received in the abbey of St 
 Denis, near Paris, by the abbot Hilduin. The Areo- 
 pagite and Bishop of Athens was identified with the 
 Apostle of France, who was supposed to be buried 
 there. The arrival of the gift was marked by signal 
 miracles. It came on the very vigil of the Feast of 
 
150 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 Dionysius, and was attended by such divine grace, 
 "that on the same night nineteen cures were wrought 
 on well known persons in the neighbourhood of the 
 monastery sick of various maladies." Such marvels 
 could not but stimulate the pious curiosity of the king, 
 and Hilduin appears to have attempted to prepare a 
 version of the Greek text. Probably his knowledge of 
 Greek failed him in the task, as well it might do, and 
 what he accomplished was soon lost. Charles the Bald, 
 the son of Louis, was more successful in finding 
 a scholar to execute the work. His zeal for sacred 
 literature was rewarded by the services of Johannes 
 Scotus, who was well versed in the Greek Fathers, 
 and even ventured on original Greek composition. 
 This scholar cannot have been long at the Court of 
 Charles before he received the command to translate 
 into Latin the works of Dionysius. His treatise "On 
 Predestination," published about 851, is entirely 
 built out of Dionysian teaching ; but the first definite 
 notice of his version is a letter from Pope Nicholas I. 
 to Charles (a.d. 861), in which he complains that the 
 work had not been sent to him, "according to the 
 custom of the Church," to receive the sanction of his 
 judgment. Nothing seems to have followed from the 
 implied censure, and some years later (c. 865) Ana- 
 stasius, the Librarian of the Roman See, writing also 
 to Charles, commends the wonderful work of "the 
 barbarian placed in the ends of the world," with 
 generous warmth. " The man wrought through the 
 operation of the Spirit," he says, "who quickened 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 151 
 
 in him at once the fire of love and the fire of 
 eloquence." 
 
 This praise was hardly merited by the translation 
 itself, which is a simple rendering of words, and not 
 of thoughts, so that "the interpretation almost 
 always needs an interpreter;" but obscurity was 
 not likely to deter men who believed that they had 
 before them the doctrine of an apostolic teacher, 
 "venerable," as Scotus says, alike "for his antiquity, 
 for the sublimity of the heavenly mysteries with which 
 he dealt," and for "the singular graces" which were 
 bestowed upon him ; and on this point there was 
 unanimous consent. Scotus never expresses a doubt 
 of the genuineness of the books, and M. Delrio is 
 probably to be trusted when he says that Thomas de 
 Vio alone of the schoolmen expressed the least 
 hesitation as to their authorship. 
 
 When the text was once accessible, numerous 
 commentaries followed ; as that of Hugo of St Victor 
 on "The Heavenly Hierarchy" (c. 1120), of Robert 
 Grosseteste on all the books (c. 1235), of Thomas 
 Aquinas on "The Divine Names" (c. 1255), of Albertus 
 Magnus (c. 1260), of Dionysius Carthusianus (c. 1450); 
 and in almost every mediaeval writing on theology the 
 authority of the Areopagite is quoted as decisive. And 
 so it was that two other new versions were made; 
 one by Johannes Sarracinus in the twelfth century, and 
 another by Ambrosius Camaldulensis in the fifteenth. 
 
 At the revival of learning the reputation of the 
 Dionysian treatises suffered rude shocks. Scholars 
 
152 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 like Theodorus Gaza and Laurentius Valla, critical 
 theologians like Erasmus and Cardinal Cajetan, felt 
 the absolute certainty of their late origin. From that 
 time the final judgment was not doubtful. The 
 ingenious labours of Delrio and Halloix in defence 
 of the Dionysian authorship are now only instructive 
 monuments of misplaced learning. "The scanty 
 handful of skirmishers/' to use the image of the 
 former writer, has conquered in the judgment of all 
 "the serried phalanx of the East and West." Every 
 writer, I believe, of every school now admits that the 
 title of the books is a pseudonym. 
 
 It seems equally certain, and generally admitted, 
 that the books cannot have been written before the 
 fifth century. Beyond this all is conjectural. But 
 from the remarkable coincidence of thought which 
 the Dionysian writings shew with those of Proclus', 
 who was said by some enthusiastic apologists to have 
 pillaged the thoughts of the Areopagite, it may be 
 reasonably concluded that they were written late in 
 the century; and their general character suggests 
 Syria, or the far East, as their birthplace. The 
 position which they occupy with regard to the great 
 controversies on the Person of Christ points distinctly 
 to this conclusion. Without being formally Mono- 
 physite, they yet exhibit most clearly the working of 
 
 ^ The coincidences with Damascius, the second in succession 
 from Proclus and the last Platonic teacher at Athens, are even 
 more remarkable. It is worthy of notice that Damascius was 
 of Syrian origin. 
 
r 
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 153 
 
 those influences which gave rise to Monophysitism, 
 and which, even after the condemnation of the doctrine 
 at Chalcedon (a.d. 451), still exercised a powerful 
 charm over the speculations of the monks of Egypt 
 and Syria. It was, as we have seen, by Monophysites 
 that they were first brought forward, and in later 
 times they found among them numerous translators 
 and commentators. It is, perhaps, possible to ad- 
 vance yet further towards a solution of the question 
 of their date. The pseudo-Dionysius quotes Hiero- 
 theus as an elder contemporary and teacher ; and it 
 appears that, at the end of the fifth century, an abbot 
 of a monastery at Edessa, Bar Sadaili, either v»^rote a 
 book under that name, or found one there bearing it, 
 by the help of which he supported his own mystic 
 doctrines. Thus the name Hierotheus at least came 
 into notice then. In itself the coincidence is perhaps 
 slight, but it falls in with every other indication of 
 place and date which the Dionysian writings contain ; 
 and the error cannot be great if it be conjectured that 
 they were composed a.d. 480 — 520, either at Edessa 
 or under the influence of the Edessene school. 
 
 But though the writings are pseudonymous, there 
 is no reason to consider them a forgery. The historic 
 dress is of the most meagre texture, and the writer 
 rests his conclusions on Scripture and tradition and 
 reason, and not on his individual authority. The 
 references to his connexion with the apostles are most 
 superficial, and chiefly confined to the superscriptions 
 of his books. His Essays are addressed to "his 
 
154 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 fellow-presbyter Timotheus." Among his letters is 
 one to "Polycarp, Bishop" [of Smyrna]; another to 
 "Titus, Bishop" [of Crete]; and another to "John 
 the Divine, Apostle and Evangelist, exiled fn the 
 island of Patmos." But there is no endeavour to 
 give any appearance of naturalness to the writings by 
 the introduction of circumstantial allusions or personal 
 reminiscences. Two such allusions indeed occur, and 
 they are very significant; but they are introduced for 
 special purposes, and appear to refer to late but wide- 
 spread legends. In recounting the praises of Hierotheus, 
 the writer says that when they went with "James, the 
 brother of the Lord {dBeX<f>66€o<;) , and Peter the chief 
 and noblest head of the inspired apostles (7 Kopv^aCa 
 Koi TTpiu^VTiXT-q Twv 6ioX6y{ov a/cpoTrys), to gaze upon 
 
 the (dead) body of her who was the beginning of 
 life and the recipient of God," Hierotheus surpassed 
 all, after the apostles, in the ecstatic hymns to which 
 he then gave utterance \ And, again, he charges 
 Polycarp to remind Apollophanes, a philosopher who 
 was a vehement adversary of Christianity, of what 
 had once happened to him when they were fellow- 
 students at Heliopolis; how they had seen the sun 
 eclipsed by the passage of the moon from opposition 
 to conjunction, moving from east to west; and then, 
 after the total darkness, returning from west to east, 
 at the time, as it appeared afterwards, of the Passion. 
 So that, when he saw this, Apollophanes said, "It 
 is a crisis in the affairs of heaven;" and Dionysius 
 
 *■ De div. Norn. iii. 2. 
 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 155 
 
 replied, "Either the God of Nature suffers, or the 
 fabric of the world is broken up\" On the other 
 hand, nothing was more natural than that a later 
 writer, himself deeply influenced by Greek philosophy, 
 should adopt the one name in the New Testament 
 which combined Greek culture with Christian faith. 
 If Dionysius^ was originally a student in the Athenian 
 school of Proclus, the selection of the name had yet 
 another recommendation. There was a real meaning 
 even in the fiction by which an Athenian Christian 
 was made to claim for the Faith some of the results 
 which it had suggested to heathen teachers in his 
 own city. The first bishop was, in a true sense, the 
 intellectual ancestor of the last philosopher. But 
 however this may be, the title was significant, and 
 its adoption was not abhorrent from the literary 
 instinct of the age. In this respect the Dionysian 
 writings may be compared with the Clementines. 
 The names under which both appear were representa- 
 tive names. They describe the spirit and object of 
 the writers, and are not in themselves signs of wilful 
 dishonesty. 
 
 111. 
 
 The writings which remain are but a portion of 
 the whole collection, if any trust can be placed in the 
 
 1 Ep. vii. 2. 
 
 2 For the sake of convenience I shall call the unknown 
 writer by the name which he assumed. 
 
156 DION y SI us THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 references which the autlior makes to his other works; 
 but these form a tolerably complete whole, and no 
 trace of the missing books is left beyond their titles'. 
 The order in which they are commonly arranged 
 gives their proper sequence: — 1. On the Heavenly 
 Hierarchy; 2. On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; 
 3. On the Divine Names ; 4. On Mystical Theology. 
 To these are added ten Letters of not less interest 
 than the integral treatises. Between (2) and (3) the 
 writer places his missing essay On Theological Out- 
 lines ; and between (3) and (4) that On Symbolical 
 Theology. Besides these he refers to essays On the 
 Soul, On the Just Judgment of God, On the Objects of 
 Intellect and Sense, On Divine Hymns^ ; of which 
 the first three suggest topics with which the extant 
 writings deal very unsatisfactorily. Indeed, it may 
 be said that they mark the weak points where the 
 Dionysian system breaks down as a complete theory 
 of Being. 
 
 For it is nothing less than this that Dionysius 
 claims to give. His books taken togetlier are a 
 
 ^ The Abbe Migne's reprint of the edition of Corderius (Paris, 
 1857), with some additions, contains everything which a student 
 needs for the elucidation of the text. The notes of Corderius 
 illustrate most fully the connexion of Thomas Aquinas with 
 Dionysius. 
 
 2 Two other books are sometimes ascribed to him On the 
 Attributes and Ranks of Angels, and On Legal Theology. The 
 former title probably refers to the Divine Hierarchy ; and the 
 later title is obtained only by a false interpretation of the text 
 in which it is supposed to be named. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 157 
 
 Philosophy of Being. He starts from the Absolute, 
 and passing through the successions of its descending 
 manifestations rises again to the Absolute in the 
 ecstasy of a mystic union of man with God. The 
 grandeur of the problem gives a solemn dignity to the 
 earnest effort to solve it; and popular speculations of 
 our own time give even a present interest to the first 
 Christian solution, however imperfect it may be, of 
 what remains the last human mystery. 
 
 The word "Hierarchy," which expresses the Divine 
 law of the subordination and mutual dependence of 
 the different ranks of beings, is one of the key-words 
 to the whole scheme. Step by step there is, accord- 
 ing to Dionysius, a measured rise from the lowest 
 being to the highest. Thus at each point a passage is 
 possible to a superior level ; and by a slow and pro- 
 gressive revelation the faithful worshipper attains a 
 truer conception of the one supreme Being, and a 
 closer fellowship with Him. Everything finite is a 
 help towards the apprehension of the infinite ; every- 
 thing complex is a stage in the ascent to the One. 
 The framework is necessary for human infirmity ; and 
 man himself is but one link in a magnificent whole. 
 At the same time our view of the Divine order is 
 necessarily a human view, and we refer its several 
 parts to ourselves. It is to meet this infirmity that 
 the revelation of the Divine economy is given. For 
 us the simple is made manifold. The material dis- 
 cipline of earthly ordinances is the prelude to a purer 
 knowledge. Each sight and sound, the processes of 
 
158 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 I 
 
 reason and the perceptions of sense, have something 
 of a sacramental value. And this not by any after- 
 thought, so to speak, or special grace, but by their 
 own inherent nature and the primal law of things.J 
 Thus all was ordered from the first ; and i 
 
 " it is impossible that the beams of the Divine source can 
 shine upon us unless they are shrouded in the manifold 
 texture of sacred veils, so as to prepare our powers for a 
 fuller vision, and adapted by a paternal providence through 
 an appropriate and peculiar dispensation to the circum- 
 stances of our lifeK" 
 
 The other key- word is " Unity." Tliis character- 
 izes the origin and end of things, as "Hierarchy" 
 describes the economy by which the interval between 
 the production of all from the One, and the union of 
 all with the One, is filled up. Even in the present 
 state of transition the participation in the One, how- 
 ever imperfect, is the universal condition of being. 
 
 "That which is manifold in its parts is one in the 
 whole ; that which is manifold in its accidents is one in 
 the subject ; that which is manifold in number or powers 
 is one in species ; that which is manifold in species is one 
 in genus ; that which is manifold in its processions is one 
 in its source ; and there is no object in the range of being 
 which does not in some way partake in the one, which 
 from the first embraced in one single existence everything 
 and every whole, even opposites, in the unity which per- 
 meates all things 2." 
 
 1 De Div. Hier. i. 2, 3. 
 
 2 De Div. Nom. xiii. 2. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 159 
 
 The writings, therefore, fall into two groups, those 
 which deal mainly with the revelation of the Divine 
 Order, and those which guide the believer to the 
 deeper mysteries of the revelation of the Divine Being. 
 To the former belong the Divine and Ecclesiastical 
 Hierarchies ; to the latter the essays on The Divine 
 Names and Mystical Theology. The letters have no 
 specially distinctive character. But though this divi- 
 sion holds generally, there is very much common to 
 the two groups. Both are based on the fundamental 
 propositions that all knowledge is relative ; that all 
 human knowledge is relative to the special circum- 
 stances of man ; and that none the less there is a 
 power in him by which, through the help of the 
 Divine guidance, he may rise, not indeed to a know- 
 ledge of the Absolute, but to a. fellowship with it. 
 Yet so it is that for the present he will remain imper- 
 fect. However swiftly he may advance, to use an old 
 image, he will never outstrip his shadow. 
 
 Corresponding in some degree with these two 
 objects of speculation — the Divine Order and the 
 Divine Being — are two methods of theology, the 
 affirmative and the negatived The correspondence, 
 indeed, lies rather in the spirit of the methods than 
 in their application ; but still they are characteristic 
 of the lines of thought which diverged in these two 
 directions. According to the one everything which 
 is may be affirmed of God, because so far as it is, it 
 
 ^ KaTa<paTiK-q and dnocpaTiKi^ : or more definitely, Kara 0i<np 
 and /car* d<f>alp€aii>. — Myst. Theol. 2, 3. 
 
160 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 exists in Him. According to the other, everything, 
 so far as we are cognizant of it, may be denied of God, 
 because our conception introduces the element of 
 limitation which cannot be applied to Him. Thus 
 on the one hand He is Wisdom, and Love, and Truth, 
 and Light because the absolute ideas belonging to these 
 words are included in His Being ; and on the other 
 hand He is not Wisdom, not Love, not Truth, not 
 Light, because He is raised infinitely above the notions 
 with which the words are necessarily connected by 
 men. The latter statements are in themselves more 
 true, but the former are better suited to the common 
 discipline of life. And here Dionysius acutely adds 
 that those positive affirmations are to be preferred 
 which, while they convey a partial truth, yet convey 
 it in such a form as to avoid any semblance of ex- 
 pressing a complete truth. Thus there is little danger 
 in describing the angels under the similitude of beasts 
 and birds, because no one could suppose that the 
 likeness extended beyond the single point of compari- 
 son, while many may be deceived by the nobler 
 imagery which describes "the beings of heaven as 
 creatures of light in human form, of dazzling bright- 
 ness, and exquisite beauty, arrayed in glittering robes, 
 and flashing forth the radiance of innocuous fire." 
 Moreover, by the use of humbler types, we are not 
 only forced to rise above the illustration, but also 
 reminded of another truth. For "there is not one 
 being in the universe which is wholly deprived of 
 participation in the good {to Kakov)^ if it be the case. 
 
 I 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AT5E0PAGITE. 161 
 
 as the infallible oracles say, that all things are very 
 good (KaXdy." Thus we may use the meanest ma- 
 terial forms to represent heavenly objects, for "matter, 
 as it received its original existence from the abso- 
 lutely good, retains throughout the whole of its 
 material disposition traces of its ideal (vocpos) beauty ^'* 
 
 IV. 
 
 Having laid down these introductory principles, 
 Dionysius proceeds to develop his view of the heavenly 
 hierarchy. " A Hierarchy is," he says, according to 
 his use, "a sacred order, and science, and activity 
 (cvepycta), assimilated as far as possible to the godlike, 
 and elevated to the imitation of God proportionately 
 to the Divine illuminations conceded to it." Its scope 
 is " the assimilation to and union with God." He is 
 "the guide of all holy science and activity." His 
 " loveliness is imaged in the ranks of beings " whom 
 He has appointed. And each true member of His 
 holy band becomes " a most clear and stainless mirror 
 to receive the beams of the primal and sovereign 
 light," and to reflect it in turn without stint " on all 
 around according to the Divine ordinances." Thus 
 it is that each becomes in his turn " a fellow-worker 
 with God," purifying, illuminating, perfecting, accord- 
 ing to his proper function ^ 
 
 The origin of this complex order is to be found in 
 the Divine goodness. It is the characteristic of "the 
 
 1 De Gael. Hier. ii. 3.. 2 j^. ii. 4. 3 j^, iii. 1, 2. 
 
 W. E. 11 
 
162 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 super-essential and all-efficient Godhead " to call all 
 things "to fellowship with itself according to their 
 proper nature." Even " things inanimate partake of 
 this : for the being of all is the Godhead which is 
 above being." But above all others the angels enjoy- 
 most, and most often, this Divine communion ; and it 
 was by them God wrought under the Old Covenant, 
 and specially in the revelation of the mystery of the 
 Incarnation \ 
 
 From this ministering office the name "angel" 
 has been commonly applied to all the orders of the 
 heavenly host, though properly it belongs only to the 
 lowest of the three ranks into which they are divided. 
 In Scripture nine titles are given to them, and these 
 fall into three equal groups. First are those beings 
 which are ever about God, and most closely united 
 with Him, the Thrones, and the many-eyed Che- 
 rubim and Seraphim. Next stand Authorities, Do- 
 minations, Powers ; and last. Angels, Archangels, and 
 Princedoms ^ Each rank has its peculiar work, and 
 each subordinate division contributes to the complete- 
 ness with which it is accomplished. But the differ- 
 ence of work consists in its mode and measure, but 
 not its object, which is always threefold and always 
 the same, "the reception and impartment of complete 
 purification, and Divine light, and perfecting know- 
 ledge^;" and to this end there is one only way — ^par- 
 ticipation in the relative knowledge of God. 
 
 1 De Cffil. Hier. iv. « Id. vi. 2. » ja. vii. 2. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AEEOPAGITE. 163 
 
 The first rank of the heavenly hierarchy enjoy 
 this immediately, remaining always in the Divine 
 presence, and drawing from that the direct revelation 
 of His nature. Thus the Seraphim are filled with a 
 holy and inextinguishable fire by which every meaner 
 thought in them is consumed. Thus the Cherubim 
 gain a power of contemplating and knowing God with- 
 out the admixture of any material symbols. Thus 
 the Thrones are established in a calm and immovable 
 supremacy over all lower desires, and lie open to 
 every Divine impression. And what they severally 
 receive they administer in turn to the rank below 
 them, purifying, illuminating, and perfecting them in 
 due measure as they have themselves been purified, 
 illuminated, and perfected by God\ Hence the Do- 
 minations, with the spirit of generous freedom, strive 
 towards a likeness to the true dominion, regardless 
 of all vain attractions : the Powers with masculine 
 and unshaken courage seek to carry out every divine 
 motion : the Authorities, with clear and well-ordered 
 sway, to bring everything into right subjection to the 
 source of all authority. From these the divine reve- 
 lation passes to the third rank of Princedoms, Arch- 
 angels, Angels, by whose intervention in the affairs of 
 men, as guiding the destinies of nations, or bearing 
 the messages of God, or ministering to the wants of 
 individuals, the powers of heaven are brought into 
 connexion with the beings of earths 
 
 1 De Gael. Hier. viii. 1. 2 j^^^ j^. 
 
 11—2 
 
164 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 It is needless to follow Dionysius in his interpre- 
 tation of passages of Scripture which deal with the 
 operations of angels, and unfold their nature under 
 material imagery. There are, however, two points in 
 which these discussions of detail illustrate his general 
 views. Though the angels are so much mightier 
 than men, and endowed with an inheritance of tran- 
 scendent light, yet their action does not overpower 
 the human will, which may by perseverance and 
 obstinacy resist their benevolent influences. 
 
 "For our life is not swayed by necessity, nor, again, 
 are the divine lights of our providential illumination in 
 themselves darkened through the absolute freedom of the 
 acts which are foreseen ; but the want of affinity in our 
 intellectual powers of vision, either wholly hinders our 
 reception of the overflowing light-gift of the paternal good- 
 ness, and so checks its distribution in virtue of their resist- 
 ance, or modifies the fashion of our participation, making 
 it small or great, obscure or bright, while the fontal basis 
 in which we share is one and simple, ever the same, and 
 universally difiused^." 
 
 And it is in this law, which preserves the fulness 
 of human freedom, that the differences of national, no 
 less than individual, fortune find their explanation. 
 The Jews alone preserved in old time the pure know- 
 ledge of the true God ; but it was not that they alone 
 were the objects of His care. Michael was their 
 prince, but "the Most High set the borders of the 
 nations according to the number of the angels of 
 
 1 De Csel. Hier. ix. 3. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 165 
 
 God'." The Gentiles were not given over to the 
 dominion of strange gods. 
 
 " There was one sovereignty over all, and it was to this 
 that the angels presiding over each nation according to the 
 
 Divine order led those who followed them The one 
 
 Providence of the Most High extended equally to all, and, 
 with a view to their salvation, assigned all men to the ele- 
 vating guidance of their proper angels, but Israel almost 
 alone, above all, turned to the light-gift and knowledge of 
 the true Lord 2." 
 
 Thus the first circle of the Divine Revelation is 
 completed, and in that is seen the image of the whole. 
 No one being is perfect in himself, or absolutely inde- 
 pendent, except the One. All are bound together by 
 the offices of mutual ministration : are quickened to 
 unceasing activity by the contemplation of a purity 
 infinitely holier, a light infinitely fuller, a perfection 
 infinitely more complete than that to which they have 
 attained. And as these heavenly hosts surpass all 
 our conceptions in the energy of their service and the 
 glory of their nature, so they exceed in multitude all 
 the feeble and contracted powers of our material 
 numeration'. They are in the sight of God, and we 
 upon earth ; but yet we know that we are not uncared 
 for by Him. "We know that that Divine Being is — 
 
 "A unity of the Three Persons, who makes His loving pro- 
 vidence to penetrate to all things, from super-celestial 
 essences to the last things of earth, as being the beginning 
 
 1 De Gael. Hier. ix. 2. Comp. Dan. x. 13 ff. 
 
 2 Id. ix. 3. 3 xd. xiv. 
 
166 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 and cause of all beings, beyond all beginning, and enfolding 
 all things transcendentally in His infinite embraced" 
 
 The heavenly Hierarchy is the type of the earthly 
 Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Both have the same scope 
 and the same essential laws of action. It is the one 
 object of every member of every hierarchy to become 
 god-like ; to impart to those below him, according to 
 their due, the results of his divine assimilation ; to 
 follow at once and to lead ; to strive upwards under 
 the guidance of superior natures ; to raise inferior 
 natures to loftier heights. But there is a great dif- 
 ference in form between the Hierarchy of Heaven and 
 the Hierarchy of Earth. 
 
 " The beings and ranks above us are incorporeal ; their 
 Hierarchy is intellectual (voj/tj)) and supramundane ; but 
 ours, in due relation to ourselves, is furnished with a mani- 
 fold array of sensible symbols, by which, according to the 
 divine order, after the right measure of our powers, we are 
 raised to God and divine virtue, that we may be made hke 
 Him in the one way. They, as minds, perceive truth as is 
 allowed them ; we, by sensible images, are raised, as we 
 can be raised, to divine contemplation^." 
 
 But none the less this lower Hierarchy is of di- 
 vine institution. Its origin is the fountain of life, 
 the " essence of goodness, the one cause of all things, 
 the Trinity, from which comes being and well-being 
 
 1 De Csel. Hier. vii. 4. 2 j)q Eccles. Hier. i. 2. 
 
DIONYSTUS THE AREOPAGITE. 167 
 
 to all things that are." And that through the good- 
 ness of God, whose "will is the rational salvation 
 of beings on earth and above us." And salvation can 
 only be attained by those who are saved being made 
 divine. The thought has often occurred before, but 
 the expression of it in this place, when it becomes 
 practical, is singularly striking. 
 
 " To be made divine (»; Beaxris) is to be made like God, 
 as far as may be, and to be made one with Him. This is 
 the common end of every hierarchy, the continuous devo- 
 tion of love to God and the things of God, wrought by 
 sacred means in a godly and single fashion ; and as a pre- 
 liminary to this, the complete and unhesitating abandon- 
 ment of all that is contrary to it, the recognition of things 
 as they are, the sight and knowledge of sacred truth, the 
 godly participation in the one mode of perfectioning, parti- 
 cipation in the One Himself, as far as may be, the feast of 
 the beatific vision which nourishes intellectually and makes 
 divine every one who strains aloft to behold it^." 
 
 Such being the glorious aim and origin of the 
 Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, "the God-given oracles are 
 its essence," partly written, and partly oral, trans- 
 ferred in this latter case " from mind to mind, by the 
 medium of speech, bodily, it is true, but yet in a less 
 material mode than is commonly the case." For us 
 this veil of words and symbols is necessary. "We can 
 rise only from the sensible to the intellectual. And 
 that which is a veil of love to those who seek to 
 pierce beneath it, is a veil of mercy to those who care 
 
 1 Do Ecoles. Hier. i. 3. 
 
168 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 not for the mysteries which it preserves. For it is so 
 ordered by the Divine Providence that the emblems 
 which reveal truth to the holy hide it from the pro- 
 fane*. 
 
 Having thus laid down the necessity of symbolic 
 acts for the divine training of men, Dionysius ex- 
 amines in successive chapters the symbolic acts of 
 Christianity, Baptism (<^a>Tto-/xa, illumination), Com- 
 munion (o-wa^i9, gathering), the Consecration and 
 Use of the Chrism, Holy Orders, the Consecration of 
 Monks, the Eites of Burial. The three first stand on 
 a difi'erent footing from the others, and include in 
 themselves the triple idea which characterizes the 
 divine assimilation of man. Baptism — 
 
 " is proved from the oracles to be a purification and illu- 
 minating revelation ; communion and the consecration 
 (rfXcTj^') of the chrism a perfecting recognition and know- 
 ledge of the divine actions, whereby in a sacred manner 
 the unifying elevation to the Supreme Being and most 
 blessed fellowship with Him is completed 2." 
 
 Each chapter contains a description of the cere- 
 monies observed in the particular rite, and a " Con- 
 templation " in which they are spiritually explained. 
 The elaborateness of the ritual which is developed is in 
 itself a complete proof of the lateness of the writings; 
 for though some observances are not supported by auy 
 other authority, the pictures of the Christian services 
 doubtless contain, on the whole, a fair representation 
 of their general form in the sixth century. A single 
 1 De Eccles. Hier. i. 4, 5. 2 j^, y. 3. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 169 
 
 illustration will be sufficient to characterize this part 
 of the Dionysian books. 
 
 The order of Baptism then is as follows. The 
 sacred minister (Updpxn?, i.e. bishop) proclaims to all 
 the Gospel that God Himself deigned to come to us 
 through His love, and to make like to Himself what- 
 ever is united with Him. Hereupon whoever is ena- 
 moured of this Divine fellowship finds some Christian 
 to take him to the minister, who receives them joy- 
 fully with a mental thanksgiving and bodily prostra- 
 tion to the source of all good. Then he summons all 
 the sacred body to the holy place, and after chanting 
 a Psalm with them, and saluting the holy Table, he 
 goes forward and asks the candidate, What he desires? 
 According to the instruction of his sponsor he asks to 
 " obtain by his mediation God and the things of God." 
 And having promised to live according to the rules of 
 Christian citizenship, he receives imposition of hands 
 from the bishop, who seals him, and charges the 
 priests to enrol his name with the name of his sponsor. 
 A prayer follows, in which the whole congregation 
 join, and afterwards the deacons unfasten the sandals 
 of the candidate, and unclothe him. He is then 
 turned to the west, and with gestures of abhorrence 
 he thrice renounces Satan in a set form of words. 
 Next he is led to the east, and instructed to declare 
 thrice his allegiance to Christ, with eyes and hands 
 upraised to heaven. A blessing and imposition of 
 hands follow. Then the deacons complete the un- 
 robing, and the priests bring the holy oil. The bishop 
 
 Try 
 
170 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 begins the unction by a triple cross, and leaving the 
 priests to complete it, goes " to the mother of adop- 
 tion" (the font), and consecrates the water with 
 prayers and three cross-formed affusions of the holy 
 chrism, and bids the candidate be brought to him. 
 His name is then called out with the name of his 
 sponsor, and he is brought to the bishop. Again the 
 priests declare his name with a loud voice, and the 
 bishop thrice dips him, invoking at each immersion 
 the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Then he 
 is consigned to his sponsor, and being reclothed in a 
 white robe, is brought back to the bishop, who seals 
 him with the sacred chrism, and pronounces him 
 capable of being admitted to the Eucharist. 
 
 It is impossible to quote in detail the correspond- 
 ing descriptions of the other divine rites. Some few 
 passages from the "Contemplation" on Holy Com- 
 munion — " the rite of rites," " the gathering together 
 of our divided lives into one uniform assimilation to 
 GodV' — will illustrate the method of interpretation 
 which Dionysius follows, and the general aspect under 
 which he regards external observances. The central 
 idea of the sacrament is placed in unity realised in 
 multeity, in the 
 
 " most divine and common peaceftd impartment of the one 
 and the same bread and cup, which enjoins on the par- 
 takers, as reared in the same family, a godly harmony of 
 character, and brings them to a holy remembrance of the 
 
 1 De Eccles. Hier. ill. 1. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 171 
 
 most divine Supper, the primal type of the mysteries 
 celebrated 1." 
 
 Thus all the ceremonies which are gathered round 
 the rite contribute to enforce this truth : an " array 
 of riddles in which it is expressively enwrapped," 
 beneath which "the intellectual vision pierces when 
 filled with single and unveiled light'." Even the 
 combination of lessons from the Old and New Testa- 
 ments indicates the mystic unity by which the whole 
 counsel of God is marked. 
 
 "The accomplishment which the one records assures 
 us of the truth of the promises of the other ; the divine 
 working {6eovpyla) is the consummation of the divine 
 teaching {deoXoyia)V 
 
 Taken in connexion with the work of Christianity, 
 the Communion is the remembrance of the Incarna- 
 tion and not only of the Passion, for by this 
 
 "having been made one with our lowly state while yet 
 retaining His proper nature wholly without confusion or 
 injury, Christ gave us freely henceforth fellowship with 
 that, as being of the same race with Him .... to be 
 effected by our sacred assimilation with it according to our 
 power. How, then (Dionysius asks), could the imitation 
 of God be produced within us otherwise than by the re- 
 newing of the continual remembrance of the most sacred 
 divine acts, by the sacred teaching and acts according to 
 the holy order?" 
 
 ^ De Eccles. Hier. ill. 3, 1. 
 
 3 Id, iii. 3, 2. 3 j^. iii, 3^ 5_ 
 
172 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPA.GITE. 
 
 So it is that the priest, when he has taken the 
 likeness of Christ at the Last Supper, 
 
 " uncovers the bread, which was before covered and undi- 
 vided, and having divided it into many, and having shared 
 among all the oneness of the cup, under a symbol multi- 
 plies and distributes unity. For that which was one and 
 simple and hidden in Jesus, the primal Divine Word, by 
 His incarnation among us came to the compound and 
 visible, unchanged, through His goodness and love for man, 
 and wrought out by His beneficent working a unifying 
 fellowship between us and Himself, having supremely 
 united our lowly nature with His most divine nature, if so 
 be we are fitted with Him as members to a body, in the 
 
 identity of a spotless and divine Hfe For we must, 
 
 if we desire fellowship with Him, look upwards to His 
 most divine life in the flesh, and by assimilation to it, 
 ascend to the god-like and spotless habit of sacred sinless- 
 
 ness This is what the bishop teaches by the sacred 
 
 acts which he performs, bringing out the hidden gifts to 
 the light, and dividing their unity into many parts, and 
 by the supreme union of the elements distributed with 
 those who receive them, making those who partake truly 
 partners in them." 
 
 In a word, the elements thus united and shared 
 are a figure of Christ, our spiritual (vorjrrj) life, who 
 comes forth from the darkness of God, and by His 
 incarnation, without change proceeds from His natural 
 unity to our divided nature, 
 
 " calling the race of man to participation in Himself and 
 His proper blessings, if so be we are united to His most 
 divine life, by assimilation to it according to our power ; 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 173 
 
 and in this way we shall truly have fellowship with God, 
 and that which is of God^" 
 
 The same estimate of the predominantly subjec- 
 tive value of the divine ordinances prevails every- 
 where in the " Contemplations " on the several rites, 
 and it is superfluous to quote additional passages. 
 It appears in a somewhat different shape in Diony- 
 sius' scheme of the sacred ministry. The three orders 
 mark an advancing personal relationship of the minis- 
 ter to God, as in the heavenly hierarchy; and the 
 Christian hierarchy as a whole occupies a mid place 
 between the legal hierarchy of the Old Covenant 
 and the divine hierarchy of the spiritual world. To 
 the deacons (Aeirovpyot) belongs the function of puri- 
 fication ; to the priests (tcpcts) of illumination; to the 
 Bishops (iepdpxa-t) of perfecting"; and the various 
 ceremonies by which they are ordained are shewn to 
 have a direct bearing upon their several duties and 
 characters. One quotation will suffice, which explains 
 the representation of their common ministerial cha- 
 racter : 
 
 " Bishops, priests, and deacons at their ordination are 
 alike led to the divine altar, and bow the knee before it, 
 and receive the imposition of the bishop's hand and the 
 
 sign of the cross The two first mark their absolute 
 
 subjection of their proper Hfe to God, and the offering to 
 Him of their whole spiritual nature .... the imposition 
 of hands, the divine shelter .... the sign of the cross 
 the mortifying of all fleshly desires^" 
 
 1 De Eccles. Hier. ill. 3, 12, 13. 
 
 2 Id. V. 1, 3—7. 3 jd. V. 3, 2—4. 
 
174 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 But it is in his view of the ranks of the "initiated" 
 that Dionysius exhibits most clearly his judgment on 
 the subjective apprehension of Christianity. These 
 fall into three groups, those who are being purified, 
 those who are being illuminated, those who are being 
 perfected. The first includes all those who are under 
 preparation by the deacons for the participation in 
 the sacraments from which they are as yet excluded. 
 The second consists of " the holy people " who have 
 been admitted "to complete purification and the 
 vision of, and fellowship in, the most glorious rites." 
 These are committed to the priests, and led by them 
 to the habit and power of contemplation ; and as they 
 partake "in the most divine symbols . . . they 
 are furnished by their elevating powers, as it were, 
 with wings to soar to the divine desire of true know- 
 ledge of them." But the third and highest rank is 
 that of the monks who are committed to the loftiest 
 instruction of the bishops. These, having passed 
 through the stages of purification and illumination, 
 are absorbed in the "pure service and devotion to 
 God, in an undivided and single life, which brings 
 them to an absolute god-like unity and perfection by 
 the sacred combination of the elements of their nature 
 primarily separated and distinct'." 
 
 The difference which is thus established upon 
 earth is supposed to survive death. 
 
 ' If any one has lived here a godly and most holy life, 
 1 De Eccles. Hier. vi. 1 — 3. Comp. vi. 3, 6. 
 
 ! 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 175 
 
 so far as man can attain to the imitation of God, he will 
 enjoy in the world to come a godly and blessed lot; if he 
 -has fallen short of this supreme ideal, and yet lived a holy 
 life, he will receive a holy recompense proportioned to his 
 statei." 
 
 Thus the law of the divine ascent is fulfilled. 
 The sacred ordinances on earth are themselves pro- 
 gressive, and minister to progress. What we see is 
 but a part of a vast scheme, a result at once, and a 
 preparation. There is, so to speak, a natural con- 
 nexion between the visible and the invisible life, 
 however different may be the conditions under which 
 the two are realized. How different they are accord- 
 ing to Dionysius is seen from the second group of his 
 writings, in which he endeavours to rise to a clearer 
 vision of the Divine Nature, as in those which have 
 been just reviewed he traced the downward passage 
 of the Divine Revelation to man, " who originally fell 
 in his folly from the possession of godly blessings ^" 
 
 VI. 
 
 The treatise On the Divine Names is the longest 
 and most important of the Dionysian writings. Its 
 general scope is to gather what we may learn positively, 
 according to our present powers, of Him who is at 
 once Nameless and Many-named, from the titles under 
 which He is described in Holy Scripture. In the 
 course of this inquiry, several vast questions arise, as 
 
 » De Eocles. Hier. vii. 3, 1. 2 /^. m 3^ u. 
 
176 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 those of the distinctness of the Divine Persons, of the 
 nature of evil, of the connexion of partial being with 
 absolute being, of the relation of time and eternity to 
 God. To do more than glance very summarily at 
 the treatment of these topics is obviously impossible 
 here ; but the most meagre exhibition of the Diony- 
 sian thoughts will shew what a profound influence 
 they exercised upon mediasval speculation, and how 
 strangely they anticipate difficulties which we are 
 tempted to believe are peculiar to our own days. 
 
 The work was, if we may believe the writer, a 
 sequel to his " Theological Outlines." By emphasiz- 
 ing this arrangement, he probably means to bring out 
 clearly that the philosophical discussion presupposes 
 the doctrinal one ; and at the same time he is freed 
 from the necessity of adjusting his positions with the 
 popular creed, as this is supposed to have been done 
 already. The basis of the investigation is laid in the 
 fundamental limitation that we cannot know God as 
 He is, but only obtain a partial revelation of God 
 according to our powers. One passage in which this 
 idea is enunciated may stand for many : — 
 
 "Just as the objects of thought are incomprehensible 
 
 by the power of sense so the super-essential infinitude 
 
 transcends all beings ; the unity which is beyond mind 
 transcends all minds ; the one which is beyond understand- 
 ing cannot be imderstood by any understanding ; the good 
 which is beyond word cannot be expressed by any word ; 
 for it is in fact a unit which gives unity to every unit, 
 above essence, mind inconceivable, word unutter- 
 
DIONYSIUS THE ARfiOPAGITfi. l77 
 
 able ; or rather the negation of word, and mind, and name, 
 existing after the form of no special existence ; the cause 
 of being in all, and itself without being, as lying above 
 being, and comprehensible only as it may please to declare 
 of itself authoritatively, and according to our faculties of 
 knowledge 1." 
 
 Since this is so, we look to the rays of the divine 
 oracles, and, guided by their beams, rise to the con- 
 templation of the light given by them proportionately 
 to our knowledge ; and celebrate GrOD as 
 
 " the Hfe of all things that live, the being of all things that 
 exist, the beginning and cause of all life and all being, 
 through His goodness, whereby He calls into being the 
 things which are, and sustains them while they are 2." 
 
 Thus for us the manifestation of the nature of 
 God is a glorious " hymn," in which we celebrate His 
 love which ''multiplies and variously moulds His 
 simplicity, transcending nature and unconfined to 
 form, by the manifold use of distinct symbols^" Yet 
 even so our souls rise, as they may, beyond the sym- 
 bols to the contemplation of the higher truth which 
 they veil. If they cannot apprehend the One, they 
 can see with devout faith the convergence of all lines 
 of being towards it. 
 
 At the very outset we are met by this mystery of 
 the one and the many. Some of the terms applied to 
 
 1 De Div. Nom. i. 1. 
 
 2 Id. i. 3. The whole passage is very noble and in the 
 writer's best style, but it is too long to quote. 
 
 « Id. 1. 4. 
 
 W. E. 12 
 
178 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 the Divine Being in Scripture are "conjunctive," and 
 belong to the whole Godhead; others are "disjunc- 
 tive," and belong to the separate Persons as they are 
 revealed to us. The former belong to the ineffable 
 and unintelligible essence of God, as abiding in hidden 
 and unbroken rest (as "being," "goodness," &c.); 
 the latter to His loving processions and manifesta- 
 tions (as Father, Son, &c.). Yet it must be observed 
 that both sets of terms are equally relative to us, and 
 not mutually exclusive. In our fellowship with God, 
 the fellowship is with the whole Godhead, and not 
 with a part of it; and 
 
 " all that pertains to Gon, and all that has been revealed 
 to us, is known by our participations only ; but the essences 
 themselves, and their actual nature, as they are originally 
 and abide in themselves, transcend mind, and being, and 
 knowledge 1." 
 
 So it is also with the combination of the human 
 and Divine natures in Christ. We can apprehend 
 partially the distinction, but not the absolute union. 
 So it is with the manifold impartment of the Holy 
 Spirit to believers. Hence 
 
 "there seems to be a division and multiplication of the 
 One God, but none the less God, as He is transcendently 
 from the beginning, is One God, undivided in the divided, 
 united in Himself, unconfounded and unmultiplied in the 
 many^." 
 
 Of all the attributes of God, goodness is that 
 
 1 De Div. Norn. ii. 7. * Id. ii. 11. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. l79 
 
 which is most characteristic. Just as the sun, because 
 it is the sun, shines on all ; so the love of God, be- 
 cause He is God, reaches to all, and called all things 
 into being \ " In a word, everything which is is from 
 the fair and good, and is in the fair and good, and 
 turns to the fair and good." Nay, we do not shrink 
 from saying that "He who is the cause of all, through 
 excess of goodness, loves all things, works all things, 
 accomplishes all things, sustains all things, turns all 
 things to Himself ^" 
 
 But it may be objected, if this be so, how is it 
 that evil exists? whence did it spring? in what does 
 it find its being? how can it be an object of desire? 
 The answers to these time-long questions sound like 
 echoes from some modern essay, and yet they are but 
 adaptations of Neo-Platonism. Evil as such, Diony- 
 sius replies, does not exist : — 
 
 " All things that exist, so far as they exist, are good and 
 spring from the good ; so far as they are deprived of the 
 good, they are neither good nor existent ^" 
 
 That which we call evil exists not as evil, but as par- 
 taking in some measure in the good ; and it is sought 
 in virtue of this participation. It is equally clear 
 that evil is neither in God nor from God, either simply 
 or in time*; nor is it in spirit or in man as evil, but 
 as a deficiency and want of the completeness of their 
 proper good^ Nor, again, can it find a place in 
 
 1 De Div. Nom. iii. 1. a I^i^ jy iq. 
 
 8 Id. iv. 20. 4 Id, iv. 21. 6 Id. iv. 24. 
 
 12—2 
 
180 DiONYSIUS THE AREOt»AGlTE. 
 
 brutes, or in nature generally, or in bodies, or in 
 matter. If this were bo, we should be forced to admit 
 two original principles, which is absurd, because a 
 first source must be one. Evil, then, is a negation 
 relative to the peculiar character of the object in 
 which it is said to exist, — 
 
 " a deficiency, a weakness, a want of harmony, a failure ; 
 bereft of aim, of beauty, of life, of mind, of reason, of end, 
 of basis, of cause; without limit, issue, effect, strength, 
 order, symmetry ; infinite, dark, and essenceless ; by itself, 
 having nowhere and in no case any existence^." 
 
 Being such, it springs from many and partial defects, 
 as free beings fail to realize their true ends. But 
 " God knows the evil as it is good, and in His sight 
 the causes of evil are powers which work good^" For, 
 as has been already seen, nothing which exists is 
 wholly bereft of good, and divine Providence extends 
 to all things which exist, and nothing which exists is 
 removed from its action. So then " Providence uses 
 those who prove evil for a good purpose, either for 
 their own profit or for that of others, either specially 
 
 1 De Div. Norn. iv. 32. Mr Browning's Abt Vogler ex- 
 presses this idea perfectly : — 
 
 "There shall never be cue lost good! What was, shall live 
 
 as before. 
 The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; 
 What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good 
 
 more; 
 On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round." 
 
 2 Id. iv. 30. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 181 
 
 or generally." For this reason it does not force us to 
 be good against our will, " for it is foreign to it to 
 destroy nature ; and so as Providence preserves the 
 nature of each being, it acts on free agents as such," 
 and dispenses to each its gift of goodness according to 
 the nature of the recipient. 
 
 If then evil is weakness, it may be asked how it 
 can be visited with divine punishment? To this 
 objection Dionysius replies that as the power was 
 given in the first instance, then the neglect to use it 
 was culpable. This subject, he adds, he has dealt 
 with in his treatise '* On the Just Judgment of God." 
 The answer as it stands is obviously incomplete, but 
 it shews a real appreciation of the difficulty, and indi- 
 cates the direction where the practical solution must 
 be found, since personal responsibility is claimed as 
 an intuitive truth. 
 
 Evil having been thus deprived of all absolute 
 essence, and reduced to a negative accident conse- 
 quent upon the limited freedom of finite beings, it is 
 easy to bring all else into harmony with God and 
 immediate dependence upon Him. Whatever is, is 
 only by the inherence of His presence : whatever be- 
 comes, becomes by the communication of His presence. 
 No partial existence of whatever kind is independent 
 or absolute. There is one cause above every cause, 
 one essence above every essence, in virtue of which 
 all things become and are, which none the less re- 
 mains in itself immutable and uncircumscribed. 
 Everything partakes in its presence, and yet it is 
 
182 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 necessarily incommunicable. The idea and the indi- 
 vidual realization of the idea both exist from and in 
 the one Supreme Being. 
 
 "Absolute beauty, and the effluence which produces 
 the idea ; universal beauty and partial beauty ; objects 
 beautiful as wholes, and beautiful in part ; and everything 
 else that has been and will be similarly defined, exhibit 
 manifestations of providence and goodness shared by those 
 things which exist, proceeding from God who is incommu- 
 nicable, through His bounteous dispensation, that He who 
 is the cause of all may be beyond all, and that that which 
 transcends essence and nature may be above everything 
 which exists according to the laws of any essence or nature 
 soever 1." 
 
 For God does not exist in any special way, but 
 
 "absolutely and infinitely, as embracing and anticipating 
 in Himself universal being ; wherefore He is called also 
 King of the Ages, as though all being existed and subsisted 
 in Him and around Him ; and He neither was nor will be, 
 nor becomes nor will become, nay, rather not even is ; but 
 is Himself the being in things that are ; and not things 
 themselves only, but the absolute being of things proceeded 
 from Him who is before all ages 2." 
 
 Thus it is that every form of life is, as it were, a 
 more or less distant "echo of the one life." And 
 " when this is withdrawn all life fails, and to this also 
 those objects which have failed by lack of strength to 
 participate in it, return, and again become living 
 beings ^" Nor this only, but the Divine wisdom is 
 
 1 De Div. Nom. xi. 5. 2 zd. v. 4. 3 j^, yi. j. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 183 
 
 the source and cause and end of our wisdom and 
 mind and reason: nay, even of "the mind of devils 
 so far as that is mind\" But when we say this we 
 must remember that God does not know things as 
 they exist from their existence, but as existing origin- 
 ally in Him. He has not 
 
 "a knowledge of Himself, and a separate knowledge, which 
 embraces all things that are ; for it is not possible that the 
 Cause of all things, if He knows Himself, should not know 
 those things which proceed from Him, of which He is the 
 cause^," 
 
 And conversely it is only through this subordinate 
 order that we can know Him, inasmuch as it has been 
 arranged by Him, and contains "certain images and 
 likenesses of the Divine patterns." For it is the 
 Divine wisdom which 
 
 " creates all things and ever fits all things together, and 
 is the cause of the indissoluble connexion and arrange- 
 ment of all things, and unites the ends of one series of 
 phenomena with the beginnings of the subsequent series, 
 and happily works out the one harmony and concord of 
 the universe 3." 
 
 Following out this idea of the divine significance 
 of all the subjects of human knowledge, Dionysius 
 investigates the revelation of God which is given in 
 Scripture by the terms which are applied to Him, as 
 Power, and Righteousness, or Great and Small, or 
 King of kings, and Ancient of days, and the like. 
 
 1 Pe Div. Norn. vii. 2. =* Id. l,c. ^ la. vii. 3. 
 
184 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 The criticism is always ingenious, and at times power- 
 ful. In one place, when discussing the usage of the 
 words time (xpovos) and eternity (atwv), he deals with 
 a difference which quite lately seemed to have been 
 forgotten : — 
 
 " Time is applied in Scripture (he says) to that which 
 is subject to beginning, and decay, and change ; and so 
 theology teaches that we who are here bounded by the 
 laws of time shall be partakers of eternity {alav) when we 
 reach the age {alav) which is incorruptible and ever un- 
 changed. Sometimes, it is true, eternity in Scripture is 
 represented as temporal, and time as eternal, yet we know 
 that more frequently and more properly things that are 
 are described and expressed by eternity, and things which 
 become by time^." 
 
 But of all the titles of God the One is that in 
 which alone we can rest. Towards this all thought 
 and speculation tend. This is the idea which finally 
 results from faithfully interpreting the lessons of the 
 many'; the centre in which all the radii of the vast 
 circle of life converged To strive after this is the 
 noblest work of man ; and just as in universal nature 
 the separate characteristics of each individual nature 
 are absolutely harmonized: just as the different 
 powers which act through our bodies are united in 
 the one soul; so there is a unity which infinitely 
 transcends these faint images by which it is pro- 
 visionally typified to us. And starting from these it 
 is " reasonable that we should ascend to the cause of 
 
 1 De Div. Norn. x. 3. » i^i xiii. 3. ^ /^. y, q 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 185 
 
 all, and with supramundane vision contemplate all in 
 the Cause of all, even things contrary to one another, 
 reconciled in one supreme concord ^" 
 
 VII, 
 
 The nearer contemplation of this sublime unity is 
 the purpose of the Mystic Theology, which professes 
 to present the esoteric teaching of Christianity. For 
 the revelations and workings of God, even in the 
 most glorious form under which they are shewn to us, 
 are but steps by which the devout worshipper rises to 
 higher things. At the most, he sees in these not 
 God, but, like Moses, the place where God is. In 
 other words, the highest and most divine manifesta- 
 tions which are made through sense or thought simply 
 suggest ideas which (so to speak) underlie Him who 
 transcends all ideas, through which His presence is 
 indicated visiting the spiritual heights of His holiest 
 place. And then the truly initiated is 
 
 "released from the objects and the powers of sight, and 
 penetrates into the darkness of un-knowledge (ayi/coo-m), 
 which is truly mystic, and lays aside all conceptions of 
 knowledge and is absorbed in the intangible and invisible, 
 wholly given up to that which is beyond all things, and 
 belonging no longer to himself nor to any other finite being, 
 but in virtue of some nobler faculty is imited with that 
 which is wholly unknowable by the absolute inoperation 
 of all limited knowledge, and knows in a manner beyond 
 mind by knowing nothing 2." 
 
 1 De Div. Kom. v. 7. » Mjst. Theol. i. 3. 
 
186 DIONYSIUS TEIE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 This description gives a fair notion of the object 
 and of the method of "Mystic Theology." The 
 object is to rise above the world of sense and thought 
 defined by sense; the method is to lay aside every- 
 thing which gives speciality to conceptions, since 
 every distinct limitation springs out of the transitory 
 conditions of our present state. Consequently in 
 "Mystic Theology" the negative process is more 
 valid than the affirmative, but yet the affirmations 
 are not opposed to the negations, since both are applied 
 to being which is far above both in its transcendental 
 nature \ But it is only by the removal of each defi- 
 nite attribute, so far as it is definite, that man can 
 arrive at any conception of the infinite. The exact 
 knowledge of a finite being can reach only to that 
 which is finite ; and if he would rise beyond it, it 
 must be by avoiding the definiteness which belongs to 
 the imperfections of his nature. In this sense, un- 
 knowledge transcends knowledge, because it is the 
 negation of limit : and gloom underlies light, because 
 for us light is only a reflection from objects in them- 
 selves bounded ^ 
 
 Thus the final result is that man can have no 
 absolute conception of God as the subject of thought, 
 though he can be united with Him by the devotion of 
 love. The mind can exercise itself upon its proper 
 objects, but it cannot pass beyond them. The power 
 by which the soul is brought into fellowship with 
 that which transcends it, is of a loftier nature. 
 1 Myst. Theol. i. 2. » Id. ii. 
 
 I 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 187 
 
 " This power, then, we are bound to follow in our thoughts 
 of divine things, and not ourselves ; we must wholly divest 
 ourselves of ourselves, and give ourselves wholly to God ; 
 for it is better to belong to God than to ourselves ; and so 
 the things of God will be given to those who are united 
 ^ with Him\" 
 
 vm. 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell at length on the points 
 of resemblance which the Dionysian system offers to 
 that of the later Neo-Platonists. The progressive 
 revelation of the infinite, the hierarchic triads, the 
 conception of evil as a negation and a defect, the 
 striving towards union with the One, the resolution 
 of all that is partial into being which transcends all 
 special definition, are common to both, and it is not 
 difficult to see that Dionysius so far borrows ideas 
 which had their source elsewhere than in the Christian 
 Church. But while this is conceded most fully, his 
 treatment of them nevertheless claims the merit of 
 originality. However devotedly he may have studied 
 Proclus or Damascius, he studied them as a Christian. 
 He starts always from the Bible ^, and not from Plato. 
 He endeavours to obey his own lesson, and welcomes 
 truth wherever he finds it, but revelation is his touch- 
 stone of truth. He is, so to speak, the extreme result 
 of the speculative school of Greek Theology ; and in 
 this aspect his writings, strangely incomplete, one- 
 
 1 De Div. Nom. vii. 1, 2 Dq Cael. Hier. vi, 2. 
 
188 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 sided, even dangerous as they may appear to us, are 
 of deep interest at a crisis when it is impossible not to 
 see the brightest hope for Christendom in a living 
 appreciation of the spirit of the great Greek Fathers ; 
 for it is not too much to say that a work remains for 
 Greek divinity in the nineteenth century hardly less 
 pregnant with results than that wrought by the Greek 
 classics in the fifteenth. 
 
 Many, perhaps, will be surprised that such a 
 scheme of Christianity as Dionysius has sketched 
 should even be reckoned Christian at all. Several of 
 the cardinal dogmas of the Western Churches are 
 either unnoticed in it, or fall into a secondary rank in 
 the whole economy of redemption. The conception 
 of grace is, at the least, very defective. The idea of 
 the Atonement, where it is noticed most distinctly, 
 is represented as the delivery of being from the nega- 
 tive influences of disorder and weakness and failure'. 
 The characteristic doctrine of evil when it was made 
 the groundwork of a special treatise by Johannes 
 Erigena was at once condemned by Galilean councils. 
 But in spite of these and other faults, which are 
 brought out clearly by their antagonism with Latin 
 developments or exhibitions of truth, the writings of 
 "the divine Dionysius" have always maintained their 
 place among the orthodox treasures of the East. Nay, 
 more; though parts of their teaching were rejected in 
 the West when removed from the shelter of the apo- 
 stolic name, they have found even to late times apolo- 
 
 * De Div. Nona. viii. 9. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 189 
 
 gists who have forced them into harmony with the 
 Tridentine decrees. 
 
 Such a method of interpretation deprives them of 
 their intellectual and historical significance. It must 
 be frankly admitted that they bear the impress not 
 only of a particular age and school, but also of a 
 particular man, which is not wholly of a Christian 
 type. They present the thoughts of one who lived 
 in an age of transition, and strove to save from the 
 wreck of ancient philosophy truths which he seemed 
 to find coherent with the Christian faith. Indeed, 
 under the treatment of the new teacher, many of the 
 fancies of Neo-Platonism gain a solid consistency, 
 which they wanted before, by being brought into con- 
 nexion with a historic creed. The doctrine of an original 
 fall, consequent upon man's free action, gives a certain 
 standing-point for the contemplation of life as it is 
 chequered with good and eviP. Holy rites, distinctly 
 springing out of accredited facts, take the place of 
 theurgic celebrations. An ecclesiastical organization, 
 definite and popular, furnishes the basis for a complete 
 hierarchical view of the universe. The mystery of 
 the Incarnation contains the pledge of the believer's 
 union with the One, while the Kesurrection vindicates 
 the proper unity of his whole nature and the com- 
 pleteness of his future hope^ 
 
 This harmonization of Christianity and Platonism 
 was not efi"ected without a sacrifice. It is impossible 
 
 1 De Eccles. Hier. iii. 3, 11. 
 « De Div. Norn. vi. 2. 
 
190 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 not to feel in Dionysius, in spite of his pure and 
 generous and apostolic aspirations, the lack of some- 
 thing which is required for the completeness of his 
 own views. He fails indeed by neglecting to take 
 in the whole breadth of the Gospel. The central 
 source of his dogmatic errors lies where at first it 
 might be least looked for. The whole view of life 
 which he offers is essentially individual and personal 
 and subjective; the one man is the supreme object in 
 whose progress his interest is engaged. Though he 
 gives a magnificent view of the mutual coherence of 
 all the parts of the moral and physical worlds, yet he 
 turns with the deepest satisfaction to the solitary 
 monk, isolated and self-absorbed, as the highest t3^e 
 of Christian energy. Though he dwells upon the 
 Divine order of the Sacraments, and traces the spiri- 
 tual significance of each detail in their celebration, 
 yet he looks upon them as occasions for instruction 
 and blessing, suggested by appointed forms, and not 
 supplied by a Divine gift. He stops short of that 
 profounder faith which sees the unity of worlds in 
 the harmonious and yet independent action of deriva- 
 tive forces ; one indeed in their source, and yet re- 
 garded as separate in their operation. He is still so 
 far overpowered by Platonism that he cannot, in spe- 
 culation as well as in confession, consistently treat 
 man's bodily powers as belonging to the perfection of 
 his nature. The end of the discipline of life is, in 
 his view, to help the believer to cast aside all things 
 that belong to earth, and not to find in them gifts 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 191 
 
 which may by consecration to God become hereafter 
 the beginning of a nobler activity. And so it is that 
 he is unable to see in their full beauty and strength 
 those instincts and faculties of man, by which he is 
 impelled towards social combination, and the divine 
 institutions by which these instincts and faculties are 
 sanctioned and supported. 
 
 The ecclesiastical and civil disorders of the fifth 
 century may well have obscured the highest glories 
 of the Church and the Empire. It was not unnatural 
 that devout men should in such times seek repose in 
 their cells, and the triumph of Mohammedanism was 
 the penalty of their despair. But yet the writings of 
 Dionysius are a witness to the higher conceptions of 
 the Divine order which lingered among the immediate 
 successors of Cyril. Even now they take their place 
 among the speculations of to-day, and though in a 
 dialect partially antiquated, record the judgment 
 which ancient thinkers passed upon problems which, 
 at each time of their recurrence, seem to offer a new 
 and strange trial to faith. No reasoner can argue 
 more resolutely than Dionysius for the Divine Pre- 
 sence in all things which are, and yet no one can be 
 further removed from identifying the Divine Being 
 with the manifestations of Him in creation. It would 
 be impossible to affirm more distinctly than he does 
 the absolute incapacity of man to have knowledge of 
 anything beyond phenomena, and yet at the same 
 time he recognises that there is a sphere beyond 
 knowledge, to which he must look up with devout 
 
192 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 
 
 and patient adoration. Above his pantheism there is 
 the intense belief in one God: above his positivism 
 there is the trustful aspiration of faith. 
 
 One passage, in which he deals with the mystery 
 of prayer, will illustrate what has been just said, and 
 is not unworthy of consideration in itself : — 
 
 " The glorious Trinity, the source of all good, is present 
 to all things, but all things are not present to It. But, 
 then, when we invoke It with holy prayers, and unsuUied 
 soul, and that frame of mind which is adapted for divine 
 union, then are we also present to It ; for It has no local 
 presence so that It can be anywhere absent, or pass from 
 place to place." 
 
 Thus the action of prayer is as though there were 
 " a chain of light let down from the heights of heaven and 
 reaching to earth, and as we grasp it, first with the one 
 hand and then with the other, we seem to draw it to us, 
 while really we are raised by it to the loftier splendours of 
 the light. Or as though we were on shipboard and strained 
 at a rope fastened to a rock and thrown out to help us ; 
 we do not draw the rock to ourselves, but ourselves and 
 the ship to the rock. And, conversely, if one stands on 
 the vessel and thrusts the rock from him, the rock will 
 remain firm and unmoved, but he will separate himself 
 from it, and the distance between them will be proportion- 
 ed to his effort. And so before everything, and especially 
 in theology, we must make a solemn beginning to aU acts 
 with prayer, not as drawing to us the power which is pre- 
 sent at once everywhere and nowhere, but as placing our- 
 selves in His hands, and uniting ourselves with Him by 
 remembering Him, and calling upon His name^" 
 1 De div. Norn. iii. 1. 
 
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 193 
 
 The words are old words, but yet new, and though 
 they do not express more than half the truth, they 
 will bear comparison with the splendid passage in 
 which a living poet has expressed kindred, and yet 
 converse, thoughts strangely in the spirit of Diony- 
 sius : — 
 
 "It seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth, 
 Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I; 
 And the emulous heaven yearned down, made eflfort to 
 reach the earth, 
 As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to 
 scale the sky : 
 Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt 
 with mine. 
 Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wan- 
 dering star; 
 Meteor-moons, balls of blaze : and they did not pale nor 
 pine, 
 For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more 
 near nor far." 
 
 W. E. 13 
 
ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS 
 OF CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 rriHE progress of Christianity can best be repre- 
 -^ sented as a series of victories. But when we 
 speak of victories we imply resistance, suffering, 
 loss : the triumph of a great cause, but the triumph 
 through effort and sacriftce. Such, in fact, has been 
 the history of the Faith : a sad and yet a glorious 
 succession of battles, often hardly fought, and some- 
 times indecisive, between the new life and the old 
 life. We know that the struggle can never be ended 
 in this visible order; but we know also that more 
 of the total powers of humanity, and more of the 
 fulness of the individual man are brought from age 
 to age within the domain of the trutL Each age 
 has to sustain its own part in the conflict, and the 
 retrospect of earlier successes gives to those who 
 have to face new antagonists and to occupy new 
 positions, patience and the certainty of hope. 
 
ORIGEN AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 195 
 
 In this respect the history of the first three 
 centuries — the first complete period, and that a 
 period of spontaneous evolution in the Christian 
 body — is an epitome or a figure of the whole work of 
 the Faith. It is the history of a three-fold contest 
 between Christianity and the Powers of the Old 
 World, closed by a three-fold victory. The Church 
 and the Empire started from the same point and 
 advanced side by side. They met in the market 
 and the house; they met in the discussions of the 
 Schools; they met in the institutions of political 
 government ; and in each place the Church was 
 triumphant. In this way Christianity asserted, once 
 for all, its sovereign power among men by the victory 
 of common life, by the victory of thought, by the 
 victory of civil organisation. These first victories 
 contain the promise of all that later ages have to reap. 
 
 The object of this and a following paper is to 
 indicate some features in the second of these vic- 
 tories, the victory of thought. And, before going 
 further, I would ask the reader to observe that this 
 victory of thought is the second, and not the first, 
 in order of accomplishment. The succession involves 
 a principle. The Christian victory of common life 
 was wrought out in silence and patience and nameless 
 agonies. It was the victory of the soldiers and not 
 of the captains of Christ's army. But in due time 
 another conflict had to be sustained, not by the 
 masses, but by great men, the consequence and the 
 completion of that which had gone before. 
 
 13—2 
 
196 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 It is with the society as with the individual. 
 The discipUne of action precedes the effort of reason. 
 The work of the many prepares the medium for the 
 subtler operations of the few. So it came to pass 
 that the period during which this second conflict of 
 the Faith was waged was, roughly speaking, from 
 the middle of the second to the middle of the third 
 century. 
 
 This period, from the accession of Marcus Aure- 
 lius (a.d. 161) to the accession of Valerian (a. d. 253) 
 was for the Gentile world a period of unrest and 
 exhaustion, of ferment and of indecision. The time 
 of great hopes and creative minds was gone. The 
 most conspicuous men were, with few exceptions, 
 busied with the past. There is not among them a 
 single writer who can be called a poet. They were 
 lawyers, or antiquarians, or commentators, or gram- 
 marians, or rhetoricians. One indeed, the greatest 
 of all, Galen, would be ranked, perhaps, in modern 
 times, as a "positivist." Latin literature had almost 
 ceased to exist : even the meditations of an Emperor 
 were in Greek. The fact is full of meaning. Greek 
 was the language not of a people, but of the world. 
 Local beliefs had lost their power. Even old Rome 
 ceased to exercise an unquestioned moral supremacy. 
 Men strove to be cosmopolitan. They strove vaguely 
 after a unity in which the scattered elements of 
 ancient experience should be harmonized. The effect 
 can be seen both in the policy of statesmen and in 
 the speculations of philosophers, in Marcus Aurehus, 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 197 
 
 or Alexander Severus, or Decius, no less than in 
 Plotinus or Porphyry. As a necessary consequence, 
 the teaching of the Bible accessible in Greek began 
 to attract serious attention among the heathen. 
 The assailants of Christianity, even if they affected 
 contempt, shewed that they were deeply moved by 
 its doctrines. The memorable saying of Numenius, 
 " What is Plato but Moses speaking in the language 
 of Athens ? " shews at once the feeling after spiritual 
 sympathy which began to be entertained, and the 
 want of spiritual insight in the representatives of 
 Gentile thought. Though there is no evidence that 
 Numenius studied or taught at Alexandria, his words 
 express the form of feeling which prevailed there. 
 Nowhere else were the characteristic tendencies of 
 the age more marked than in that marvellous city. 
 Alexandria had been from its foundation a meeting- 
 place of the East and West — of old and new — the 
 home of learning, of criticism, of sjnicretism. It 
 presented a unique example in the Old World of that 
 mixture of races which forms one of the most im- 
 portant features of modern society. Indians, Jews, 
 Greeks, Romans, met there on common ground. 
 Their characteristic ideas were discussed, exchanged, 
 combined. The extremes of luxury and asceticism 
 existed side by side. Over aU the excitement and 
 turmoil of the recent city rested the solemn shadow 
 of Egjrpt. The thoughtful Alexandrine inherited in 
 the history of countless ages, sympathy with a vast 
 life. For him, as for the priest who is said to have 
 
198 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 J 
 
 rebuked the pride of Solon, the annals of other 
 nations were but episodes in a greater drama in 
 which he played his part with a full consciousness 
 of its grandeur. The p3rramids and the tombs re- 
 peated to him the reproof of isolated assumption 
 often quoted from Plato by Christian apologists': 
 " You Greeks are always children ; you have no 
 doctrine hoary with age." While it was so with the 
 thoughtful Alexandrines, others found in restless 
 scepticism or fitful superstition or fanatical passion, 
 frequent occasions for violence. All alike are eager 
 for movement, sympathising with change, easily im- 
 pressed and bold in giving utterance to their feelings, 
 confident in their resources and trusting to the 
 future. 
 
 We have a picture of the people from an imperial 
 pen. The Emperor Hadrian, who himself entered the 
 lists with the professors at the Museum'', has left in 
 a private letter a vivid account of the impression 
 which the Alexandrines produced upon him as he saw 
 them from the outside. " There is " [at Alexandria], 
 he writes^, "no ruler of the synagogue among the 
 Jews, no Samaritan, no Christian, who is not also an 
 astrologer, a soothsayer, a trainer The in- 
 habitants are most seditious, inconstant, insolent : 
 the city is wealthy and productive, seeing that no 
 one lives there in idleness. Some make glass, others 
 
 1 Comp. Potter, Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 15, p. 356, 
 '■^ Spartianus, Hadr. p. 10. 
 * Vopiscus, Saturn, o. 8. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 199 
 
 make paper The lame have their occupa- 
 tion ; the blind follow a craft ; even the crippled lead 
 a busy life. Money is their god. Christians, Jews, 
 and Gentiles combine unanimously in the worship of 
 
 this deity " 
 
 One element in this confusion, indicated by 
 Hadrian, is too remarkable to be passed over without 
 remark. The practice of magic, which gained an evil 
 prominence in the later Alexandrine schools, was 
 already coming into vogue. Celsus compared the 
 miracles of the Lord with " the feats of those who 
 have been taught by Egyptians \" Such a passion, 
 even in its grosser forms, is never without some 
 moral, we may perhaps say, some spiritual, import- 
 ance. Its spread at this crisis can hardly be mis- 
 interpreted. There was a longing among men for 
 some sensible revelation of the unseen ; and a con- 
 viction that such a revelation was possible. Even 
 Origen appears to admit the statement that demons 
 were vanquished by the use of certain names which 
 lost their virtue if translated'', and he mentions one 
 interesting symptom of the general excitement which 
 belongs to the better side of the feeling. " Many," 
 he says, "embraced Christianity, as it were, against 
 their will. Some spirit turned their mind (to lyye/xo- 
 vtKoV) suddenly from hating the Word to being ready 
 to die for it, and shewed them visions either waking 
 or sleeping^." One who is reckoned among the 
 
 1 Grig. c. Cels. i. 68. » ma, v. 45. 3 jji^. i ^q^ 
 
200 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 martyrs whom Origen himself trained furnishes an 
 example \ Basilides, a young soldier, shielded a 
 Christian maiden from insult on her way to death. 
 She promised to recompense him. A few days after 
 he confessed himself a Christian. He said that 
 Potamisena, such was the maiden's name, had ap- 
 peared to him three days after her martyrdom, and 
 placed a crown upon his head, and assured him that 
 he, in answer to her prayers, would shortly share her 
 victory. So then it was that argumentative scepti- 
 cism and stern dogmatism, spiritualism, as it would 
 be called at the present day, and materialistic pan- 
 theism, each in its measure a symptom of instability 
 and spiritual unrest, existed side by side at Alex- 
 andria in the second century, just as may be the 
 case in one of our cities now, where the many streams 
 of life converge. But in all this variety there was a 
 point of agreement, as there is, I believe, among 
 ourselves. Speculation was being turned more and 
 more in a theological direction. Philosophers were 
 learning to concentrate their thoughts on questions 
 which lie at the basis of religion. In very different 
 schools they were listening for the voice, as Plato 
 said, " of some divine Word." 
 
 It is easy to see what was the natural office of 
 Christianity in such a society. Alexandria offered 
 an epitome of that Old World which the Faith had 
 to quicken in all its parts. The work had been 
 
 1 Euseb, H. E. vi, 5, 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 201 
 
 already recognised. Early in the second century 
 manifold attempts were made there to shape a 
 Christian solution of the enigmas of life which 
 thought and experience had brought into a definite 
 form. The result was seen in the various systems of 
 Gnosticism, which present in a strange and repellent 
 dialect many anticipations of the Transcendentalism 
 of the last generation. Such speculations were 
 premature and ended in failure ; but they rendered 
 an important service to Christian philosophy. They 
 fixed attention upon those final problems of life, of 
 which a religion which claims to be universal must 
 take account. How did rational creatures come into 
 being? how, that is, can we reconcile the co-existence 
 of the Absolute and the finite ? And again : How 
 did rational creatures fall? how, that is, can we 
 conceive of the origin of evil ? Or, indeed, are not 
 both these questions in the end one? and is not 
 limitation itself evil? To some perhaps such ques- 
 tions may appear to be wholly foreign to true human 
 work, but they were the questions which were upper- 
 most in men's minds at the time of which we speak ; 
 and for the sake of clearness it will be well to dis- 
 tinguish at once the three difierent types of answers 
 which are rendered to them, two partial and tentative, 
 answering respectively to the East and "West, the 
 Gnostic and Neo-Platonic : the third provisionally 
 complete for man, the Christian. The difierences 
 will be most clearly seen if we refer the other answers 
 to the Christian as a standard of comparison. As 
 
202 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 against the Gnostic, then, the Christian maintained 
 that the universe was created, not by any subordinate 
 or rival power, but by an act of love of the One Infi- 
 nite God, and that evil therefore is not inherent in 
 matter but due to the will of responsible creatures. 
 As against the Neo-Platonist, he maintained the 
 separate, personal existence of God as One to be 
 approached and worshipped. Who thinks and loves; 
 the reality of a redemption consequent on the Incar- 
 nation ; the historical progress of the sum of life to 
 an appointed end. As against both, he maintained 
 that God is immanent in the world, and separate 
 though not alien from it : that the world was origin- 
 ally and essentially good : that it has been and is 
 disturbed by unseen forces : that man is the crown 
 and end of creation. 
 
 And yet further : Gnostic and Platonist despaired 
 of the world and of the mass of men. Both placed 
 safety in flight : they knew of no salvation for the 
 multitude. The Christian, on the other hand, spoke, 
 argued, lived, with the spirit of a conqueror who 
 possessed the power of transfiguring to nobler service 
 what he was charged to subdue. Others sought for 
 an abstraction which was beyond and above all com- 
 prehension and aU worship, an abstraction which 
 ever escaped from them : he had been found by One 
 who came down to earth and became flesh '. Others 
 laboriously framed systems designed to meet the 
 
 1 Comp. Kingsley, The Schools of Alexandria, p. 100. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 203 
 
 wants and the intelligence of the few : he appealed 
 to all in virtue of a common divine faculty and a 
 common GoD-given freedom, of a universal message 
 and a universal fact. Others looked forward for 
 peace, to the advent of what they called " The Great 
 Ignorance," when each creature should obtain perfect 
 repose by knowing nothing better than itself: he had 
 already begun to know the calmness of joy in absolute 
 surrender to One infinitely great. 
 
 The development and co-ordination of these con- 
 ceptions, of these realities, was, or rather is, necessarily 
 gradual. But it is of importance to notice that from 
 the moment when philosophers expressed their diffi- 
 culties. Christian teachers undertook to meet them 
 on their own lines. Christian teachers did not lay 
 aside the philosopher's mantle in virtue of their 
 office, but rather assumed it. At Alexandria, a 
 Christian "School" — the well-known Catechetical 
 School — arose by the side of the Museum. In its 
 constitution no less than in its work this School bore 
 a striking if partial resemblance to the " schools of 
 the prophets" under the old Dispensation. It was 
 not ecclesiastical in its organization. Its teachers 
 were not necessarily, or always in fact, priests. Its 
 aim was not to perpetuate a system, but to gain 
 fresh conquests. From obscure beginnings the work 
 went on. Great thoughts, great principles found 
 utterance ; and then a master was raised up not 
 unworthy to combine and quicken them. 
 
 The first famous names which occur in connexion 
 
204 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 with the School, those of Pantaenus and Clement, 
 might well detain us'. Both men were led to the 
 Faith through the study of Philosophy. Both con- 
 tinued the study as Christians. They had learnt the 
 needs of men by their own experience, and by that 
 they interpreted what they had found. 
 
 The scanty notices of Pantsenus which have been 
 preserved suggest the idea of a man of originality 
 and vigour, who combined action with thought. 
 Clement again is perhaps in intuitive power the 
 greatest in the line of Catechists. It would be easy 
 to collect from his writings a series of pregnant 
 passages containing, with some significant exceptions, 
 an outline of the system of Origen ; but he had 
 himself no sense of a system. The last book in his 
 Trilogy is fitly called "Miscellanies." He appears 
 also to have wanted practical energy, and even if this 
 assertion seems to be a paradox, I believe that this 
 defect accounts for his intellectual failure. His 
 successor, Origen, supplied that which was wanting. 
 He did not stop at writing Miscellanies. He was 
 filled with the conception of a vast moral unity ; of 
 necessity, therefore, he felt that the truths by 
 which this unity was established must form a unity 
 also. It is then to him rather than to his pre- 
 decessors, or perhaps it may be more true to say to 
 his predecessors in him, that we must look if we wish 
 to gain a right notion of typical Christian thought 
 
 1 Comp. Alexander ap. Euseb. H, E. vi. 14. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 206 
 
 at Alexandria, a right notion of the beginnings of 
 Christian philosophy. 
 
 Origen was of Christian parentage. The son of a 
 martyr, he earned himself a truer martyr's crown 
 through the continuous labours of seventy years. 
 In his case no sharp struggle, no violent change, no 
 slow process wrought the conviction of faith. He did 
 not, like Justin Martyr, or his immediate predeces- 
 sors, Pantsenus and Clement, find in Christianity after 
 painful wanderings that rest which he had sought 
 vainly in the schools of Greek wisdom. He did not, 
 like TertuUian, follow the bent of an uncontrollable 
 and impetuous nature, and close in open schism a 
 life of courageous toil. He did not, like Augustine, 
 come to the truth through heresy, and bear even to 
 the last the marks of the chains by which he had 
 been weighed down. His whole life, from first to 
 last, was fashioned on the same type. It was accord- 
 ing to his own grand ideal "one unbroken prayer'* 
 (/MUX Trpo(r€vxv (rvvexofxevrf), one ceaseless effort after 
 closer, fellowship with the Unseen and the Eternal. 
 No distractions diverted him from the pursuit of 
 divine wisdom. No persecution checked for more 
 than the briefest space the energy of his eftbrts. He 
 endured " a double mart)nrdom," perils and sufferings 
 from the heathen, reproaches and wrongs from 
 Christians ; and the retrospect of what he had borne 
 only stirred within him a humbler sense of his short- 
 comings. 
 
 In Origen we have the first glimpse of a Christian 
 
206 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF | 
 
 boy. He was conspicuous, " even from his cradle : " 
 " a great man from his childhood V' in the judgment 
 of his bitterest enemy. From the first the range of 
 his training was complete. His father Leonidas, 
 after providing carefully for his general education, 
 himself instructed him in Holy Scripture. The boy's 
 nature answered to the demands which were made 
 upon him. His eagerness to penetrate to the deeper 
 meaning of the written Word gave early promise of 
 his characteristic power ; and it is said that Leonidas 
 often uncovered his son's breast — his breast, and not 
 his hiow—pecttis facit theohgum — as he lay asleep 
 and kissed it, as though it were already a dwelling- 
 place of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 When Origen had reached his seventeenth year 
 the persecution under Severus broke out. Leonidas 
 was thrown into prison. Origen was only hindered 
 by the loving device of his mother from sharing his 
 fate. As it was, he wrote to strengthen his father 
 with the simple words : " Take heed ! let no thought 
 for us alter your purpose." Leonidas was mart3rred ; 
 his property was confiscated ; and the young student 
 at once entered on the career of independent labour 
 which closed only with his life. 
 
 At first Origen supported himself by teaching 
 grammar, the customary subjects of a literary educa- 
 tion. But immediately a richer field was opened to 
 
 1 Euseb. H. E. vi. 2; Hieron. Ep. 84, 58 (ad Pammach. 
 
 et Ocean.), 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 207 
 
 him. The Catechetical School in which he had 
 worked under Pantsenus and Clement was left without 
 a head, owing to the fierceness of the persecution. 
 For a time Origen gave instruction in Christianity 
 privately to those heathen who wished to learn. His 
 success was such that before he was eighteen he 
 was appointed to fill the vacant post of honour 
 and danger. Martyrs — Eusebius enumerates seven — 
 passed from his class to death. His own escape 
 seemed to be the work of Providence. Marked and 
 pursued, he still evaded his enemies. His influence 
 grew with his self-devotion, and further experience 
 of his new work stirred him to larger sacrifices. He 
 had collected in earlier times a library of classical 
 authors. This he now sold for an annuity of four 
 obols — sixpence — a day, that he might need no 
 assistance from the scholars, who were grieved that 
 they might not help him^ So he lived for more 
 than five-and-twenty years, labouring almost day and 
 night, and ofi"ering such an example of absolute self- 
 denial as won many to the faith of which he shewed 
 the power in his own person. 
 
 While Origen was thus engaged, his principles 
 were put to a severe test. Ammonius Saccas, the 
 founder of Neo-Platonism, began to lecture at Alex- 
 andria. His success shewed that he had some 
 neglected forms of truth to make known ; and Origen 
 became one of his hearers. The situation was re- 
 markable, and full of interest. The master of Christ- 
 1 Eusfcb. H. E. vi. 8. 
 
208 OIUGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 ianity was a learner in the school of Greeks. There 
 can be no doubt that Origen was deeply influenced 
 by the new philosophy, which seemed to him to 
 unveil fresh depths in the Bible ; and it is not 
 unlikely that this connexion, which lasted for a con- 
 siderable time, gave occasion to those suspicions 
 and jealousies on the part of some members of the 
 Church at Alexandria, which at no long interval 
 bore bitter fruit. Origen, however, was clear and 
 steadfast as to his purpose, and he found at least 
 some sympathy. For when in later years he was 
 assailed for giving his attention to the opinions of 
 heretics and gentiles, he defended himself not only 
 by the example of Pantaenus, but also by that of 
 Heraclas, his fellow-student in the school of Ammo- 
 nius, who "while now," he writes, "a presbyter at 
 Alexandria, still wears the dress of a philosopher, 
 and studies with all diligence the writings of the 
 Greeks \" 
 
 An anecdote which is told of the time of his early 
 work may seem in this respect as a symbol of his 
 life^ A heathen mob seized him one day and placed 
 him on the steps of the Temple of Serapis, forcing 
 him to offer palm-branches in honour of the god to 
 those who came to worship. He took the palms, and 
 cried out, "Come, take the palm, not the palm of 
 the idol, but the palm of Christ." 
 
 The way of Greek wisdom was not the only 
 
 1 Epist. ap. Euseb. H. E. vi. 19. 
 
 2 Bpiph^ Ha3r. 64, 1, p. 524. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 209 
 
 unusual direction in which Origen sought help for 
 that study of Scripture to which he had consecrated 
 his life. He turned to the Jews also^ and learnt 
 Hebrew, a task which overcame the spirit of Erasmus, 
 as he tells us^ even in the excitement of the Re- 
 naissance. About the same time, when he was now 
 fully equipped for work, he found assistance and 
 impulse from the friendship of Ambrose, a wealthy 
 Alexandrine whom he had won from heresy to the 
 Truth. Origen draws a lively picture of the activity 
 and importunity of his friend. Meals, rest, exercise, 
 sleep, all had to be sacrificed to his zeal, which may be 
 measured by the fact that he furnished Origen with 
 seven clerks to write at his dictation^ 
 
 This period of happy and incessant labour was at 
 last rudely interrupted. After working publicly at 
 Alexandria for twenty- eight years, with short in- 
 tervals of absence on foreign missions, Origen was 
 driven from the city to which he was bound by every 
 sacred tie, and never visited it again. There is no 
 need to attempt to unravel the circumstances which 
 led to the catastrophe. It is enough to notice that 
 no word of anger escaped from the great master when 
 he shewed afterwards how keenly he. felt the blow. 
 Thenceforth the scene, but not the character, of his 
 work was changed ; and he was enabled to carry on 
 at Ca3sarea for twenty years longer, with undiminished 
 
 ^ From Hier. Ep. 39 (22) § 1, it may be not unreasonably 
 inferred that hia mother was of Jewish descent. 
 2 Epist. 95. 3 Euseb. H. E. vi. 23. 
 
 W. E. 14 
 
210 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 influence, all the tasks which he had begun. Am- 
 brose was still with him, and his reputation even 
 attracted Porphyry for a brief visit. 
 
 At length the end came. In the persecution of 
 Decius he was imprisoned, tortured, threatened with 
 the stake. From the midst of his sufferings he wrote 
 words of encouragement to his fellow-confessors. His 
 persecutors denied him the visible glory of the martjr's 
 death, but already exhausted by age and toil he sank, 
 three years afterwards, under the effects of what he 
 had suffered (a.d. 253). 
 
 He was buried at Tyre^; and his tomb was 
 honoured as long as the city survived. When a 
 cathedral named after the Holy Sepulchre was built 
 there, his body is said to have occupied the place of 
 greatest honour, being enclosed in the wall behind 
 the High Altar ^ The same church received in a 
 later age (a.d. 1190) the remains of Barbarossa ; but 
 the name of the great theologian prevailed over the 
 name of the great warrior. Burchard, who visited 
 Tyre in the last quarter of the thirteenth century 
 (c. 1283), saw the inscription in Origen*s memory in 
 a building which was amazing for its splendou^^ 
 
 1 William of Tyre (c. 1180), Hist. xiii. 1: haec (Tyrus) 
 et Origenis corpus occultat, sicut oculata fide etiam hodie 
 licet inspicere. 
 
 2 Cotovicus (1598), Itin. Hier. p. 121: ponealtare maximum 
 magni Origenis corpus conditum ferunt. 
 
 8 Burchardus, Descript. Terras Sanctae, p. 25 (ed. Laurent) : 
 Origenis ibidem in ecclesia ^ancti Sepulcri requiescit in muro 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY". 211 
 
 Before the close of the century the city was wasted 
 by the Saracens ; but if we may trust the words of a 
 traveller at the beginning of the sixteenth century 
 (c. 1520), the inscription was still preserved on ''a 
 marble column, sumptuously adorned with gold and 
 jewels \" Not long after, at the end of the sixteenth 
 century, the place where Origen lay was only known 
 by tradition. The tradition, however, still lingers 
 about the ruins of the city ; for it is said that the 
 natives, to the present time, point out the spot where 
 " Oriunus " lies under a vault, the relic of an ancient 
 church, now covered by their huts'^. 
 
 Origen's writings are commensurate in range and 
 number with the intense activity of his life. They 
 were, it is said, measured by thousands, and yet, as 
 he argued, they were all one, one in purpose and in 
 spirit ; and it is almost amusing to observe the way 
 in which he writes to Ambrose, who urged him to 
 
 conclusus. Cujus titulum ibidem uidi (the edition of 1587 
 adds et legi). Sunt ibi columpnae marmoreae et aliorum 
 lapidum tam magnae, quod stupor est uidere. 
 
 1 Bart, de Saligniaco, Itin. Hier. ix. 10: In templo Sancti 
 Sepulcri, Origenis doctoris ossa magno in honore servantur, 
 quorum titulus est in columna marmorea magno sumptu gem- 
 marum et auri. It is not unlikely, I fear, that this statement 
 is a false rendering of Burchard's notice. Burchard's book 
 was very widely known in the sixteenth century. The state- 
 ments of Adrichonius (Theatr. T. S. Tr, Aser, 84), which are 
 repeated by Huet and others, have no independent value 
 whatever. 
 
 *^ Prutz, Aus Phonicien, 219, 306, quoted by Piper, Ztschr. 
 fiir Krchgsch. 1876, p. 208. 
 
 U—2 
 
212 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 fresh labours, pleading that he has already broken, 
 in the letter, the command of Solomon to "avoid 
 making many books'." But, he goes on to argue, 
 multitude really lies in contradiction and incon- 
 sistency. A few books which are charged with errors 
 are many. Many books which are alike inspired by 
 the truth are one. " If, then," he concludes, " I set 
 forth anything as the truth which is not the truth, 
 then I shall transgress. Now, while I strive by all 
 means to counteract false teaching, I obey the spirit 
 of the precept which seems at first to condemn me." 
 
 This claim which Origen makes to an essential 
 unity — a unity of purpose and spirit — in all his 
 works is fully justified by their character. Com- 
 mentaries, homilies, essays, tracts, letters, are alike 
 animated by the same free and lofty strivings towards 
 a due sense of the Divine Majesty, and the same 
 profound demotion to the teaching of Scripture. It 
 is no less remarkable that in aU these different de- 
 partments of literature his influence was decisive 
 and permanent. In this respect his reputation, how- 
 ever great, falls below the truth. Those parts of 
 his teaching which failed to find general acceptance 
 were brought into prominence by the animosity of 
 Jerome, who himself often silently appropriated the 
 other parts as belonging to the common heritage of 
 the Church. Origen, in a word, first laid down the 
 lines of a systematic study of the Bible. Both in 
 criticism and in interpretation his labours marked 
 1 In Joh. V. Pioef. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 213 
 
 an epoch. There were homilies before his, but he 
 fixed the tjrpe of a popular exposition. His Hexapla 
 was the greatest textual enterprise of ancient times. 
 His treatise on First Principles was the earliest 
 attempt at a systematic view of the Christian faith. 
 
 But we must not linger over his writings. 
 Writings are but one element of the teacher. A 
 method is often more characteristic and more in- 
 fluential than doctrine. It was so with Origen ; 
 and, in his case, we fortunately possess a vivid and 
 detailed description of the plan of study which he 
 pursued and enforced. Gregory, surnamed Thau- 
 maturgus, the wonder-worker, from his marvellous 
 labours in Pontus, after working under him for five 
 years at Cassarea, at a later time delivered a farewell 
 address in his presence (c. 239 a.d.^). In this the 
 scholar records with touching devotion the course 
 along which he had been guided by the man to 
 whom he felt that he owed his spiritual life. He 
 had come to Syria to study Roman law in the school 
 of Ber)rtus, but on his way there he met with Origen, 
 and at once felt that he had found in him the 
 wisdom for which he was seeking. The day of that 
 meeting was to him, in his own words, the dawn of 
 a new being ; his soul clave to the master whom he 
 recognised, and he surrendered himself gladly to his 
 guidance. As Origen spoke he kindled within the 
 
 1 In the following paragraphs I have endeavoured to give 
 shortly the substance of Gregory's description in his Oratio 
 
 Panegyrica. 
 
214 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 young advocate's breast a love for the Holy Word, 
 the most lovely of all objects, and for himself, the 
 Word's herald. "That love," Gregory adds, "in- 
 duced me to give up country and friends, the aims 
 which I had proposed to myself, the study of law of 
 which I was proud. I had but one passion — phi- 
 losophy — and the godlike man who directed me in 
 the pursuit of it^" 
 
 Origen's first care, so his scholar Gregory tells us, 
 was to make the character of a pupil his special 
 study. In this he followed the example of Clement ^ 
 He ascertained with delicate and patient attention 
 the capacities, the faults, the tendencies, of him 
 whom he had to teach. Rank growths of opinion 
 were cleared away ; weaknesses were laid open ; 
 every effort was used to develop endurance, firmness, 
 patience, thoroughness. "In true Socratic fashion 
 he sometimes overthrew us by argument," Gregory 
 writes ; " if he saw us restive and starting out of the 
 
 course The process was at first disagreeable 
 
 to us, and painful ; but so he purified us ... . and 
 .... prepared us for the reception of the words of 
 truth . . . ," "by probing us and questioning us, 
 and offering problems for our solution'"'." In this 
 way Origen taught his scholars to regard language 
 as designed not to furnish materials for display, but 
 to express truth with the most exact accuracy and 
 
 1 Paneg. c. 5. 
 
 2 Comp. Strom, i. 1, 8, p. 320. 
 
 3 Paneg. c. 7. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 215 
 
 logic ; as powerful, not to secure a plausible success 
 but, to test beliefs with the strictest rigour. 
 
 This was the first stage of intellectual discipline, 
 the accurate preparation of the instruments of 
 thought. In the next place, Origen led his pupils 
 to apply them, first, to the " lofty and divine, and 
 most lovely" study of external Nature. Here he 
 stood where we stand still, for he made geometry the 
 sure and immovable foundation of his teaching, and 
 firom this rose step by step to the heights of heaven 
 and the most sublime mysteries of the universe. 
 Gregory's language implies that Origen was himself 
 a student of physics ; as, in some degree, the true 
 theologian must be. Such investigations served to 
 shew man in his just relation to the world \ A 
 rational feeling for the vast grandeur of the external 
 order, "the sacred economy of the universe," as 
 Gregory calls it, was substituted for the ignorant and 
 senseless wonder with which it is commonly regarded. 
 The lessons of others, he writes, or his own observa- 
 tion, enabled him to explain the connexion, the 
 differences, the changes of the objects of sense. 
 
 But physics were naturally treated by Origen as 
 a preparation and not as an end. Moral science 
 came next ; and here he laid the greatest stress upon 
 the method of experiment. His aim was not merely 
 to analyse and to define and to classify feelings and 
 motives, though he did this, but to form a character. 
 For him, ethics were a life and not only a theory. 
 1 Puneg. c. 8. 
 
216 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 The four cardinal virtues of Plato — practical wisdom, 
 self-control, righteousness, courage — seemed to him 
 to require for their maturing careful and diligent 
 introspection and culture. And here he gave a 
 commentary upon his teaching. His discipline lay 
 even more in action than in precept. His own con- 
 duct was, in his scholars' minds, a more influential 
 persuasion than his arguments \ 
 
 So it was that Origen was the first teacher who 
 really led Gregory to the pursuit of Greek philosophy, 
 by bringing speculation into a vital union with prac- 
 ticed Gregory saw in him the inspiring example 
 of one at once wise and holy. The noble phrase of 
 older masters gained a distinct meaning for the 
 Christian disciple. In failure and weakness he was 
 enabled to perceive that the end of all was "to 
 become like to God with a pure mind, and to draw 
 near to Him and to abide in Him." 
 
 Guarded and guided by this conviction, Origen 
 encouraged his scholars in theology to look for help 
 in all the works of human genius. They were to 
 examine the writings of philosophers and poets of 
 every nation — the dogmatic atheists alone excepted 
 — with faithful candour and wise catholicity. For 
 them there was to be no sect, no party. And in 
 their arduous work they had ever at hand in their 
 master a friend who knew the difficulties of the 
 ground to be traversed. If they were bewildered in 
 the tangled mazes of conflicting opinions, he was 
 1 Paneg. c. 8. 2 j^. cc. 11, 12. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 217 
 
 ready to lead them with a firm hand. If they were 
 in danger of being swallowed up in the quicksands 
 of shifting error, he was near to lift them up to the 
 sure resting-place which he had himself found \ 
 
 Even yet the end was not reached. The hierarchy 
 of sciences was not completed till Theology, with her 
 own proper gifts, crowned the succession which we 
 have followed hitherto, logic, physics, ethics. New 
 data corresponded with the highest philosophy ; and 
 Origen found in the Holy Scriptures and the teaching 
 of the Spirit the final and absolute spring of Divine 
 Truth. It was in this region that Gregory felt his 
 master's power to be supreme. Origen's sovereign 
 command of the mysteries of " the oracles of God," 
 gave him perfect boldness in dealing with all other 
 writings. "Therefore," Gregory adds, "there was 
 no subject forbidden to us ; nothing hidden or in- 
 accessible. "We were allowed to become acquainted 
 with every doctrine, barbarian or Greek, on things 
 spiritual or civil, divine and human, traversing with 
 all freedom, and investigating the whole circuit of 
 knowledge, and satisfying ourselves with the full 
 enjoyment of all the pleasures of the soul. . . ^" 
 
 Such, in meagre outline, was, as Gregory tells us, 
 the method of Origen. He describes what he knew, 
 and what his hearers knew. I know no parallel to 
 the picture in ancient times. And when every 
 allowance has been made for the partial enthusiasm 
 of a pupil, the view which it offers of a system of 
 1 Paneg. c. 14. 2 ^d. c. 16. 
 
218 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 Christian training actually realised exhibits a type 
 which we cannot hope to surpass. May we not say 
 that the ideal of Christian education and the ideal 
 of Christian philosophy were fashioned together? 
 And can we wonder that, under that comprehensive 
 and loving discipline, Gregory, already trained in 
 heathen schools, first learnt, step by step, according 
 to his own testimony, what the pursuit of philosophy 
 truly was, and came to know the solemn duty of 
 forming opinions which were to be, not the amuse- 
 ment of a moment, but the solid foundations of life- 
 long work ? Have we yet, perhaps we ask, mastered 
 the lessons ? 
 
 The method of Origen, such as Gregory has 
 described it, in all its breadth and freedom was 
 forced upon him by what he held to be the deepest 
 law of human nature. It may be true (and he 
 admitted it) that we are, in our present state, but 
 poorly furnished for the pursuit of knowledge ; but 
 he was never weary of proclaiming that we are at 
 least born to engage in the endless search. If we 
 see some admirable work of man's art, he says\ we 
 are at once eager to investigate the nature, the 
 manner, the end of its production ; and the con- 
 templation of the works of God stirs us with an 
 incomparably greater longing to learn the principles, 
 the method, the purpose of creation. " This desire, 
 this passion, has without doubt," he continues, **been 
 implanted in us by God. And as the eye seeks the 
 
 1 De Princ. ii. 4, p. 105. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 219 
 
 light, as our body craves food, so our mind is im- 
 pressed with the characteristic and natural desire of 
 knowing the truth of God and the causes of what 
 we observe." Such a desire, since it is a divine 
 endowment, carries with it the promise of future 
 satisfaction. In our present life we may not be able 
 to do more by the utmost toil than obtain some 
 small fragments from the infinite treasures of divine 
 knowledge, still the concentration of our souls upon 
 the lovely vision of Truth, the occupation of our 
 various faculties in lofty inquiries, the very ambition 
 with which we rise above our actual powers, is in 
 itself fruitful in blessing, and fits us better for the 
 reception of wisdom hereafter at some later stage of 
 existence. Now we draw at the best a faint outline, 
 a preparatory sketch of the features of Truth; the 
 true and living colours will be added then. Perhaps, 
 he concludes most characteristically, that is the 
 meaning of the words " to every one that hath shall 
 be given ; " by which we are assured that he who 
 has gained in this life some faint outline of truth 
 and knowledge, will have it completed in the age to 
 come with the beauty of the perfect image. 
 
 Such words, thrilling alike by their humility and 
 by their confidence, noble in the confession of the 
 actual weakness of man, and invigorating by the 
 assertion of his magnificent destiny, can never gTow 
 old. They live by the inspiration of spiritual genius, 
 and through them Origen comes into vital contact 
 with ourselves. He was himself greater than his 
 
220 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 actions, than his writings, than his method. The 
 philosopher was greater than his system. He pos- 
 sessed the highest endowment of a teacher. He was 
 able to give to the innumerable crowd of doctors, 
 confessors, martyrs, who gathered round him, not 
 merely a tabulated series of formulas, but a living 
 energy of faith. He stirred, quickened, kindled, as 
 Gregory says, those who approached him. He com- 
 municated not his words, but himself; not opinions 
 so much as a fire of love. Even Erasmus found in 
 this the secret of his charm. "He loved," he says', 
 " that of which he spoke, and we speak with delight 
 of the things which we love." In the face of this 
 purifying passion, Origen's errors, however we may 
 judge of them, are details which cannot finally aftect 
 our judgment of the man. 
 
 During his lifetime there was undoubtedly a 
 strong party opposed to him. His enemies repre- 
 sented a principle — hierarchical supremacy — and not 
 only a personal antipathy. Their bitterness was a 
 proof of his influence. But even after his condemna- 
 tion at Alexandria his spiritual supremacy was 
 undisturbed. Dionysius carried his spirit to the 
 patriarchal throne. Pamphilus, the martyr, solaced 
 his imprisonment by writing his defence. Even 
 Jerome, before personal feelings had warped his 
 judgment, styled him one "confessed by all com- 
 petent to judge to be the Master of the Churches 
 after the Apostles." "I could wish," he says, "to 
 1 Praef . ux Orig. 0pp. 
 
( 
 
 CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 221 
 
 have his knowledge of the Scriptures, even if I had to 
 bear the ill-will which attaches to his name." 
 
 So long as he was remembered as a living power 
 he was honoured by the admiration of the leaders of 
 Christian thought. But as time went on, the fashion 
 of the Church changed. The freedom of speculation 
 was confined, perhaps necessarily confined, within 
 narrower limits. The men who professed to follow 
 Origen misinterpreted and misrepresented him. For 
 others he was the personification of opinions which 
 had been pronounced heretical by those who had 
 authority. Here and there, however, a bold voice 
 was still raised in his defence. "I do not choose," 
 said a bishop, when appealed to to join in the con- 
 demnation of his writings ^ "to do outrage to a man 
 who has long since fallen to sleep in honour ; nor 
 am I bold enough to undertake a calumnious task 
 in condemning what those before us did not reject. 
 . . . ." The historian (a layman) who has preserved 
 the anecdote, pauses for a moment to point its moral. 
 " Men," he writes, " of slender ability, who are 
 unable to come to the light by their own fame, 
 wished to gain distinction by blaming their betters. 
 .... Such men's accusations contribute, I maintain, 
 
 to establish his reputation And they who 
 
 revile Origen forget that they calumniate Athanasius 
 who praised him "'^ 
 
 But no individual devotion could turn the tide of 
 
 1 Theotimus, ' the bishop of Scythia.' Socr. H. E. vi. 12. 
 
 2 Id. vi. 13. 
 
222 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 opinion which had set in against Origen before the 
 close of the fifth century. It corresponded with an 
 intellectual revolution. For three centuries or more 
 Platonic idealism had been supreme. Aristotehan 
 realism was now on the point of displacing it. The 
 signs of the change can be noticed in theology and 
 in politics. In one sense it was necessary as a con- 
 dition for the development of medisevahsm. The 
 institutions of the past, which carried with them 
 the noblest memories and symbolized the old order, 
 were now emptied of their true life, and therefore 
 not unmeet to fall by the hands of an alien Emperor. 
 It was the singular and significant fortune of Justinian 
 to strike a threefold blow at the past — to close the 
 Schools of Athens, to abolish the Consulship at 
 Rome, to procure a formal condemnation of Origen. 
 By a happy coincidence he warred in each case with 
 the dead, and he was not unworthy to wage such a 
 conflict which could bring no fruit and no glory. 
 It would be idle to suppose that such a man could 
 either sympathise with or understand the difficulties 
 or the thoughts of Origen. For good and for evil 
 he was wholly cast in the mould of formulas. He 
 knew nothing higher than an edict. With less 
 knowledge than Henry VIIL, he aspired to be a 
 defender of the Faith, and ended by compromising 
 his reputation for orthodoxy. The spectacle is for a 
 moment one of unspeakable sadness, Origen con- 
 demned on the impeachment of Justinian. But the 
 life of the martyr triumphed over the anathemas of 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 223 
 
 the persecutor. Justinian could flatter himself that 
 he killed again that which had no life because it was 
 false ; but Origen — the preacher of humility and 
 patience and reverence and hope and absolute devo- 
 tion to the Divine Word — slept on calmly in the 
 tomb ; and when " Greece rose from the dead," as it 
 has been finely expressed, " with the New Testament 
 in her hand," he rose too to disclose once again fresh 
 springs of Truth. "I have read," writes Erasmus 
 to our own Colet in 1504, "a great part of the works 
 of Origen; and under his teaching I think that I 
 have made good progress ; for he opens, so to speak, 
 the fountains of Theology, and indicates the methods 
 of the science." 
 
 Even while Origen was still held to be under the 
 ban of the Church, he exercised a strange fascination 
 by the memories of his name. His salvation was a 
 question of the Schools, and was said to have been 
 the subject of revelations. An abbot, so the story 
 ran, saw him in eternal torment with the chief 
 hseresiarchs, Arius and Nestorius. On the other 
 hand, it was alleged that it had been made known to 
 St Mechtildis^ that ''the fate of Samson, Solomon, 
 and Origen was kept hidden in the divine counsels, 
 in order that the strongest, the wisest, and the most 
 learned might be filled with salutary fear." Picus 
 of Mirandula maintained in the face of violent oppo- 
 sition, that it was "more reasonable to believe in 
 his salvation than not." A learned Jesuit has com- 
 ^ See Bayle, Diet. Origene, Note D. 
 
224 OllIGEN AND THE BE0INNINt3S OF 
 
 posed an imaginary account of his trial before the 
 Court of Heaven, with witnesses, advocates, and 
 accusers, in which he finally gives him the benefit of 
 the doubt. "There is a perplexed controversy," 
 writes a German chronicler of the fifteenth century, 
 "in which sundry people engage about Samson, 
 Solomon, Trajan, and Origen, whether they were 
 saved or not. That I leave to the Lord." 
 
 Such notices serve for more than a momentary 
 surprise. They shew that Origen, though practically 
 unknown, still kept his hold on the interests of men ; 
 that he was still an object of personal love ; that 
 there is in the fact of a life of humble self-sacrifice 
 something too majestic, too divine, to be overthrown 
 by the measured sentence of an ecclesiastical s)aiod. 
 
 n. 
 
 In the last paper I endeavoured to indicate some 
 characteristic features in the position, the life, the 
 works, the method, the influence of Origen. I wish 
 now to give a general idea of his chief philosophic 
 work — the treatise On First Principles — of its con- 
 tents and of its spirit, in connexion with the history 
 of Christian thought. Origen was in the full course 
 of his work at Alexandria when the work on First 
 Principles was written. He was probably at the 
 time not much more than thirty years old, and still 
 a layman ; but there is no reason to think that he 
 modified in any important respects the opinions 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 225 
 
 which he has expressed in it. It must, however, 
 be remembered that the book was not written for 
 simple believers, but for scholars — for those who 
 were familiar with the teaching of Gnosticism and 
 Platonism; and with a view to questions which 
 then first become urgent when men have risen to a 
 wide view of Nature and life. Non-Christian phi- 
 losophies moved in a region of sublime abstractions, 
 "ideas." Origen felt that Christianity converts these 
 abstractions into realities, the personal facts of a 
 complete life ; and he strove to express what he felt 
 in the modes of thought and language of his age. 
 He aimed at presenting the higher "knowledge" 
 (yvwo-is) as an objective system. But in doing this 
 he had no intention of fashioning two Christianities 
 — a Christianity for the learned and a Christianity 
 for the simple. The Faith was one, one essentially 
 and unalterably, but infinite in fulness, so that the 
 trained eye could see more of its harmonies, as it 
 necessarily looked for more. Fresh wants made fresh 
 truths visible. He who found much had nothing 
 over ; he who found little had no lack. 
 
 The book is, as has been already said, the earliest 
 attempt to form a system of Christian doctrine, or 
 rather a philosophy of the Christian faith. In this 
 respect it marks an epoch in Christian thought, but 
 no change in the contents of the Christian creed. 
 The elements of the dogmatic basis are assumed on 
 the authority of the Church. The author's object is, 
 as he says, to shew how they can be arranged as a 
 W. E. 15 
 
226 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 whole, by the help either of the statements of Scrip- 
 ture or of the methods of exact reasoning. And, 
 however strange or startling the teaching of Origen 
 may seem to us, it is necessary to bear in mind that 
 this is the account which he gives of it. He takes 
 for granted that all that he brings forward is in 
 harmony with received teaching. He professes to 
 accept as final the same authorities as ourselves'. 
 
 The treatise consists of four books. It has been 
 preserved for the most part only in an inexact Latin 
 translation, but sufficient evidence remains to shew 
 that the translation gives the main thoughts cor- 
 rectly. The composition is not strictly methodical. 
 Digressions and repetitions interfere with the sym- 
 metry of the plan. But, to speak generally, the 
 first book deals with God and Creation (religious 
 statics, if I may use the phrase); the second and 
 third books with Creation and Providence, with Man 
 and Redemption (religious dynamics) ; and the fourth 
 book with Holy Scripture. Or, to put the facts 
 somewhat differently, the first three books contain 
 the exposition of a Christian philosophy, gathered 
 round the three ideas of God, the world, and the 
 rational soul ; and the last gives the basis of it. 
 Even in the repetitions (as on "the restoration of 
 things") it is not difficult to see that each suc- 
 cessive treatment corresponds with a new point of 
 sight. 
 
 Bearing these broad divisions in mind, we can 
 
 J Pe Priac. Praef. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 227 
 
 enter a little further into detail. In the first book, 
 then, Origen brings before us the final elements of 
 all religious philosophy — God, the world, rational 
 creatures. After dwelling on the essential nature of 
 God as incorporeal, invisible, incomprehensible, and 
 on the characteristic relations of the Persons of the 
 Holy Trinity to man, as the Authors of being and 
 reason and holiness, he gives a summary view of 
 the end of human life ; for the elements of a problem 
 cannot be really understood until we have compre- 
 hended its scope. The end of life, then, according 
 to Origen, is the progressive assimilation of man to 
 God by the voluntary appropriation of His gifts. 
 Gentile philosophers had proposed to themselves the 
 idea of assimilation to God, but Origen adds the 
 means. "By the unceasing action of the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Spirit towards us, renewed at each 
 successive stage of our advance, we shall be able," 
 he says, "with difficulty perchance at some future 
 time to look on the holy and blessed life ; and, when 
 once we have been enabled to reach that, after many 
 struggles, we ought so to continue in it that no 
 weariness may take hold on us. Each fresh enjoy- 
 ment of that bliss ought to enlarge or deepen our 
 desire for it ; while we are ever receiving or holding 
 with more ardent love and larger grasp the Father 
 and the Son and the Holy Spirit'." 
 
 But it will be said that this condition of progress, 
 eff^ort, assimilation, involves the possibility of declen- 
 1 De Princ. i. 3. 8. 
 
 15—2 
 
228 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 sion, indolence, the obliteration of the Divine image. 
 If man can go forward he can go backward. Origen 
 accepts the consequence, and finds in it an explana- 
 tion of the actual state of men and angels. The 
 present position of each rational being corresponds, 
 in his judgment, with the use which he has hitherto 
 made of the revelations and gifts of God. No beings 
 were created originally immutable in character. 
 Some by diligent obedience have been raised to the 
 loftiest places in the celestial hierarchy ; others by 
 perverse selfwill and rebellion have sunk into the 
 condition of demons. Others occupy an intermediate 
 place, and are capable of being raised again to their 
 first state, and so upwards, if they avail themselves 
 of the helps which are provided by the love of God. 
 " Of these," he adds, " I think, as far as I can form 
 an opinion, that this order of the human race was 
 formed, which in the future age, or in the ages which 
 succeed, when there shall be a new heaven and a 
 new earth, shall be restored to that unity which the 
 Lord promises in His intercessory prayer." "Mean- 
 while," he continues, "both in the ages which are 
 seen and temporal, and in those which are not seen 
 and eternal, all rational beings who have fallen are 
 dealt with according to the order, the character, the 
 measure of their deserts. Some in the first, others 
 in the second, some again even in the last times, 
 through greater and heavier sufferings, borne through 
 many ages, reformed by sharper discipline, and re- 
 stored .... stage by stage .... reach that which 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 229 
 
 is invisible and eternal * " Only one kind of 
 
 change is impossible. There is no such transmigra- 
 tion of souls as Plato pictured after the fashion of 
 the Hindus in the legend of " Er the son of Arme- 
 nius." No rational being can sink into the nature of 
 a brute ^ 
 
 The progress of this discussion is interrupted by- 
 one singular episode, which is characteristic of the 
 time. How, Origen asks, are we to regard the 
 heavenly bodies — the sun and moon and stars ? Are 
 they animated and rational? Are they the tem- 
 porary abodes of souls which shall hereafter be re- 
 leased from them ? Are they finally to be brought 
 into the great unity, when " God shall be all in all?" 
 The questions, he admits, are bold ; but he answers 
 all in the affirmative, on what he holds to be the 
 authority of Scripture ^ 
 
 In the second book Origen pursues at greater*, 
 length that view of the visible world as a place of 
 discipline and preparation, which has been already 
 indicated. He follows out as a movement what he 
 had before regarded as a condition. The endless 
 variety in the situations of men, the inequality of 
 their material and moral circumstances, their critical 
 spiritual differences, all tend to shew, so he argues, 
 that the position of each has been determined in 
 accordance with previous conduct. And God in His 
 ineffable wisdom has united all together with abso- 
 
 1 De Princ. i. 6. 2, f. 2 j^, j^ g. 4. 
 
 » Id. i. 7; cf. c. Cels. v. 10, 11. 
 
230 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OP 
 
 lute justice, so that all these creatures, most diverse 
 in themselves, combine to work out His purpose, 
 while "their very variety tends to the one end of 
 perfection." All things were made for the sake of 
 man and rational beings*. It is through man there- 
 fore that this world, as God's work, becomes complete 
 and perfect. The individual is never isolated, though 
 he is never irresponsible. At every moment he is 
 acting and acted upon, adding something to the sum 
 of the moral forces of the world, furnishing that 
 out of which God is fulfilling His purpose. The 
 difficulties of life, as Origen regards them, give scope 
 for heroic effort and loving service. The fruits of 
 a moral victory become more permanent as they 
 are gained through harder toil. The obstacles and 
 hindrances by which man is hemmed in are incentives 
 to exertion. His body is not a "prison" in the 
 sense of a place of punishment only ; it is a bene- 
 ficent provision for the discipline of beings to whom 
 it furnishes such salutary restraints as are best fitted 
 to further their moral growth ^ 
 
 This view of the dependence of the present on 
 the past — to use the forms of human speech — seemed 
 to Origen to remove a difficulty which weighed 
 heavily upon thoughtful men in the first age as it 
 has weighed heavily upon thoughtful men in our 
 own generation. Very many said then, what one of 
 the most influential and rigorous philosophers of 
 modern times said not long ago with a voice from 
 
 1 De Princ. ii. Ij cf. c. Cels. iv. 99. 2 j^^ ^ 2. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 231 
 
 the grave, that the sufferings and disparities of life, 
 the contrasts of the Law and the Gospel, point to 
 the action of rival spiritual powers or to a Creator 
 limited by something external to Himself. Not so, 
 was Origen's reply : they simply reveal that what 
 we see is a fragment of a vast system in which we 
 can do no more than trace tendencies, convergences, 
 signs, and rest upon the historic fact of the Incarna- 
 tion. In this respect he ventured to regard the 
 entire range of being as "one thought" answering 
 to the absolutely perfect will of God, while " we that 
 are not all, as parts can see but parts— now this, now 
 that^" 
 
 And this seems to me to be the true meaning of 
 his famous assertion that the power of God in crea- 
 tion was finite, and not infinite. It would, that is, 
 be inconsistent with our ideas of perfect order, and 
 therefore with our idea of the Divine Being, that the 
 sum of finite existence should not form one whole. 
 "God made all things in number and measure." 
 The Omnipotence of God is defined (as we are forced 
 to conceive) by the absolute Perfections of His 
 Nature. "He cannot deny Himself*." 
 
 But it may be objected more definitely that our 
 difficulties do not lie only in the circumstances of 
 the present : that the issues of the present, so far 
 as we can see them, bring difficulties no less over- 
 whelming : that even if we allow that this world is 
 fitted to be a place of discipline for fallen beings who 
 1 De Princ. ii. 5; 9. 5. 2 j^. n 9, 1. jy^ 35^ 
 
232 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 are capable of recovery, it is only too evident that 
 the discipline does not always work amendment. 
 Origen admits the fact, and draws from it the con- 
 clusion that other systems of penal purification and 
 moral advance follow. According to him, world 
 grows out of world, so to speak, till the consumma- 
 tion is reached. What is the nature, or position, or 
 constitution of the world to come he does not attempt 
 to define. It is enough to believe that from first to 
 last the will of Him who is most righteous and most 
 loving is fulfilled; and that each loftier region gained 
 is the entrance to some still more glorious abode 
 above, so that all being becomes, as it were, in the 
 highest sense a journey of the saints from mansion to 
 mansion up to the very throne of God'. 
 
 In order to give clearness to this view, Origen 
 follows out in imagination the normal course of the 
 progressive training, purifying, and illumination of 
 men in the future. He pictures them passing from 
 sphere to sphere, and resting in each so as to receive 
 such revelations of the providence of God as they can 
 grasp; lower phenomena are successively explained 
 to them, and higher phenomena are indicated. As 
 they look backward old mysteries are illuminated; 
 as they look forward unimagined mysteries stir their 
 souls with divine desire. Everywhere their Lord is 
 with them, and they advance from strength to 
 strength, through the perpetual supply of spiritual 
 food. This food, he says, is the contemplation and 
 
 1 De Princ. ii. 10. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 235 
 
 understanding of God, according to its proper measure 
 in each case and as suits a nature which is made and 
 created. And this measure — this due harmony and 
 proportion between aim and power (would that we 
 could remember the truth!) — it is right that every 
 one should regard even now who is beginning to see 
 God, that is, to understand Him in purity of heart'. 
 
 But while Origen opens this infinite prospect of 
 scene upon scene to faith, or hope, or imagination — 
 call it as we may — he goes on to shev^ that Scripture 
 concentrates our attention upon the next scene, 
 summed up in the words, Resurrection, Judgment, 
 Retribution. Nowhere is he more studiously anxious 
 to keep to the teaching of the Word than in dealing 
 with these cardinal ideas. For him the Resurrection 
 is not the reproduction of any particular organism, 
 but the preservation of complete identity of person, 
 an identity maintained under new conditions, which 
 he presents under the Apostolic figure of the growth 
 of the plant from the seed: the seed is committed 
 to the earth and perishes, and yet the vital power 
 which it contains gathers a new frame answering to 
 its proper nature. Judgment is no limited and local 
 act, but the unimpeded execution of the absolute 
 divine law by which the man is made to feel what he 
 is and what he has become, and to bear the inexor- 
 able consequences of the revelation. Punishment 
 is no vengeance, but the just severity of a righteous 
 King by which the soul is placed at least on the 
 
 1 De Princ. ii. 11. 6 f. 
 
232 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 way of purification. Blessedness is no sensuous joy 
 or indolent repose, but the opening vision of the 
 divine glory, the growing insight into the mysteries 
 of the fulfilment of the divine counsels'. 
 
 In the third book Origen discusses the moral 
 basis of his system. This lies in the recognition of 
 free-will as the inalienable endowment of rational 
 beings. But this free-will does not carry with it the 
 power of independent action, but only the power of 
 receiving the help which is extended to each accord- 
 ing to his capacity and needs, and therefore just 
 responsibility for the consequences of action. Such 
 free-will offers a sufficient explanation, in Origen 's 
 judgment, for what we see, and gives a stable founda- 
 tion for what we hope. It places sin definitely within 
 the man himself, and not without him. It preserves 
 the possibility of restoration while it enforces the 
 penalty of failure. "God said," so he writes, " 'Let 
 us make man in our image, after our likeness.' Then 
 the sacred writer adds, * And God made man : in the 
 image of God made he him.' This therefore that he 
 says, ' In the image of God made he him,' while he 
 is silent as to the likeness, has no other meaning 
 than this, that man received the dignity of the image 
 at his first creation; while the perfection of this 
 likeness is kept in the consummation (of all things) ; 
 that is, that he should himself gain it by the eff"orts 
 of his own endeavour, since the possibility of perfec- 
 tion had been given him at the first ^" 
 
 1 De Princ. ii. 10. 2 j^^ m q^ i^ 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 235 
 
 Such a doctrine, he shews, gives a deep solemnity 
 to the moral conflicts of life. We cannot even to the 
 last plead that we are the victims of circumstances 
 or of the evil spirits. The decision in each case, this 
 way or that, rests with ourselves, yet so that all we 
 have and are truly is the gift of God. Each soul 
 obtains from the object of its love the power to fulfil 
 His will. ''It draws and takes to itself," he says, 
 "the Word of God in proportion to its capacity and 
 faith. And when souls have drawn to themselves 
 the Word of God, and have let Him penetrate their 
 senses and their understandings, and have perceived 
 the sweetness of His fragrance, .... filled with 
 vigour and cheerfulness, tliey speed after Him. 
 
 ' " Nor can I forbear to add that such a 
 
 doctrine, so far from tending to Pelagianism, is the 
 very refutation of it. It lays down that the essence 
 of freedom is absolute self-surrender ; that the power 
 of right action is nothing but the power of God. 
 Every act of man is the act of a free being, but not 
 an exercise of freedom; if done without dependence 
 upon God, it is done in despite of freedom, respon- 
 sibly indeed, but under adverse constraint. 
 
 The decision from moment to moment, Origen 
 maintains, rests with us, but not the end. That is 
 determined from the first, though the conduct of 
 creatures can delay through untold ages the con- 
 summation of all things. The gift of being, once 
 given, abides for ever. The rational creature is 
 1 In Cant, i., t. iii. p. 41 E. 
 
236 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 capable of change, of better and worse, but it can 
 never cease to be. What mysteries, however, lie 
 behind, what is the nature of the spiritual body in 
 which we shall be clothed, whether all that is finite 
 shall be gathered up in some unspeakable way into 
 the Absolute, that Origen holds to be beyond our 
 minds to conceive*. 
 
 As the third book deals with the moral basis of 
 Origen's system, so the fourth and last deals with its 
 dogmatic basis. This order of succession in the 
 treatise is unusual, and yet it is intelligible. It 
 , moves from the universal to the special; from that 
 which is most abstract to that which is most con- 
 crete ; from the heights of speculation to the rule of 
 authority. " In investigating such great subjects as 
 these," Origen writes, ''we are not content with 
 common ideas, and the clear evidence of what we 
 see, but we take testimonies to prove what we state, 
 even those which are drawn from the Scriptures, 
 which we believe to be Divined" Therefore, in con- 
 clusion, he examines with a reverence, an insight, a 
 humility, a grandeur of feeling never surpassed, the 
 questions of the inspiration and the interpretation 
 of the Bible. The intellectual value of the work 
 may best be characterised by one fact: a single 
 sentence taken from it was quoted by Butler as con- 
 taining the germ of his " Analogy." 
 
 Such is the main outline, as far as I am able to 
 trace it, of Origen's philosophical work. It will be 
 1 De Princ. iii. 6. ^ j^f. iy. i init. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 237 
 
 obvious at first sight how widely it differs from 
 mediaeval and modern expositions of the " first prin- 
 ciples" of the Christian Faith. It contains very 
 little technical teaching. It is silent as to the Sacra- 
 ments. It contains no theory of the Atonement ; no 
 teaching on Justification. Yet it does deal with 
 questions which are felt to be momentous, and which 
 everything at present tends to bring again into pro- 
 minence. 
 
 In this aspect there are several points of great 
 interest in the sketch which can hardly fail to have 
 been noticed. But before touching on these it will 
 be well to mark once again the answers which Origen 
 gave to the questions which (as we have seen) were 
 uppermost in the contemporary Schools as to the 
 origin of finite existences and of evil. 
 
 "In the beginning," he whites, "when God created 
 what He pleased to create — that is, rational natures 
 — He had no other cause of creation beside Himself 
 — that is, His own goodness'." And the rational 
 creatures which He made were all alike, for there 
 was no cause for difference, but they were inalienably 
 endowed with freedom of will; and this freedom of 
 will led either to their advance through imitation of 
 God or to their declension through neglect of Him ; 
 and hence came the present order, which in all its 
 diversities is still guided by Infinite Righteousness ^ 
 
 Evil, it follows, is negative, the loss of good which 
 was attainable : the shadow which marks the absence, 
 
 1 De Prino. ii. 9. 6; comp. iv. 35. 2 j^^ ^^ 9 q 
 
238 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 or rather the exclusion, of light. The creation of 
 finite rational beings by the free act of God involved 
 the creation of a medium through which they could 
 give expression to their character. Such a medium 
 is matter in its boundless subtle modifications. 
 While, therefore, the expression of character will be 
 dependent upon matter within certain limits, yet 
 man, for example, is still capable of receiving and 
 giving utterance to a divine revelation as a spiritual 
 being, in accordance with the laws of his present 
 organisation. 
 
 Briefly, therefore, Origen aims at giving shape 
 to two great thoughts — (1) that the whole world is a 
 manifestation of the goodness and righteousness of 
 God in every detail; and (2) that the moral deter- 
 mination of each individual is a decisive element in 
 the working out of the divine counsel. 
 
 This compound conception of the sum of finite 
 being as a unity, consistent with, or rather dependent 
 upon, the free and responsible action of each indivi- 
 dual, is evidently of the utmost significance. There 
 can be none greater. Nor does it lose in grandeur 
 when we go on to consider some particular points in 
 Origen's treatment of it. 
 
 The first which I desire to mark is the stress 
 which Origen lays upon the moral end of philosophy, 
 and of religion as the supreme philosophy. No 
 teacher of the present day could insist with greater 
 earnestness upon the importance of conduct than he 
 does. There is absolutely nothing in which he does 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 239 
 
 not see ethical influences. His thought wearies itself 
 in following out the effects of action. Without per- 
 petuating the associations of the present he strives 
 to give definiteness to our conceptions of the con- 
 tinuity of the spiritual life. He carries the sense of 
 responsibility up to the highest orders of finite exist- 
 ence. His system is a system of absolute idealism, 
 but of idealism as a spring for action. " God cares," 
 he says', "not only for the whole, as Celsus thinks, 
 but beyond the whole in an especial manner for each 
 rational being." Thus in his doctrine of the re- 
 incorporation of souls there is nothing accidental, 
 nothing capricious, as in Plato's famous Myth. The 
 belief, according to him, represents to human appre- 
 hension a judgment of Infinite Righteousness executed 
 by Infinite Love. It is an embodiment, if I may so 
 express it, of two principles which he assumes as 
 axioms — the first that every gift of God is perfect, 
 and the second that God's gift to His rational crea- 
 tures was not virtue, which it could not be by the . 
 nature of the case, but the capacity for virtue. 
 
 In the next place, Origen distinctly claims for 
 Christianity that it is a philosophy, that it has for 
 its domain every human interest and power, that it 
 is capable of co-ordinating all thought and all experi- 
 ence. Faith is the foundation of knowledge. The 
 fact that our results on earth will be to the last 
 fragmentary and tentative, does not interfere with 
 the reality of the spirit which quickens the Gospel. 
 1 0. Cels. iv. 99. 
 
240 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 " Now" he says, " we seek for a while, then we shall 
 see clearly \" But both in the search and in the 
 fruition the object is the same. The fulness of 
 Truth, which is finally nothing less than a manifold 
 revelation of God leading up to absolute fellowship 
 with Him, is that towards which the behever is led 
 by the Spirit alike through thought and feeling and 
 action. 
 
 As a necessary consequence he insists, in the 
 third place, on the new data which are given by 
 revelation for the solution of the problems of phi- 
 losophy. Again and again he points out the in- 
 sufficiency of reason, of the independent faculties of 
 man, to attain to that towards which it is turned. 
 Reason enables man to recognise God when He 
 makes Himself known, to receive a revelation from 
 Him in virtue of his affinity with the Divine Word, 
 but it does not enable the creature to derive from 
 within the knowledge for which it longs. It follows 
 that the capacity for knowing God belongs to man 
 as man, and not to man as a philosopher. Origen 
 therefore acknowledges the nobility of Plato's words 
 when he said that "it is a hard matter to find out 
 the Maker and Father of the universe, and impossible 
 for one who has found Him to declare Him to all 
 men^" But he adds that Plato affirms too much 
 and too little. As Christians "we declare that 
 human nature is not in itself competent in any way 
 to seek God and find Him purely without the help 
 
 1 De Princ. ii. 11. 5. « c. Cels. vii. 43. 
 
CHIIISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 241 
 
 of Him who is sought, nay, of Him who is found by 
 those who confess, after they have done all in their 
 power, that they have yet need of Him " 
 
 The Platonic passage here quoted was indeed one 
 in which the Christian Apologist rightly felt that 
 an essential contrast between Gentile and Christian 
 philosophy was expressed'; and I cannot but add 
 Clement's comment on the words. "Well said, 
 Plato : you have touched the truth ; but do not faint 
 in thy efforts: join with me in the search for the 
 good ; for in all men absolutely, and in a special way 
 in those who occupy themselves with the discussion 
 of great questions (Trcpt Xo'yovs), a divine effluence 
 hath been instilled. . . ." "Philosophy," he says 
 elsewhere, "seeks for the truth and the nature of 
 things; and this is. the Truth, of which the Lord 
 said, I am the Truth^" 
 
 Such is the true position of the Christian phi- 
 losopher. He accepts gladly all the consequences 
 which can be deduced from the intellectual constitu- 
 tion of man, and from man's observation of nature ; 
 but he affirms beside that God has made known 
 something of Himself. And in this affirmation there 
 is nothing at variance with the principles of phi- 
 losophy. If it be true that there are three ultimate 
 existences of which the reality is equally incapable 
 of proof and disproof, — self, the world, and God, — 
 we may expect that we shall gain knowledge as to 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Cohort. § 68, p. 69. 
 
 2 Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 5, p. 335. 
 
 W.E. 16 
 
242 OHIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 each, not in the same way, but in different and 
 corresponding ways. It is just as much in harmony 
 with the spiritual faculty that man should be able 
 to receive communications from God, as it is in 
 harmony with his sensuous faculties that he should 
 receive impressions from the world without. "The 
 soul has its sense no less than the body." And if 
 this be so, the sense of the soul must be trained that 
 it may receive right impressions from the objects to 
 which it is directed. Aristotle spoke of "an eye of 
 experience," which is sharpened by the practical 
 conduct of affairs. Origen may be said to require 
 **an eye of holiness" for the vision of the purest 
 Truth. 
 
 This characteristic of Origan's teaching places his 
 views on conduct in a new light. Right action is 
 not only a necessity for the moulding of the character 
 after the Divine likeness; it is also a necessity for 
 the progressive reception of the Divine revelation. 
 Morality, in the largest sense of the word, is bound 
 to Theology as a condition of knowledge. " The 
 pure in heart see God," and see Him with a clearness 
 answering to their growth in purity \ 
 
 A fourth point in Origen's treatise is the intense 
 reality with which he invests the spiritual world. 
 He already lives and moves in it. External objects, 
 peoples, cities, are to him veils and symbols of in- 
 visible things. Phenomena are shadows, and he 
 looks upon the substances by which they are cast. 
 1 Comp. c. Gels. iv. 30; v. 43; vi. 2. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 243 
 
 He cheerfully admits every hindrance which besets 
 us now, but reaches out to the state when they will 
 exist no longer. Hence comes the earnestness with 
 which he combats every tendency to unite indis- 
 solubly present conditions with the future, or to 
 trust to deductions drawn from the temporal and 
 local limitations of human observation. The gross- 
 ness of Millenarianism filled him with alarm. And 
 those who are familiar with the writings and influence 
 of TertuUian will know that Origen's opposition to 
 materialism in every form was called for by pressing 
 dangers. Perhaps we have even yet hardly realised 
 what a heavy burden of materialistic conceptions we 
 have ourselves inherited from African theology which 
 Origen set aside by anticipation. 
 
 But while Origen affirms with the utmost force 
 the spirituality of the unseen world, and contends 
 against the popular transference of the thoughts 
 which belong to this order of being to another, he 
 affirms with equal distinctness that we have to do 
 there with a world of persons and not of abstractions. 
 Where he is in one sense most Platonic, he is in 
 another sense most opposed to Plato and the Neo- 
 Platonists. He preserves and intensifies every moral 
 relation in that loftier sphere. Nothing is lost there, 
 but all is ennobled, A single illustration will shew 
 the wisdom of his judgment. 
 
 No one of his opinions was more vehemently 
 assailed than his teaching on the Resurrection. Even 
 his early and later apologists were perplexed in their 
 
 16—2 
 
244 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 defence of him. Yet tliere is no point on which his 
 insight was more conspicuous. By keeping strictly 
 to the Apostolic language he anticipated results 
 which we have hardly yet secured. He saw that it 
 is "the spirit" which moulds the frame through 
 which it is manifested: that the body is the same, 
 not by any material continuity, but by the per- 
 manence of that which gives the law, the " ratio " as 
 he calls it, of its constitution \ Our opponents say 
 now that this idea is a late refinement of doctrine 
 forced upon us by the exigencies of controversy. 
 The answer is that no exigencies of controversy 
 brought Origen to his conclusion. It was, in his 
 judgment, the clear teaching of St Paul. 
 
 I will notice only one point more. He held, as 
 we have just seen, that age is linked with age under 
 the laws of a divine growth. As a necessary con- 
 sequence the secular periods which he imagines are 
 not like the " great ages " of the Stoics, fated periods 
 of recurrence, in which the old drama of existence is 
 played out again '^; or the still stranger repetitions 
 of the past in a reversed order, such as Plato ima- 
 gined in his "Politicus^;" but stages in a majestic 
 progress. This vast movement, this magnificent and 
 sure growth, seemed to him not only to be consistent 
 with, but to answer to, the action of Providence, and 
 the fact of freedom in every particular life. "God 
 cares for each," he says, to continue a passage which 
 
 1 Comp. Fragm. de Resurr. lib. ii. t. i. p. 34 R. 
 
 2 c. Cels. V. 20, f. 3 See p. IG. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 245 
 
 I began to quote before, " nor will He ever abandon 
 the whole. For even if it should become worse 
 through the sin of rational beings, who are a part of 
 it. He administers it so as to purify it, and after a 
 time to turn it to Himself \" Such a unity, which 
 he cannot distinctly shape, extends, as he believed, 
 to the whole man, to the whole world, to the whole 
 order of finite beings. "The end," he says, "is 
 always like the beginning. . . . From one beginning 
 arose many differences and varieties, which again, 
 through the goodness of God, and subjection to 
 Christ and unity of the Holy Spirit, are recalled to 
 one end. . . .^'* That beginning and that end can 
 be, he allows, apprehended by no created nature, 
 neither by man nor by angels. Yet he yearns 
 towards the thought which cannot be made distinct. 
 And when difficulties crowd in upon him which he 
 cannot solve, he falls back upon the words of St Paul, 
 which appear to him to crown hope with the as- 
 surance of a fulfilment : " God shall be all in all." 
 
 Those who have followed so far the opinions 
 which I have tried to summarise, will have felt, I 
 believe, that if there is much in them to startle, 
 there is much also in them to move and to humble 
 and to elevate. It does not fall within my scope to 
 discuss the opinions or to point out the incon- 
 sistencies and want of proportion which mar the 
 treatise from which they have been drawn. I cannot 
 
 1 c. Cels. iv. 99; cf. De Princ. ii. 1. 2; i. 6. 2. 
 
 2 De Priuc. i. 6. 2. 
 
246 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 even touch, as I could have wished to do, on Origen's 
 central error of excessive Transcendentalism ; but 
 such errors are not likely to be underrated at present. 
 It seems to me that we have more to learn than to 
 fear from the study of Origeu's writings. With all 
 his faults and shortcomings, he is the greatest repre- 
 sentative of a type of Greek Christian thought which 
 has not yet done its work in the West. By his 
 sympathy with all effort, by his largeness of view, 
 by his combination of a noble morality with a deep 
 mysticism, he indicates, if he does not bring, the 
 true remedy for the evils of that Africanism which 
 has been dominant in Europe since the time of 
 Augustine. 
 
 No fact, I think, is sadder in the history ot 
 religious thought than that Augustine had no real 
 knowledge of Greek. He remarks in his "Con- 
 fessions" that he can hardly tell why he shrank 
 from the study of the language \ The reason pro- 
 bably was in the very constitution of his nature. 
 Augustine was a Latin thinker, and more than a 
 Latin — an African. He looked at everything from 
 the side of law and not of freedom ; from the side of 
 God, as an irresponsible Sovereign, and not of man, 
 as a loving servant. In spite of his admiration for 
 Plato he was driven by a passion for system to fix, 
 to externalise, to freeze every idea into a rigid shape. 
 In spite of his genius he could not shake off the 
 influence of a legal and rhetorical training, which 
 1 Lib. i. 14. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 247 
 
 controversy called into active exercise. The succes- 
 sive forms of his belief were a manifestation of his 
 essential character. To the last he bore within him 
 that which once had made him a Manichsean. The 
 argument by which he trusted to win men for the 
 Church was a coarse representation of future rewards 
 and punishments. The centre of his whole dogmatic 
 theory is sin. In his greatest work he writes " Of 
 the City of God," and he draws at the same time the 
 portraiture of a rival "city of the devil," equally 
 stable and enduring. 
 
 Few contrasts indeed can be more striking than 
 that oiFered by the two philosophies of Christianity 
 (as they may be called) of Origen and Augustine, of 
 the East and West, of Alexandria and Hippo. The 
 treatise " On First Principles," and the treatise " On 
 the City of God," were both written by men of com- 
 manding power and of unquestioning faith. Both 
 reach back to an ideal beginning which expresses a 
 conception of the innermost law of the present order, 
 and forward to an ideal end which expresses the 
 fulness of hope. Both extend over the whole range 
 of history. Both claim the authority of Scripture 
 for their foundation. But here the resemblance 
 ends. The two are profoundly different in form and 
 in spirit. The treatise of Origen deals with truths 
 so that they are in danger of being lost in thoughts : 
 the treatise of Augustine deals with truths so that 
 they are bound by the limiting form of facts. There 
 awe prevails, and here assertion. Over the one 
 
248 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 
 there hangs a strange mystery, half light and half 
 darkness ; and sight is lost in the endeavour to 
 follow the long-drawn vista of successive scenes 
 faintly indicated before and behind. In the other 
 every image is fixed with a firm, sharp pencil ; the 
 picture is bounded on this side and that : the divine 
 symbolism of Genesis and of the Apocalypse is con- 
 verted into a most literal description of that which 
 has been and that which shall be. In Origen there is 
 a feeling, not very clearly defined, that the history 
 both *'of the nations" and of "the people" is 
 charged with moral lessons of permanent meaning ' ; 
 that there is carried forward from age to age an 
 education of the world for eternity. In Augustine 
 history is a mere succession of external events; the 
 Divine teaching through heathendom lies in the 
 utterances of the Sibyls and not in the course of 
 Empires. For Origen, in spite of his idealism, life 
 has a moral significance of incalculable value: for 
 Augustine, in spite of his realism, life is a mere 
 show, in which actors fulfil the parts irrevocably 
 assigned to them. The Alexandrine cannot rest 
 without looking forward to a final unity which still 
 he confesses more than once that he is unable to 
 grasp : the African acquiesces without a difficulty in 
 an abiding dualism in the future, which must seem 
 to other minds not less oppressive to the moral sense 
 than the absolute dualism of Mani. 
 
 In indicating these contrasts, I am far from 
 i Cf. c, Gels. V. 30, 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 249 
 
 wishing to exalt Origen at the cost of Augustine. 
 In spite of popular judgment I cannot think that 
 the book " On the City of God " presents Augustine 
 under his noblest aspect. Isolated passages of sin- 
 gular beauty seem to me to be insufficient to counter- 
 act the general want of sympathy which it displays 
 for the progress and the destiny of mankind. On 
 the other hand, the very grandeur of the hope which 
 inspires Origen's essay "On First Principles" perhaps 
 blinds the reader to the errors which accompany it. 
 And in judging the works of the two great Fathers 
 we must not forget the positions which they occupied. 
 They were the representatives of two ages, of two 
 crises. 
 
 Origen, standing in the meeting-place of struggling 
 thoughts, knew that he had that to speak which could 
 harmonize and satisfy every spiritual aspiration of 
 man : an answer to the despair of the West, which 
 saw in man's good an unattainable ideal ; an answer 
 to the despair of the East, which saw in man's way 
 a vain delusion. Augustine, under the cruel pressure 
 of barbarian invasion, was called upon to pronounce 
 sentence on the old world, and to vindicate Christi- 
 anity from the charge of social disorganisation. The 
 one was the interpreter of a universal hope; the/ 
 other was the interpreter of a secular overthrow. 
 
 We may go further, and venture to say that the 
 Africanism of Augustine was, in the order of Pro- 
 vidence, a salutary preparation for the discipline of 
 the Middle Ages. It was fitted by its partial truths 
 
250 ORIGEN AND THE BEGINMINGS OF 
 
 to deal effectively with the problems which then 
 came to the front. But it is partial, and its defects 
 lie in those regions of physical and moral speculation 
 which now attract the most devout minds. Over the 
 questions with which we have now to deal Augustine 
 can no longer hold dominion, and the shadow of his 
 power is perilous to the growth of Truth. But in 
 saying this I am too sensible of the faults of Origen 
 to wish to raise him to the vacant throne. None 
 the less it will be well for us to remember what he 
 found in the Bible, and how he interpreted the 
 message of the Faith, when as yet there was no pres- 
 sure from the forces which bear most heavily upon 
 ourselves. In this respect both as a theologian and 
 as a philosopher he has still a work to do. 
 
 I do not, however, as I said before, dwell upon 
 his opinions. I desire to insist upon his principles 
 and his spirit. To this end, we must regard his 
 teaching as not so much a system as an aspiration. 
 Welcomed as an aspiration, it can, I believe, do us 
 good service. We are inclined to underrate the 
 practical effect of wide thoughts and of great ideals. 
 But life is impoverished and action is enfeebled for 
 the lack of them. And I can hardly imagine that 
 any one can picture to himself what Origen meant 
 when he offered his spectacle of the moral continuity 
 and destination of being ; when he imaged the 
 spiritual antitypes of outward things ; when he in- 
 terpreted the sorrows and sadnesses of the world as 
 part of a vast scheme of purificatory chastisement ; 
 
CHKISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 251 
 
 when he concentrated every line of study upon the in- 
 terpretation of the Divine oracles ; when he reckoned 
 the fuller insight into the mysteries of Nature as one 
 of the joys of a future state ; when he made the love 
 of truth, in all its amplitude and in all its depth, 
 the last passion of rational creatures, and affirmed 
 that the instinct could not for ever want its satisfac- 
 tion ; without feeling that there is in worship a 
 personal Divine communion, which he fails too often 
 to realise ; that there is in the Bible a significance 
 which he is apt to overlook ; that there is in life a 
 majesty and a promise which he cannot see till he 
 rises above the confused turmoil of the day. 
 
 The end of Philosophy is Truth ; not in one 
 region but in all ; Truth apprehended, if it may be, 
 in its highest unity. The name of Christianity is 
 Truth ; and I think that I have shewn that the first 
 great writer who endeavoured to face the question 
 affirmed, with unquestioning belief, that Christianity 
 is the fulfilment of Philosophy ^ Human wisdom, 
 he says, is the school of the soul : Divine wisdom is 
 the end. Faith, knowledge, wisdom — that, in his 
 judgment, is the order of spiritual growth. The 
 immediate issue was not in the direction to which 
 he pointed. But he expressed and preserved the 
 thoughts of an age which was to pass away under 
 new forces. We now seem to be entering again upon 
 the controversy which he supported. We are his 
 heirs. He has left us the duty of maintaining his 
 1 c. Cels. vi. 13. 
 
252 ORIGEN AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 conclusions in a later age, and with richer materials 
 at our command. He has left us also the example 
 of a life great, I will dare to say, by unsurpassed 
 self-sacrifice. He has left us the encouragement of a 
 faith which carried him through a life of martyrdom 
 — a faith that all things are ours, because all things 
 are Christ's. 
 
 Origen may have erred, I think he did err, on 
 many points; but he never lost sight of the true 
 ground and method and end of the Christian revela- 
 tion, and so of Christian thought. His view of life 
 f was imperfect, but not his view of the relation of 
 religion to life. He strove, with however many 
 failures, to recognise all the facts of reflection and 
 experience, and to present in an intelligible union 
 man, the world, and God. In an age of conflict and 
 weariness he was animated by the strain of unremit- 
 ting labour, and the consciousness of an approaching 
 victory. His faith was catholic, and therefore he 
 welcomed every kind of knowledge as tributary to 
 its fulness. His faith was living, and therefore he 
 was assured that no age could seal any expression 
 of doctrine as complete. From his time the best 
 thought and the best literature of the West has been 
 Christian, or profoundly influenced by Christianity. 
 And still, after sixteen hundred years, we have not 
 yet made good the positions which he marked out as 
 belonging to the domain of Chiistian philosophy. 
 
ON SOME POINTS IN 
 BROWNING'S VIEW OF LIFE. 
 
 TN my undergraduate days, if I remember rightly, I 
 -*■ came across the description of a poet which speaks 
 of him as one ''who sees the infinite in things." The 
 thought has been to me from that time forward a 
 great help in studying the noblest poetry. The true 
 poet does, I believe, of necessity, see the infinite in 
 his subject ; and he so presents his vision to his 
 readers that they too, if their eyes are open, are 
 enabled in some degree to share in its lessons. 
 
 The same gift belongs in a certain degree to the 
 artist. But the range of the poet is unlimited ; while 
 the artist's choice of subject is conditioned by the 
 requirement that its treatment shall come within the 
 domain of the beautiful. The ground of this difference 
 obviously lies in the different means which the poet 
 and the artist use to express what they see with the 
 eyes of the soul. The mode in which words and the 
 melody of words (not to speak now of music) afi"ect 
 us is different in kind from the action of form and 
 colour. 
 
 All life, all nature, is therefore the legitimate field 
 of the poet, as prophet. There is an infinite, an 
 eternal, meaning in all, and it is his office to make 
 
254 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 this intelligible to his students. No modern poet has 
 more boldly claimed the fulness of his heritage of 
 life than Browning. He has dared to look on the 
 darkest and meanest forms of action and passion, 
 from which we commonly and rightly turn our eyes, 
 and he has brought back for us from this universal 
 survey a conviction of hope. He has laid bare what 
 there is in man of sordid, selfish, impure, corrupt, 
 brutish, and he proclaims in spite of every disap- 
 pointment and every wound, that he still finds a 
 spiritual power in him, answering to a spiritual power 
 without him, which restores assurance as to the 
 destiny of creation. 
 
 Such a survey and such a conviction command 
 careful study ; and I wish to indicate a few points in 
 Browning's view of human life which have especially 
 struck me — we can each see only a little of the poet's 
 teaching — but before doing this it is necessary to 
 emphasise this fact, that it is personal human life 
 with which he characteristically deals by deliberate 
 choice. "Little else," he tells us, "is worth study 
 (than the development of a soul) ; I, at least, always 
 thought so\" He recognises rarely, and, as it were, 
 at a distance, the larger life of humanity^; but the 
 
 1 Dedication to Sordello. 
 
 2 By the Fireside, 50 : 
 
 "Each of the many helps to recruit 
 The life of the race by a general plan; 
 Each living his own, to boot." 
 This thought lives in The Boy and the Angel. 
 
browning's view of life. 255 
 
 single soul in its discipline, its progress, its aspira- 
 tions, its failures, is the main object of his study, 
 analysis, and portraiture. It has been so from first 
 to last, in Paracelsus, in Sordello, and in the latest 
 Dramatic Idylls. 
 
 By this choice, as has been well pointed out*. 
 Browning occupies a position complementary to that 
 of Wordsworth. He looks for the revelation of the 
 Divine as coming through the spiritual struggles of 
 man and not through Nature. Both poets, however, 
 agree in this, that they assert the sovereignty of feel- 
 ing over knowledge, of that within us which they 
 hold to have affinity with the heavenly and eternal, 
 over that which must be earthly and temporal^ But 
 Browning justifies the position with the fullest detail 
 of illustration, as was natural from the current of 
 contemporary thought which he has encountered. He 
 never wearies of dwelling on the relativity of physical 
 knowledge, on its inadequacy to satisfy man, on its 
 subordinate action in the crises of moral growth. The 
 key-note of his teaching, in a word, is not knowledge, 
 but love. 
 
 A single passage in which he lays down the rela- 
 tion of love to life will serve as an introduction to the 
 thoughts which follow : 
 
 . . . Life, with all it yields of joy and woe, 
 And hope and fear, . . . 
 
 1 Particularly in a paper by M. A. Lewis in Macmillan for 
 June, 1882. 
 
 2 The Ring and Book. The Pojje, 1003 fif. 
 
256 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love 
 How love might be, hath been indeed, and is^. 
 
 This learning of love, this acquisition of the power 
 of self-sacrifice, involves a long and painful discipline : 
 
 Life is probation, and this earth no goal, 
 But starting-point of man. . . . 
 
 * -x- -x- * * 
 
 To try man's foot, if it will creep or climb, 
 'Mid obstacles in seeming, points that prove 
 Advantage for who vaults from low to high. 
 And makes the stumbling-block a stepping-stone. 
 ***** 
 
 Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
 And master, and make crouch beneath his foot. 
 And so be pedestalled in triumph 2? 
 
 As Browning presents the great drama of the soul, 
 thus significantly foreshadowed, several truths seem 
 to me to come into prominence, which I may call 
 briefly the unity of life, the discipline of life, the 
 continuity of life, the assurance of life. In other 
 words, the poet teaches that life now must be treated 
 as a whole; that learning comes through suff'ering; 
 that every failure felt to be failure points to final 
 achievement ; that the visible present is but one scene 
 in an illimitable growth. These then are the points 
 to which I wish to call attention. 
 
 1 A Death in the Desert, p. 101. 
 
 a The Pope, 1435 f.; 409 ft.; 1184 S. 
 
browning's view of life. 257 
 
 I. 
 Our present life is to be taken in its entirety. 
 The discipline of man is to be fulfilled, the progress 
 of man is to be secured, under the conditions of our 
 complex earthly being. These lets and limitations 
 are not to be disparaged or overborne, but accepted 
 and used in due order. No attempt must be made 
 either to retain that which has been or to anticipate 
 that which will be. Each element in human nature 
 is to be allowed its proper office. Each season brings 
 its own work and its own means. This conception is 
 wrought out in many-sided completeness in Babhi 
 Ben Ezra, which is, in epitome, a philosophy of life. 
 To quote a few lines is to do injury to the perfect 
 structure of the whole ; but at least they will attract 
 not only to the reading but to the study of it. Here 
 are the lessons of advancing years : 
 
 Let us not always say, 
 
 "Spite of this flesh to-day, 
 I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" 
 
 As the bird wings and sings, 
 
 Let us cry, "All good things 
 Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now, than flesh helps 
 soul!" 
 
 ***** 
 
 Grow old along with me! 
 
 The best is yet to be, 
 The last of life, for which the first was made: 
 
 Our times are in His hand 
 
 Who saith, "A whole I planned, 
 Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid." 
 
 W. E. 17 
 
258 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 * * * * # 
 
 So take and use thy work! 
 
 Amend what flaws may lurk, 
 What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! 
 
 My times be in Thy hand! 
 
 Perfect the cup as planned ! 
 Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same^. 
 
 The capacity for moral progress, thus recognised 
 in the law of outward growth and decay, is indeed 
 laid down by Browning to be the essential character- 
 istic of man : 
 
 . . . Man . . . 
 
 Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact, 
 
 And in this striving ... 
 
 Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, 
 
 Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are, 
 
 Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. 
 * * * -jf. * 
 
 Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns 
 Because he lives, which is to be a man, 
 Set to instruct himself by his past self^. 
 
 Hence the mutability of things may become a 
 help to his growth : 
 
 Eejoice that man is hurled 
 From change to change unceasingly, 
 His soul's wings never furled. 
 ***** 
 
 There's life's pact, 
 Perhaps probation— do / know? 
 God does: endure His act!^ 
 
 1 Babbi Ben Ezra, 12, 1, 32. 
 
 2 A Death in the Desert, p. 115. ^ James Lee, vi. 14 f. 
 
browning's view of life. 259 
 
 The very infirmities of later years, incapacity to 
 receive new impressions, dulness of sight by which 
 far and near are blended together, have their peculiar 
 ofiice in revealing the lessons of life. Thus the weird 
 visitor, who has laid before the Duchess the trials and 
 triumphs of the life to which she invites her, a life 
 wholly given up that it may be received again in 
 richer fulness, concludes : 
 
 So at the last shall come old age, 
 
 Decrepit as befits that stage; 
 
 How else would'st thou retire apart 
 
 With the hoarded memories of thy heart, 
 
 And gather all to the very least 
 
 Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, 
 
 Let fall thro' eagerness to find 
 
 The crowning dainties yet behind? 
 
 Ponder on the entire Past 
 
 Laid together thus at last, 
 
 When the twilight helps to fuse 
 
 The first fresh with the faded hues, 
 
 And the outline of the whole, 
 
 As round eve's shades their framework roll. 
 
 Grandly fronts for once thy soul. 
 
 And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam 
 
 Of yet another morning breaks. 
 
 And like the hand which ends a dream, 
 
 Death, with the might of his sunbeam, 
 
 Touches the flesh and the soul awakes, 
 
 Then 1 
 
 The true human life will therefore present a just 
 
 1 The flight of the Duchess, i. 270 (compare Transcenden- 
 talism, i. p. 322). 
 
 17—2 
 
260 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 balance of powers in the course of its varied progress. 
 To make this truth more impressive by contrast. 
 Browning has worked it out in two pairs of characters, 
 each stamped with a real nobility and yet seen to be 
 essentially imperfect, Aprile and Paracelsus, Lazarus 
 and Cleon. 
 
 The complementary aspirations and failures of 
 Aprile and Paracelsus — the absorbing undisciplined 
 desire to love, on the one hand, and to know, on the 
 other — are plainly and fully portrayed by the poet 
 himself, and it is sufficient to refer -to the poem of 
 Paracelsus. The correspondences between Lazarus 
 and Cleon are less obvious. 
 
 In the strangely fascinating Epistle of KarsMsh 
 Browning has drawn the portraiture of one to whom 
 the eternal is sensibly present, whose spirit has gained 
 prematurely absolute predominance : 
 
 Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, 
 Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing Heaven*: 
 
 and the result is not a man but a sign ; a being 
 
 Professedly the faultier that he knows 
 
 God's secret, while he holds the thread of life 2. 
 
 Lazarus therefore, while he moves in the world, has 
 lost all sense of proportion in things about him, all 
 measure of and faculty of dealing with that which 
 sways his fellows. He has no power or will to win 
 them to his faith, but he simply stands among men 
 
 1 An Epistle, i. 337. 2 j^^. 339. 
 
browning's view of life. 261 
 
 as a patient witness of the overwhelming reality of 
 the divine ; a witness whose authority is confessed, 
 even against his inclination, by the student of nature, 
 who turns again and again to the phenomenon which 
 he affects to disparage. 
 
 In this crucial example Browning shews how the 
 exclusive dominance of the spirit destroys the fulness 
 of human life, its uses and powers, while it leaves a 
 passive life, crowned with an unearthly beauty. On 
 the other hand, he shews in his study of Cleon that 
 the richest results of earth in art and speculation, 
 and pleasure and power, are unable to remove from 
 life the desolation of final gloom. Thus, over against 
 the picture of Lazarus is placed that of the poet, who 
 by happy circumstance has been enabled to gather to 
 himself all that is highest in the civilisation of 
 Greece. Cleon enjoys every prize of present success, 
 the homage of king and fisherman, the glory of artist 
 and philosopher; and over all there is the oppressive 
 shadow of an inevitable loss. Writing "to Protus in 
 his tyranny," his judgment is, that he dare not accept 
 the view 
 
 That imperfection means perfection hid, 
 Reserved in part, to grace the after-time i. 
 
 The wealth of man's endowment, which is understood 
 too late for use, seems to him to be rather a curse 
 than a blessing, nourishing vain hopes, and shewing 
 what joy man is capable of feeling, and never can 
 
 1 Cleon, i. p. 417. 
 
262 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 feel, 
 
 The consummation coming past escape, 
 
 When [he] shall know most and yet least enjoy i. 
 
 The contrast is of the deepest significance. The 
 Jewish peasant endures earth, being in possession of 
 heaven : the Greek poet, in possession of earth, feels 
 that heaven, some future state 
 
 Unlimited in capability 
 
 For joy, as this is in desire for joy, 
 
 is a necessity for man; but no, 
 
 Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas. 
 He must have done so, were it possible ! 
 
 But we must not pause to follow out the contrast 
 into details. It is enough to see broadly that flesh 
 and spirit each claim recognition in connexion with 
 their proper spheres, in order that the present life 
 may bear its true result. 
 
 We must then, in other words, that we may 
 live human lives, loyally yield ourselves to, and 
 yet master, the circumstances in which we are 
 placed. This is an arduous task, but it is fruitful: 
 "when pain ends gain ends too^" And the principle 
 holds good not only in regard to the physical, but 
 also in regard to the intellectual difficulties by which 
 we are beset. For doubt, rightly understood, is just 
 that vivid, personal, questioning of phenomena, which 
 
 1 Cleon, 1. p. 422. 
 
 a A Death in the Desert, p. 99, 
 
browning's view of life. 263 
 
 breaks "the torpor of assurance^" and gives a living 
 value to decision. In this sense, and not as if doubt 
 were an absolution from the duty of endeavour, we 
 can each say, 
 
 I prize the doubt, 
 Low kinds exist without, 
 Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark 2. 
 
 Nor is it difficult to understand that the circum- 
 stances which make doubt possible answer to the 
 necessities of our nature : 
 
 Sun-sufFused 
 
 A cloud may soothe the eye made bHnd by blaze — 
 
 Better the very clarity of heaven : 
 
 The soft streaks are the beautiful and dear. 
 
 What but the weakness in a faith supplies 
 
 The incentive to humanity, no strength 
 
 Absolute, irresistible, comports? 
 
 How can man love but what he yearns to help?^ 
 
 II. 
 
 In such a view of life, as is thus outlined, no room 
 is left for indifference or neutrality. There is no 
 surrender to an idle optimism. A part must be taken 
 and maintained. The spirit in which Luther said 
 pecca fortiter finds a powerful expression in The 
 
 1 The Pope, 1853. 
 
 2 BdbU Ben Ezra, 3; compare Bp. Blougram's Apology , 
 pp. 381, 397 ; Paracelsus, ill. p. 143 ; Easter Day, § iv. 
 
 3 The Pope, 1644 £f. 
 
264 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 Statue and the Bust: 
 
 Let a man contend to the uttermost 
 For his life's set prize, be it what it will! 
 ***** 
 
 And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 
 Is, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin^. 
 
 And again in the concentrated and moving pathos of 
 TJie Lost Leader: 
 
 Best fight on well, for we taught him— strike gallantly, 
 Menace our heart ere we master his own; 
 Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us. 
 Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne 2. 
 
 The erring but generous adversary of the truth 
 must be struck down sooner or later ; and he who has 
 chosen the right side will not escape the severity of 
 reverses. Such an one sums up his experience 
 shortly : 
 
 (And so) I live (you see), 
 Go through the world, try, prove, reject. 
 Prefer, still struggling to effect 
 My warfare; happy that I can 
 Be crossed and thwarted as a man. 
 Not left in God's contempt apart. 
 With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart 3. 
 
 Thus, in the midst of strenuous endeavour or of 
 patient suffering, the lesson of life, the lesson of love, 
 is brought within man's reach. It is finally taught 
 perhaps by a sudden appeal of distress {Caponsacchi) ; 
 
 1 i. p. 309. 2 i. p. 5^ 
 
 8 'faster Day, xxxiii. 
 
browning's view of life. 265 
 
 or by human companionship {By the Fireside) ; or by 
 a message felt to be divine {Easter Day). 
 
 There are also sharper ways of enforcing the 
 lesson. One illustration I cannot forbear quoting, 
 for it brings out the basis of Browning's hopefulness, 
 and combines two passages which in different ways, 
 for grandeur of imagery and for spiritual insight, are 
 unsurpassed in Browning — I will venture to say in 
 literature. 
 
 I need not recall the character of Guido, which 
 Browning has analysed with exceptional power and 
 evidently with the deepest interest. This, at last, is 
 the judgment which the Pope pronounces on him : 
 
 For the main criminal I have no hope 
 
 Except in such a suddenness of fate. 
 
 I stood at Naples once, a night so dark 
 
 I could have scarce conjectured there was earth 
 
 Anywhere, sky, or sea, or world at all; 
 
 But the night's black was burst through by a blaze, 
 
 Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore 
 
 Through her whole length of mountain visible: 
 
 There lay the city thick and plain with spires, 
 
 And, like a ghost dis-shrouded, white the sea. 
 
 So may the truth be flashed out by one blow. 
 
 And Guido see, one instant, and be saved i. 
 
 Degraded and debased, Guido is discerned to be 
 
 not past hope by the true spiritual eye. And what is 
 
 the issue? Up to the last, with fresh kindled passion, 
 
 the great criminal reasserts his hate. He gathers his 
 
 1 The Pope, 2116 £E. 
 
266 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 strength to repeat his crime in will. I grow, he says, 
 one gorge 
 
 To loathingly reject Pompilia's pale 
 Poison my hasty hunger took for food. 
 
 So the end comes. The ministers of death claim 
 him. In his agony he summons every helper whom 
 he has known or heard of — 
 
 Abate, Cardinal, Christ, Maria, God — 
 
 and then the light breaks through the blackest 
 gloom : 
 
 Pompilia, will you let them murder me^? 
 
 In this supreme moment he has known what love is, 
 and, knowing it, has begun to feel it. The cry, like 
 the intercession of the rich man in Hades for his five 
 brethren, is a promise of a far-off deliverance. 
 
 In this case the poet shews how we may take 
 heart again in looking on the tragedies of guilt. But 
 there are wider and more general sorrows in life. 
 There is the failure, the falling from our ideal, of 
 which we are all conscious; there is the incomplete- 
 ness of opportunity, which leaves noblest powers un- 
 used. Browning states the facts without reserve or 
 palliation : 
 
 All labour, yet no less 
 
 Bear up beneath their unsuccess. 
 
 Look at the end of work, contrast 
 
 The petty Done, the Undone vast, 
 
 1 Guido (2), 2425 f. 
 
browning's view of life. 267 
 
 This Present of theirs with the hopeful Past ! 
 What hand and brain went ever paired? 
 What heart ahke conceived and dared? 
 What act proved all its thought had been? 
 What will but felt the fleshy screen ?i 
 
 In this world, who can do a thing will not; 
 
 And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: 
 
 Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power— 
 
 And thus we half-men struggle 2. 
 
 In dealing with the difficulties which are thus 
 raised, Browning offers what appears to me to be his 
 most striking message. Acknowledged failure is, he 
 teaches, a promise of future attainment; unfruitful 
 preparation is the sign of the continuity of life. And 
 these two principles rest upon another : imperfection 
 is the condition of growth : 
 
 Let the mere star-fish in his vault 
 
 Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed, 
 Rose-jacynth to the finger-tips: 
 
 He, whole in body and soul, outstrips 
 Man, found with either in default. 
 But what's whole can increase no more, 
 
 Is dwarfed and dies, since here's its sphered 
 
 And hence comes (as may be noticed parenthetically) 
 the contrast between works of art and living men : 
 
 They are perfect — how else? they shall never change: 
 We are faulty — why not? we have time in store. 
 
 ^ The Last Ride together, v. vi. 
 2 Andrea del Sarto, i. p. 364. 
 2 Dis aliter visum, 28 f. 
 
268 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 The artificer's hand is not arrested 
 With us — we are rough-hewn, nowise polished: 
 
 They stand for our copy, and once invested 
 With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished. 
 
 'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven; 
 
 The better! what's come to perfection perishes i. 
 
 Perhaps we can all readily acquiesce in the fact 
 of imperfection; but the consideration of failure is 
 more complicated. Failure, as Browning treats it, 
 may come in two ways. It may come from what he 
 does not scruple to call "the corruption of man's 
 heart ^," or it may come from the want of necessary 
 external help. The first form of failure is in various 
 degrees universal. But as long as effort is directed 
 to the highest, that aim, though it is out of reach, is 
 the standard of hope. The existence of a capacity, 
 cherished and quickened, is a pledge that it will find 
 scope. The punishment of the man who has fixed all 
 his thoughts upon earth, a punishment felt on reflec- 
 tion to be overwhelming in view of the possibilities of 
 humanity, is the completest gratification of desires 
 unworthily limited : 
 
 Thou art shut 
 Out of the heaven of spirit; glut 
 Thy sense upon the world; 'tis thine 
 For ever — take it ! ^ 
 
 On the other hand, the soul which has found in 
 
 ^ Old Pictures at Florence, xvi. f, 
 2 A legend of Pomic, 20. 
 * Easter Day, xx. 
 
browning's view of life. 269 
 
 success not rest but a starting-point, which refuses to 
 see in the first fruits of a partial victory the fulness 
 of its rightful triumph, has ever before it a sustaining 
 and elevating vision : 
 
 What stops my despair? 
 This: — 'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but 
 what man Would dol^ 
 
 All I could never be, 
 All, men ignored in me, 
 This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher 
 shaped. 
 
 Then welcome each rebuff 
 
 That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
 Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! 
 
 Be our joys three-parts pain ! 
 
 Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 
 Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the 
 throe! 
 
 For thence— a paradox 
 
 Which comforts while it mocks— 
 Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: 
 
 What I aspired to be, 
 
 And was not, comforts me; 
 A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the 
 scale 2. 
 
 So far the cause of failure lies mainly in the man 
 himself. He is conscious of a potency, a promise 
 unfulfilled, and he trusts to Him who gave it for 
 fulfilment. But the failure may lie in those for 
 
 1 Saul, xviii. 2 HabU Ben Ezra, 25, G, 7. 
 
270 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 whom the patriot, or the lover, or the poet works and 
 suffers. Even so the assurance is the same : 
 
 "Paid by the World — what dost thou owe 
 Me?" God might question: now instead, 
 'Tis God shall repay! I am safer so^. 
 
 If you loved only what were worth your love, 
 
 Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you; 
 
 Make the low nature better by your throes! 
 
 Give earth yourself, go up for gain above !2 
 
 His [God's] clenched Hand shall unclose at last, 
 I know, and let out all the beauty; 
 
 My poet holds the Future fast. 
 Accepts the coming ages' duty. 
 
 Their Present for this Past^. 
 
 Meanwhile the work, even as it has been accom- 
 plished, does not perish from the earth. Of him who 
 has striven faithfully, the words supposed to be 
 addressed by David to Saul are true in due measure : 
 
 Each deed thou hast done 
 Dies, revives, goes to work in the world... so, each ray 
 
 of thy wiU, 
 Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall 
 
 thrill 
 Thy whole people, the countless, with ardour, till they 
 
 too give forth 
 A like cheer to their sons : who in turn fill the South 
 
 and the North 
 With the radiance thy deed was the germ of*. 
 
 1 The Patriot, vi. ^ James Lee, vii. 2. 
 
 3 Papulariti/, in. 
 
 4 Saul, xiii. Compare Sordello, iii. p. 416. 
 
browning's view of life. 271 
 
 III. 
 
 But while Browning recognises the reality and the 
 glory of this subjective immortality, he has shewn 
 elsewhere, in Clean, that it is wholly inadequate to 
 satisfy the heart of man. He assumes, therefore, in 
 these various studies of imperfection and failure, as 
 prophetic of progress and attainment, the continuity 
 of personal life through death. In such a continuity 
 of being he also finds the assurance of the full use of 
 powers disciplined but not called into play on earth. 
 
 There is, perhaps, little in the literary history of 
 the Renaissance to justify the picture which Brown- 
 ing has drawn, in The Grammarians Funeral, of the 
 perfect self-sacrifice of the scholar as realised then. 
 But the thoughts expressed in the poem find a partial 
 embodiment at all times. A large proportion of a 
 student's labour must be in preparation for tasks 
 which he cannot accomplish. His material may 
 remain for others; but the experience, the insight, 
 the delicate tact, the accumulated enthusiasm which 
 he has gained in long years, pass away with him. 
 The example, indeed, abides for us; but this is not 
 all. There will yet be, as we believe, a field for the 
 exercise of every power which has been trained and 
 not called into service. What has been consecrated 
 cannot be wasted : 
 
 Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace 
 * # * * * 
 
 That before living he'd learn how to live- 
 No end to learning: 
 
272 OK SOME POINTS IN 
 
 Earn the means first — God surely will contrive 
 
 Use for our earning. 
 Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes! 
 
 Live now or never!" 
 He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and 
 apes 
 
 Man has Forever." 
 Was it not great? did not he throw on God 
 
 (He loves the burthen) — 
 God's task to make the heavenly period 
 
 Perfect the earthen? 
 Did not he magnify the mind, shew clear 
 
 Just what it all meant? 
 He would not discount life, as fools do here, 
 
 Paid by instalment i. 
 
 But the preparation and discipline of intellect is 
 subordinate to the preparation and discipline of feel- 
 ing. The end of life is, as we have seen, the learning 
 love — the learning God — and that in a large degree 
 through human fellowship. Omne mvum ex vivo — 
 "life is the one source of life" — is an axiom true in 
 the spiritual as in the physical order. An intellectual 
 result may be the occasion, but it cannot be the 
 source of a moral quickening. Man's spirit enters 
 into communion with the Spirit of God directly, or 
 with the Spirit of God acting through men. A soul 
 meets the soul which its nature needs, and receives 
 its quickening influence ; and this is its confession : 
 Life will just hold out the proving 
 Both om* powers, alone and blended; 
 
 ^ A GrammariarCs Funeral, i. pp. 281 S. 
 
browning's view of life. 273 
 
 And then, come the next life quickly ! 
 This world's use will have been ended i. 
 
 And so again, in the enjoyment of a perfect sympathy 
 the poet can say : 
 
 My own, see where the years conduct! 
 
 At first, 'twas something our two souls 
 Should mix as mists do; each is sucked 
 
 In each now; on, the new stream rolls, 
 Whatever rocks obstruct^. 
 
 This happy issue, however, is not always gained. 
 The soul may recognise its need and also that which 
 will satisfy it, and yet fail to gain what is wanting. 
 And what then? Is all the fruit of self-questioning, 
 and self-devotion, and self-surrender to be lost? 
 Evelyn Hope is the answer. The lover, by the side of 
 the dead girl who could not have known his love, 
 replies for us : 
 
 No, indeed ! for God above 
 
 Is great to grant, as mighty to make, 
 And creates the love to reward the love: 
 
 I claim you still, for my own love's sake! 
 Delayed it may be for more lives yet. 
 
 Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: 
 Much is to learn, much to forget 
 
 Ere the time be come for taking you. 
 So hush, — I give you this leaf to keep — 
 
 See, I shut it inside the sweet, cold hand! 
 There, that is our secret; go to sleep! 
 You will wake, and remember, and understand 3. 
 
 1 Cristina, viii. Compare v. ^ jg^ ^}^Q Fireside^ xxvi. 
 
 » Evelyn Hope, iv. vii. Contrast Too Late, d.p. 67 ff. 
 W. E. 18 
 
274 ON SOME POINTS IN 
 
 IV. 
 
 Here we might well stop. We have followed in 
 outline the thoughts which Browning offers to us on 
 the unity of life, the discipline of life, the continuity 
 of life, a unity which enables us to regard every con- 
 dition of labour as contributing to its efficiency, a 
 discipline which, through spiritual intercourse, 
 fashions us to the Divine likeness, a continuity which 
 abides through cycles of change passing all imagina- 
 tion. The unity, the discipline, the continuity rest 
 upon and express that Divine Love, of which love in 
 man is at once the offspring and the evidence. So 
 we rise to the highest : 
 
 Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, 
 That I doubt His own love can compete with it? here, 
 
 the parts shift? 
 Here, the creature surpass the Creator, — the end, what 
 
 Began ? 
 
 I believe it! 'tis Thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who 
 
 receive ; 
 In the first is the last, in Thy will is my power to 
 
 believe. 
 
 ****** 
 Would I suffer for him that I love? — so would'st thou 
 
 — so wilt thou! 
 So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost 
 
 crown — 
 And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down 
 One spot for the creature to stand in^l 
 1 Saul i. fE. 93. 
 
browning's view of life. 275 
 
 So, through the thunder comes a human voice 
 Saying: "0 heart I made, a heart beats here! 
 Face, My hands fashioned, see it in Myself, 
 Thou hast no power, nor may'st conceive of Mine, 
 But love I gave thee, with Myself to love. 
 And thou must love Me who have died for theei]" 
 
 And what does the poet say of the end? For 
 that which is evil there is judgment of utter destruc- 
 tion ; for that which is good, purifying. So it is that 
 chastisement is often seen to come through the 
 noblest part of a character otherwise mean, because 
 in that there is yet hope : 
 
 You were punished in the very part 
 That looked most pure of speck, — the honest love 
 Betrayed you,— did love seem most worthy pains. 
 Challenge such purging, as ordained survive 
 When all the rest of you was done with^?" 
 
 And on the whole : 
 
 There shall never be one lost good! What was shall 
 live as before; 
 The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ; 
 What was good shall be good with, for evil, so much 
 good more; 
 On the earth the broken arcs: in the heaven a per- 
 fect round. 
 
 The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth 
 too hard, 
 The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the 
 sky, 
 
 1 An Epistle, i. 343. 2 xhe Pope, 1229 &. 
 
 18—2 
 
276 browning's view of life. 
 
 Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; 
 Enough that He heard it once; we shall hear it by- 
 and-by. 
 
 And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence 
 For the fulness of the days^? 
 
 My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
 The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; 
 
 That, after Last, returns the First, 
 Though a wide compass round be fetched; 
 
 That what began best, can't end worst. 
 Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst 2. 
 
 These thoughts, which I have endeavoured simply 
 to set forth and not to criticise, come to us in the 
 words of our own time. They are clothed in images 
 which are familiar to our own experience. Our hearts 
 in the main, I believe, respond to them as interpret- 
 ing the fulness of our lives, our trials, and falls, and 
 aspirations ; as expressing our trust through disap- 
 pointment, and our ideal aims in spite of imperfec- 
 tion. And, as it seems to me, they help us to under- 
 stand better, that is with a more real and vital intel- 
 ligence, some parts of our Faith in which alone, as 
 far as I can see, they find their solid foundation. 
 ^ Abt. Vogler, ix. ff. 2 j,pparent Failure, vii. 
 
THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 TO ART. 
 
 eK neyidovs KaWovfjs ktkxixcltwv dua\6yw$ 
 6 yeveaiovpyds aiiruv dewpelrai. 
 
 WiSD. xiii. 5. 
 
 "VTO student of the apostolic writings can fail to find 
 -*-^ himself sometimes confronted by the question 
 Does the teaching of the New Testament cover all 
 the interests of human life? and more particularly 
 Does the New Testament, does Christianity as laid 
 down there in its broad outlines, leave scope for the 
 free development of Art? This latter question de- 
 serves consideration. It is not enough that it should 
 have been practically answered by general consent : 
 the answer thus given includes many elements which 
 tend at least to create misgivings as to its soundness ; 
 and it is, superficially at least, in conflict with the 
 most prominent utterances of early Christian feeling. 
 The main issue is not whether the Christian spirit 
 encourages that temper which is the strength of the 
 artist, but whether it recognises his work as contri- 
 butory to the fulfilment of man's destiny. There can 
 be no doubt that truth, sympathy, reverence, will 
 
278 THE RELATION OF 
 
 characterise all effort which deserves the name of 
 Christian ; but it is not at once obvious that in the 
 face of the overwhelming moral problems of life 
 Christian effort can be properly directed to the pur- 
 suit of Art. 
 
 Thus there is the suggestion if not the distinct 
 appearance of a conflict between man's constitution 
 and the Gospel. He is born with artistic instincts 
 and powers; and these, it may be alleged, are not 
 directly taken into account by the records of the 
 Faith. 
 
 The apparent contrast requires to be stated a 
 little more in detail. 
 
 On the one side it is certain that Art corresponds 
 with essential parts of our nature. Men universally 
 seek particular combinations of form, colour, sound; 
 and the pleasure which these give can be deepened 
 and extended through the study of the principles by 
 which they are ruled. Men can be trained to a 
 keener and finer perception of beauty. There is then 
 here a force of influence which cannot be overlooked 
 in the discipline of life. 
 
 And more than this, the complex scene in which 
 we are placed requires to be revealed to us. We are 
 not at once able to enter into the manifold aspects of 
 Nature which we can recognise when they are pointed 
 out. There is something of disorder and dispropor- 
 tion in the impression which we first receive fi:om the 
 world about us. The "form" of things needs some in- 
 terpretation ; and the particular interpretation which 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 279 
 
 we adopt has helped and will help to make us what 
 we are and what we shall be. 
 
 For the physical effects which Art produces exer- 
 cise a profound moral and spiritual influence upon 
 character. It is unnecessary to attempt to make any 
 comparison of the relative power of external nature 
 and society upon the education of the soul. It is 
 enough that both have their due office in moulding 
 the ideal man. Remove the discipline of one or the 
 other, and the man is weaker and poorer however 
 successfully he cultivates the self-centred virtues on 
 which he has concentrated himself. It may be neces- 
 sary to "cut off the right hand" or to "pluck out the 
 right eye," but he who is forced to do so enters into 
 life "maimed." 
 
 This expressive image seems to carry with it a 
 fuU recognition of the manifold activities of eye and 
 hand, of the power of seeing beauty and setting it 
 forth, as belonging to the completeness of man. And 
 if under the actual conditions of life it is through 
 sense, which Art uses as its organ, that the most 
 obvious and universal dangers come to men, the 
 natural conclusion seems to be that this fact shews 
 convincingly the paramount importance of the study 
 of Art. In this region we need peculiarly to be 
 trained in order that we may enjoy rightly ; and not 
 be called upon to sacrifice that which was capable of 
 ministering to a richer service. 
 
 Such reflections, indicated in the briefest summary, 
 serve to shew that Art justly claims a permanent 
 
280 THE RELATION OF 
 
 
 place in the highest training of men; but on the 
 other hand it may be urged that, with the exception 
 of music, there is no recognition of the office of Art 
 in the New Testament. One or two illustrations 
 from engraving (Hebr. i. 3) or painting (Hebr. viii. 5 ; 
 X. 1) are all that it contains. The imagery of the 
 Apocalypse — as the cubic city (Apoc. xxi. 16) — is 
 symbolic and not pictorial. 
 
 And not only so, but it seems as if representative 
 Art were distinctly condemned. It is difficult to give 
 any sense to "the desire of the eyes," which St John 
 declares to be "not of the Father but of the world" 
 (1 John ii. 16), which shall not include works of 
 sculpture and painting; and at first sight the revela- 
 tion of the transitoriness of that out of which they 
 spring appears to carry with it the sentence of their 
 rejection. 
 
 Nor can any stress be laid upon the partial recog- 
 nition of the service of Art in the Old Testament. 
 The system of the old Covenant was essentially 
 external. It spoke through symbols. But it might 
 be argued, not unreasonably, that, as Christianity is 
 essentially spiritual, it is likely that it would be 
 independent of all illustrations from Art. 
 
 These are the elements of the contrast which have 
 to be reconciled. The reconciliation, to anticipate 
 the result of our inquiry, lies in the central message 
 of Christianity, "the Word became flesh." By that 
 fact the harmony between the seen and the unseen 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 281 
 
 which had been interrupted was potentially restored. 
 Creation in all its parts was made known as a revela- 
 tion of Him through whom it was called into being. 
 But the reconciliation here as elsewhere lies in trans- 
 figuration. The passage to life is through death. The 
 old had to pass away that the new might find its 
 proper place. This truth has even now not been 
 fully mastered ; but it will be seen more clearly if we 
 first consider the position of Art in relation to Chris- 
 tianity in the apostolic age (i), and the character of 
 Christian Art in the first four centuries (ii), and then 
 attempt to determine the relation of Christianity to 
 Art (ill), and the peculiar office of Art (iv). 
 
 The position of the early Christian teachers 
 towards Art was determined under two powerful and 
 conflicting influences. In no other region of human 
 activity were the Shemitic and Hellenic tendencies 
 more directly at variance. Each bore witness to a 
 partial truth; and in the apostolic age each had 
 reached its complete development. 
 
 For the Jews imitative Art had practically no 
 public existence. In the absence of satisfactory evi- 
 dence it is impossible to say how far Architecture 
 and Music found free and characteristic expression. 
 But in spite of the very narrow range within which 
 Jewish Art was confined it embodied a principle which 
 enters into the life of Art. The commandment which 
 
282 THE RELATION OF 
 
 forbade the making of any graven image or likeness was 
 not observed in the Sanctuary itself. By this exception 
 it was made evident that the enactment was directed 
 against accidental abuses of imitative Art and not 
 against the Art itself. At the same time the manner 
 in which Art was employed served to embody another 
 thought. The description of the decorations of the 
 Tabernacle and of the Temple brings out plainly the 
 idea that representations of outward things, and the 
 manifold combination of materials, which found place 
 there, were designed to suggest more than the simple 
 figure or effect. Whatever there was of grandeur or 
 beauty in "the ordinances of divine service" pointed 
 beyond itself. Natural forms and elements were used 
 to indicate the unseen. How this could be is still 
 powerfully shewn in the works of Egyptian Art, which 
 constrain the spectator to rise beyond that which he 
 looks upon to something which can find no adequate 
 expression externally. The figures of gods and men 
 alike — Pasht or Rameses — are above all things sym- 
 bols of character. They cannot be taken simply as 
 efforts to present direct and complete portraitures of 
 the beings whom they call up before the soul. Later 
 experience indeed proved that there were possibilities 
 of deep corruption in the promiscuous use of such 
 images of the mysteries of life as were presented in 
 the accompaniments of Egyptian worship. The con- 
 ception was noble but it was unfitted for common use. 
 So it was that the sacred legislation of Israel kept the 
 conception and guarded it jealously. The employ- 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 283 
 
 ment of the symbolic figures in the sanctuary of the 
 Temple, by emphasizing this exception to the general 
 law\ kept the Jew from the desecration of the symbol, 
 and preserved for him in its purity the thought which 
 it enshrined. He learnt from the records of the Old 
 Testament that it was the Divine will that in the 
 unapproachable darkness of the Holy of Holies the 
 costliest works of Art should render service before 
 the revealed Presence of the Lord. No human eye 
 could rightfully ever again trace the lineaments of 
 those cherubim and palm-trees and open flowers when 
 they were once placed in the oracle, but it was enough 
 to know that they were there. In no other way could 
 the Truth be more eloquently or solemnly enforced 
 that the end of Art is to witness to the inner life of ' 
 Nature and to minister to God. The repetition of 
 the forms in the Holy place kept the memory of them 
 fresh in the minds of the priests ^ Their significance 
 could not be mistaken. By that offering of the best 
 which he could command simply for the Divine glory 
 Solomon declared to his people for all time the con- 
 secration of Art, and he declared not obscurely that 
 
 1 The twelve oxen which supported the Molten Sea in 
 Solomon's Temple (1 K. vii. 25; 2 Chron. iv. 4f.; Jer. lii. 
 20) are a perplexing exception to the law. The twelve lions 
 on the steps of the royal throne (1 K. x. 18 ff. ; 2 Chron. ix. 
 18 f. ) form a corresponding exception in the civil use of Art. 
 The Brazen Serpent was a work of a wholly different order ; as 
 also was "the Teraphim" of David (1 Sam. xix. 13). 
 
 2 According to 2 Chron. iii. 14, cherubim were wrought on 
 the veil. 
 
284 THE RELATION OF 
 
 it is the office of Art to reveal the meaning of that 
 which is the object of sense. Circumstances delayed 
 for ages the fruitfulness of the idea ; but it remained 
 and remains still ; and few can think of all that was 
 implied by the adornment of that august chamber 
 lighted only by the splendour of a manifested Pre- 
 sence of God or the glow of the kindled incense 
 (Apoc. V. 8) without feeling that it has a lesson for 
 those to whom Art is appointed work. Philosophers 
 and poets have dwelt often upon the veiled statue at 
 Sais : there is an open secret in the sacred gloom of 
 the Holy of Holies more sublime and more inspiring. 
 The Jewish repression of imitative Art, which the 
 Law still hallowed for the highest service, corre- 
 sponded with the spiritual conception of God which 
 was the endowment of His "people." Spiritual Reli- 
 gion could not at that stage of its development admit 
 the habitual use of painting or sculpture. With the 
 Greeks on the other hand imitative Art was the 
 characteristic embodiment of the Nature worship 
 which underlay their life. The form of beauty was 
 for them not the symbol but the direct representa- 
 tion of the godlike. The statue was the final expres- 
 sion of the artist's thought, and his consummate skill 
 enabled the spectator to rest in it. Humanity was 
 made the measure of the divine ; and under these 
 conditions anthropomorphism became a fatal tempta- 
 tion. At the same time Greek Art, if premature and 
 perilous in regard to the complete spiritual training 
 of man, witnessed to a part of the truth affirmed in 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 285 
 
 the record of Creation which is most commonly for- 
 gotten. The form of man, the visible expression of 
 what he is essentially embodied under the conditions 
 of time, answers to "the image of God" in which he 
 was made. So far the Greek was right in seeking for 
 traits of divinity in human beauty. The source of 
 error, from which flowed the stream of later corrup- 
 tion, was that he regarded these as fixed and final. 
 He failed, necessarily failed in the way of nature, to 
 claim recognition for the fulness of the truth that 
 man made in the image of God has to grow into His 
 likeness: that all that is noblest in form or present, 
 embodiment is preparatory to something yet unseen 
 and higher: that Art in its greatest achievements 
 must be prophetic, must not rest in a victory but 
 reveal that which is unattained^ 
 
 It would be difficult to overrate the skill with 
 which Greek sculpture of the best period represents 
 strength in majestic repose, and feeling under sove- 
 reign control; but all, so to speak, lies within the 
 figure before us. "The gods have come down to us 
 in the likeness of men;" and we look no further. At 
 first the spiritual, religious element is supreme, as in 
 all living Art ; but with the decay of faith that which 
 is sensuous usurps the place of the spiritual, and Art 
 which takes man as the standard of the divine cannot 
 
 1 This is only one application of the general law that man 
 cannot find rest in the finite. The key to the understanding of 
 Ecclesiastes lies in the recognition of this truth which the Book 
 illustrates from many sides, Comp. Eccles. iii. 11. 
 
286 THE RELATION OF 
 
 but fall. A single illustration will be sufficient to 
 indicate my meaning. This is given in a crucial 
 shape by the treatment of Aphrodite in the earlier 
 and later schools. The physical beauty of the Medi- 
 cean Venus has lost all the pure sovereign majesty of 
 the Aphrodite of Melos, which is worthy to be an 
 ideal of "woman before the Fair." 
 
 It is unnecessary to trace the decay of Greek Art. 
 It retained to the last the gift of physical beauty, but 
 in the apostolic age it had become the servant of the 
 luxury of the Empire. Starting from a human ideal it 
 became enslaved to man. So far as it had a place in 
 popular worship it brought down the divine to the 
 level of a corrupt life. 
 
 This being so the antagonism of early Christians 
 to contemporary Art was necessarily essential and 
 absolute. Before Art could be placed in its true 
 position there was need of a complete change of 
 centre. For this the stem discipline of Judaism had 
 made provision. The lesson of consecration which 
 had been kept in silent witness for long ages could be 
 applied now that "the Word had become flesh." By 
 that fact a new meaning was given to the beauty 
 which the Greek artist had felt for, and an immeasur- 
 able scope was opened for the ministry of nature to 
 God which the Jewish legislator had declared in sym- 
 bols. But death is the condition of resurrection. 
 There is indeed a continuity through death; but a 
 
 1 Kraus (F. X.), Die Christliche Kunst, s. 22. 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 287 
 
 formal severance from the past was the prelude to 
 the new birth of Christian Art. 
 
 II. 
 
 It will be seen from what has been already said 
 that Christianity had to recognise and reconcile the 
 partial and contrasted aspects of imitative Art which 
 had found expression in Judaism and Hellenism. 
 Christian Art embodies the twofold conception of the 
 spiritual destiny of the visible, and of a spiritual reve- 
 lation through the visible. The central fact of the 
 Christian Faith gives a solid unity to both truths. 
 
 The realisation of such an idea of Art can of 
 necessity only come slowly and through the course of 
 life, not by any definite and conscious effort but in 
 the gradual conquest of humanity. The beginning 
 was made when St Paul established Christian Churches 
 in Ephesus, Athens, Corinth, and Rome. The end is 
 still far off, even if it has come from age to age more 
 clearly into view. When the Church first appeared 
 openly in the Empire it had already the outlines of a 
 system of Art which had been drawn in the times of 
 darkness and suffering. In the first stage of such a 
 progress the inspiring thought is supreme : the perfec- 
 tion of form comes later. 
 
 It is however extremely difficult to trace the course 
 of Christian Art in the ante-Nicene age. The literary- 
 evidence is extremely scanty ; and it naturally deals 
 for the most part with the dangers and abuses of 
 popular Art. Even in the present age little could be 
 
288 THE RELATION OF 
 
 gathered as to the place which is occupied by Art in 
 ordinary Christian life from the works of theological 
 controversy and general instruction. But the stern 
 warnings of a man like TertuUian are evidently 
 directed against influences and practices which he 
 felt to be powerful if not dominant. Christian artists, 
 did not scruple to continue their profession even whei> 
 they were admitted to the ministry \ The painter 
 Hermogenes is condemned for the use which he made 
 of his art, but the art itself is not proscribed ^ It 
 may also be fairly concluded from the denunciations 
 of female luxury that other adornments of life besides 
 rich dresses and jewels found admission into Christian 
 households; and excess and extravagance imply a 
 temperate use. It is also of interest to notice that 
 TertuUian mentions incidentally "paintings on chali- 
 ces^" and in especial the image of "the Shepherd/' 
 which he speaks of as a usual subject^. 
 
 The scanty notices of Christian Art at Alexandria 
 are of the same character as those in TertuUian. The 
 
 1 Tertull. de idol. 3£f., adleguntur in ordinem ecclesiasti- 
 cum artifices idolorum. Comp. de spectac. 23. A Christian 
 sculptor is represented at his work on a sarcophagus assigned 
 by De' Rossi to the third century. See Northcote and Brown- 
 low, ii. p. 236. The subject was first engraved by Fabretti, 
 Inscr. Ant. N. cii. p. 587, who describes the sarcophagus as 
 "ex coemeterio Helenae." 
 
 2 Tertull. adv. Hermog. i. pingit illicite, that is, by painting 
 pagan subjects. 
 
 8 de Pudic. c. 7, picturaa calicum. 
 
 * id. c. 10, pastor quern in calice depingis. 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 289 
 
 language of Clement shews clearly that many Chris- 
 tians did not scruple to wear heathen gems ; and when 
 he defines the subjects which might rightly be ad- 
 mitted in consideration of their typical significance, 
 he accepts a principle which is capable of a very wide 
 application \ 
 
 At the same time it is evident from Origen's elo- 
 quent vindication of the spiritual service of Chris- 
 tians — the spiritual altar, and sacrifices and images of 
 God — that no religious use was as yet publicly made 
 of imitative Art^ Nor can it be doubted that the 
 feeling of the great teachers of the African Churches 
 was decidedly adverse to the pursuit of Art^ The 
 influence of Judaism was so far prevailing. Local 
 circumstances probably in this case checked what 
 might have been expected to be the natural result 
 of Alexandrine thought. 
 
 The position of the Italian, and specially of the 
 Roman Church, seems to have been somewhat differ- 
 ent. Among the earliest Italian converts were mem- 
 bers of noble families who brought with them the 
 influence of cultivated taste, and at once found a 
 place for the ministry of Art. But here again the 
 evidence is limited in range. It is derived almost 
 exclusively from paintings in the Catacombs, and 
 mainly from the Catacombs of Rome; so that the 
 simplest remains of Christian Art are necessarily con- 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Peed. iii. 11, § 59, p. 289 P. 
 
 2 Orig. arlv. Gels. viii. 17 ff. Comp. de Orat. 17. 
 
 3 Clem. Alex. Protr. i. § 02, p. 54 P. 
 
 W,E. 19 
 
290 THE RELATION OF 
 
 fined in scope. They throw no light upon its domestic 
 use, nor do they furnish any measure of its actual 
 extent in subject or in prosecution. Moreover many 
 of the paintings have been retouched at later times, 
 and some which are commonly reckoned among the 
 earliest are of uncertain antiquity. 
 
 In spite of these drawbacks however the paintings 
 in the Catacombs appear to give a fair representation 
 of the character and spirit of Christian Art in Italy. 
 They extend in date over the whole history of the 
 early Church, though the earliest works are very few, 
 from the beginning of the second century onwards, 
 and include works of the greatest rudeness and of high 
 artistic merit. 
 
 The earliest Roman example which is known, the 
 decorations of the most ancient part of the cemetery 
 which bears the name of Flavia Domitilla, are, as it 
 appears, a unique monument of the primitive patri- 
 cian Church of the Imperial City. In this case it 
 may be supposed that the converts had the means 
 for readily securing the services of a good artist, and 
 an impartial judge pronounces the work to be such as 
 would not discredit a painter of the best age'. Both 
 in general style and subject these decorations closely 
 resemble contemporary pagan works, but there are 
 sufficient traces of characteristic subjects to establish 
 their Christian origin ^ 
 
 1 Mommsen, Co7it. Rev. May 1871, p. 170. 
 
 2 Northcote and Brownlow, ii. 120 ff. Garrucci, Staria delV 
 Arte Gristiana, i. 19, 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 291 
 
 The decorations of the Catacombs of St Januarius 
 at Naples and of chambers in the cemetery of St Cal- 
 lixtus at Rome are even more completely classical in 
 treatment. The artist acting under Christian instruc- 
 tion has followed as far as he could the custom of his 
 time, using freely conventional ornaments, birds and 
 flowers and masks, which were consistent with Chris- 
 tian feeling, and introducing subjects which marked 
 the faith of those for whom he worked '. 
 
 1 Schultze, Die Katakoniben, 90 ff. ; Garrucci, Taw. 90—98. 
 
 Noi-thcote and Brownlow, ii. pp. 18 £f.; Garrucci, Tav. 26. 
 Compare Garrucci, Taw. 13, 20, 37, 38, 88 for other examples 
 of a classical type, and the beautiful pagan decorations of the 
 tomb in the Via Latina (Parker, Tombs, pi. xiv. ff.). 
 
 The following classical subjects may be specially noticed : 
 
 Orpheus. 
 
 S. Doraitilla, Northcote and Brownlow, p. 31. 
 
 S. Callixtus, North, and Br. PI. xviii. 2 (as Good Shepherd). 
 
 Bottari, Ixxi. 
 
 The figure occurs also on a Lamp, D.C.A. 922. 
 
 Psyche. 
 
 S. Domitilla, North, and Br. 33; Schultze, Die Katakom- 
 ben, 98. 
 
 S. Gennaro, Naples. Schultze, Tab. v. ; id. Die Kat. a. 93. 
 
 Compare North, and Br. p. 239 (sarcophagus). 
 
 Dioscuri. 
 
 Aries ; sarcophagus. Le Blant, Les Sure. Chret. d' Aries, xxiii. 
 
 UiiYSSES and the Sirens. 
 
 Crypt of Lucina: sarcophagus: North, and Br. p. 240. 
 
 A very remarkable series of scenes from the Gospel His- 
 tory is found in the Catacomb of Praetextatus. They are 
 unfortunately only imperfectly known. From the drawings 
 published by Garrucci, thoy appear to represent (1) Christ 
 
 19—2 
 
292 THE RELATION OF 
 
 The other examples of painting in the Roman Ca- 
 tacombs are of inferior artistic merit, being provided 
 hy poorer converts. But the same general features 
 are preserved throughout. Christians used as far as 
 they could the resources of popular art, and even 
 adopted some current subjects which were capable of 
 a Christian interpretation. There was no chasm of 
 separation between Christianity and Art except that 
 which was fixed by the ordinary subservience of Art 
 to idolatrous purposes ^ 
 
 At the beginning of the fourth century, when the 
 
 and the woman of Samaria; (2) The healing of the woman 
 with the Issue ; (3) The Baptism. The last subject is debated, 
 but De' Eossi's idea that it represents the striking of the Lord 
 with the reed is wholly at variance with the cycle of subjects 
 in early Art, and with the appearance of the dove in the 
 picture. 
 
 The drawing seems to be singularly good; and the figure of 
 the Lord is of a youthful classical type. Schultze, Die Kat. 145 ; 
 North, and Br. 143 ff . 
 
 Schultze points out that Christian artists borrowed orna- 
 mental figures from classical myths which embodied beliefs 
 about the dead: a. a. 0. 98 ff. 
 
 1 E.g. Garrucci, Taw. 8, 12. None of the groups of figures 
 seem to shew real artistic merit, unless it be the Madonna in 
 the Cemetery of Priscilla as interpreted in Northcote and Brown- 
 low, ii. pi. vii. ; yet contrast the photograph in Parker's Cata- 
 combs, pi. ii. 
 
 The marvellously beautiful group of the Shepherd and the 
 Sheep in the tomb of Statilius Taurus (b.c. 30) is wholly un- 
 approached by any Christian work. Parker, Tombs in and near 
 Rome, pi. xix. 
 
 There are examples of decorations in Jewish and Mithraic 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 293 
 
 Christian Society had emerged from obscurity and 
 began to erect dignified places for worship, it was 
 natural that Christians should introduce into their 
 churches the Art which had decorated their tombs. 
 The famous Canon of the Synod of Elvira was evi- 
 dently not directed against a prospective or imaginary 
 danger, but against an actual and probably a growing 
 practice. There can be no real doubt as to its mean- 
 ing, whatever opinion may be held as to its wisdom 
 and its authority. The Synod absolutely forbids the 
 painting of pictures on the walls of churches, in order 
 to guard against the representation of the objects of 
 worship*. Primitive feeling shrank, most justly, I 
 believe, from the portraiture of Divine Persons. Per- 
 haps there were already symptoms that this reserve 
 was likely to be broken. So it seemed better to ex- 
 clude pictures from the churches altogether than to 
 run the risk of injuring the sensibility of faith. 
 
 There was perhaps something of the sternness of 
 African Christianity in the Canon of Elvira. It may 
 have been called for by peculiar local perils. It is 
 
 tombs closely analogous to those of the Christian tombs: 
 Garrucci, Taw. 493 £E. 
 
 1 Cone. Illib. Can. 36. Ne pictures in ecclesia fiant. Placuit 
 picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur et 
 adoratur in parietibus depingatur. Comp. Dale, Synod of 
 Elvira, p. 289 n. 
 
 The Canon is most strangely quoted by Northcote and 
 Brownlow (ii. p. 4) as "one which forbad 'pictures to be 
 placed in a church, or that which is worshipped and adored 
 to be painted on the walls. ' " 
 
294 THE RELATION OF 
 
 therefore of more interest to notice a similar expres- 
 sion of feeling from an opposite quarter. This is 
 found in a letter addressed by Eusebius of Caesarea to 
 the Empress Constantia, which was brought forward 
 at the Second Council of Nicsea. In this Eusebius 
 seems to speak according to the general feeling of the 
 time. The empress had requested a likeness (cikwv) 
 of Christ. What do you mean by a likeness of Christ? 
 is the answer of Eusebius. Not of course the image 
 of Him as He is truly and unchangeably ; nor yet of 
 His human nature as it has been glorified, of which 
 the overpowering splendour of the Transfiguration 
 offered some pledge and likeness. It must tlien be 
 an image of the frail mortal flesh which He bore 
 before His Ascension. But such images are forbidden 
 by the Mosaic Law. They are nowhere to be found in 
 churches; and it is notorious that with us alone they 
 are forbidden. "Some poor woman," he goes on to 
 say, " brought to me two painted figures, like philoso- 
 phers, and ventured to say that they represented 
 Paul and the Saviour ; I do not know on what ground. 
 But to save her and others from off'ence, I took them 
 from her and kept them by me, not thinking it right 
 in any case that she should exhibit them further (cts 
 iripovs oAws eKcftipcLv), that we may not seem like 
 idolaters to carry our God about in an image." The 
 images of Simon Magus and Mani may be worship- 
 ped by their followers. "But such objects are for- 
 bidden us. Since we confess that our Saviour is 
 God and Lord we prei)are ourselves to see Him as 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 295 
 
 God, using all zeal to purify our own hearts, that if 
 so be when purified we may see Him. For Blessed 
 are the pure in heart because they shall see God. 
 And if in addition to this hope (ck Trcptovo-tas) before 
 that vision which shall be ' face to face ' you set 
 high value on the images of the Saviour, what better 
 artist can there be than the God- Word Himself ' ? " 
 
 Such judgments were however unable to stem the 
 tide of popular feeling which soon set in. The revo- 
 lution in the Empire, which was marked and crowned 
 by the conversion of Constantine, introduced new and 
 perilous elements into the Christian body. The in- 
 tense spirituality of the first ages was lost. Paganism 
 passed not yet wholly conquered under the yoke of 
 the Church. Within less than a century the repre- 
 sentations of sacred scenes obtained for good and evil 
 a recognised place in Christian sanctuaries. The in- 
 novation was not accomplished without resistance. 
 The familiar anecdote of Epiphanius (t 402) is a kind 
 of summary of the controversy. This zealous and 
 rigid bishop when visiting a village church in Pales- 
 tine found there a veil "bearing a fanciful image of 
 Christ (imaginem quasi Christi) or some Saint," for 
 this detail he could not remember. He at once tore 
 it asunder, and ordered the guardians of the church 
 where it hung to use it for the shroud of a pauper. 
 Nor was any further remonstrance made than that he 
 should supply a new one, which he did through the 
 Bishop of Jerusalem, begging him to warn the priest 
 1 Euscb. Ep. ad Const. Migne, Patrol. Gr. xx. 1515 ff. 
 
296 THE RELATION OF 
 
 in charge of the church not to hang there veils, 
 ** which are contrary to the Christian religion ^" 
 
 But in spite of such isolated action, and the tra- 
 ditional practice by which it was supported, pictures 
 found a recognised place in sacred buildings even in 
 the lifetime of Epiphanius. Three illustrations will 
 be sufficient to shew how far their use was extended 
 in the West and in the East. Paulinus (t 431), who 
 was a scholar of Ausonius and of consular rank, de- 
 voted himself and his fortune to the service of the 
 Church. He took for his special hero Felix, a martyr 
 of Nola, whose grave he decorated vnth. noble build- 
 ings while he celebrated his praises in a long series 
 of poems. In one of these he describes in some detail 
 the pictures with which he had adorned the cloister 
 of the church^. The series included the events of the 
 Pentateuch, and of the Historical Books of the Old 
 Testament^ By means of these representations he 
 
 1 Epiph. Epist. ad Joann. Hier. § ix. (iii. 390, ed. Migne). 
 
 2 xxvii. (De S. Felice carm. natal, ix.) 511 ff. 
 Nunc volo picturas fucatis agmine longo 
 Porticibus videas, paulumque supina fatiges 
 Colla, reclinato dum perlegis omnia vuitu. 
 
 •» Qui videt haec vacuis agnoscens vera figuris 
 Non vacua fidam sibi pascet imagine mentem. 
 Omnia namque tenet serie pictura fideli 
 Quae senior sci'ipsit per quinque volumina Moses, 
 Qua3 gessit Domini signatus nomine lesus... 
 Jam distinguentem modico Ruth tempora libro, 
 Tempora Judicibus finita et Eegibus orta, 
 Intentis transcurre oculis: brevis ista videtur 
 Historia, et magni signat mysteria belli... id. 514 ff. 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 297 
 
 hoped to attract and instruct the crowds of ignorant 
 rustics who visited the shrine of St Felix'. Each 
 scene had, as he describes it, a certain fitness for 
 enforcing some particular lesson, the new creation, 
 the offering of Isaac, the continence of Joseph, the 
 overthrow of Pharaoh", the separation of Ruth and 
 Orpah^. He admits that the experiment was an 
 unusual one*; and it does not appear that he in- 
 troduced into his decorations any scenes from the 
 Gospel history. His language indeed implies that 
 he shared to some extent the feeling expressed by 
 Eusebius as to representations of the Lord^. 
 
 ^ Propterea visum nobis opus utile, totis 
 Felicis domibus pictura illudere sancta; 
 Si forte attonitas haec per spectacula mentes 
 Agrestum caperet fucata coloribus umbra, 
 Quae super exprimitur titulis ut littera monstrct 
 Quod manus explicuit... id. 58011. 
 
 2 De genesi, precor, hunc orandi collige sensum, 
 Ne maneam terrenus Adam... 
 
 Hostia viva Deo tanquam puer offerar Isac... 
 
 Sit mihi castus amor, sit et horror amoris iniqui... 
 
 Sit mihi ab Aegypto bonus exitus... id. 607 ff. 
 
 3 Nonne, precor, toto manet hasc discordia mundo. 
 Parte sequente Deum, vel parte ruente per orbem? 
 
 id. 537 f. 
 ^ Forte requiratur quanam ratione gerendi 
 Sederit haec nobis sententia pingere sanctas 
 Earo more domos animantibus adsimulatis. 
 
 id. 542 ff. 
 
 5 Haec tibi, Christe Deus, tenui facilique paratu 
 Pro nobis facimus; nee enira te, summe Creator, 
 
298 THE RELATION OF 
 
 The contemporary evidence of Gregory of Nyssa 
 (t c. 400) shews that in some places at least the range 
 of subjects had been already enlarged. In comme- 
 morating Theodoras he has given a description of a 
 picture of his martyrdom, which in its intense realism 
 no less than in its subject is foreign to the spirit of 
 early Christian Art. The artist, he says, had imaged 
 in glowing colours the heroic acts of the martyr, his 
 struggles, his pains, the brutal forms o£ his persecu- 
 tors, their insults, the flaming furnace, the blessed 
 consummation of the soldier of Christ. Painting, he 
 adds, even in silence can speak upon the wall, and do 
 great service*. 
 
 Facta manu capiunt, toto quem corpore mundus 
 Non capit. 
 
 In his restoration of the old Basilica Paulinas introduced 
 "the two Testaments," but his language is very obscure: 
 tribus in spatiis duo Testamenta legamus; 
 Hanc quoque cernentes rationem lumine recto, 
 Quod nova in antiquis tectis, antiqua novis lex 
 Pingitur; est etenim pariter decus utile nobis 
 In veteri novitas, atque in novitate vetustas. 
 
 Compare also xxviii. 22 — 27. 
 
 In the apse of the Basilica at Funda he represented ^e idea 
 of the Passion as it is found on sarcophagi : 
 
 Sanctorum labor et merces sibi rite cohserent, 
 Ardua crux pretiumque crucis sublime corona. 
 Ipse Deus, nobis princeps crucis atque corona, 
 Inter gloriferi caeleste nemus paradisi, 
 Sub cruce sanguinea niveo stat Christus in agno, 
 Agnus ut innocua injusto datus hostia leto. 
 
 {Ep. xxxii. 17.) 
 
 1 Greg. Nyss. de S. Theod. Mart. iii. p 733 (ed. Migne), 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 299 
 
 About the same time Asterius, bishop of Amasea, 
 gives a strange description of popular extravagance. 
 Men and women wore robes embroidered with all 
 kinds of subjects *' as if it were not enough to have 
 the walls of their houses decorated with pictures." 
 The more pious, he adds, choose scenes from the 
 Gospels, and think that in so doing they dress them- 
 selves in a way to please God. *' If they follow my 
 advice, let them sell such garments and honour the 
 living images of God. Do not paint Christ, for the 
 one act of humility of His Incarnation, which He 
 voluntarily undertook for us, is sufficient, but bear 
 in thy soul and carry about spiritually (vorp-ws) the 
 incorporeal Word\" 
 
 Not long afterwards there' is evidence that still 
 more remarkable freedom was used in ecclesiastical 
 ornament. Olympiodorus consulted Nilus (t 430) on 
 the decorations which he proposed to place in a great 
 church to be erected in honour of the martyrs. It 
 was his design to represent on both sides of the Sanc- 
 tuary (uparttov) scenes of hunting and fishing, with 
 representations of various animals and fish; and to 
 erect in "the common house" "a thousand crosses, 
 and histories (to-Toptas) of all kinds of birds and beasts 
 and reptiles and plants." *' In answer to your letter," 
 so Nilus writes, "I should say that it would be puerile 
 and childish that the eye of the faithful should 
 wander over such subjects. It befits a strong and 
 manly character to fashion one single cross at the 
 1 Horn, de div. et Laz. p. 1G7, Migne {Fatrol. Gr. xl.). 
 
300 THE RELATION OF 
 
 east of the most sacred precinct (roO OuoTaTov rcfii- 
 vovs)...and to fill the holy sanctuary (t6v va6v rov 
 aytov) on both sides with histories of the Old and 
 New Testament by the hand of a skilful artist, in 
 order that those... who are unable to read the divine 
 Scriptures may by looking at the paintings call to 
 mind the courage of men who have served the true 
 God and be stirred to emulation of their heroic ex- 
 ploits'." 
 
 In the time of Augustine the African Church had 
 yielded to the growing fashion. Speaking of the 
 Sacrifice of Isaac he sa3^s " that it was sung in many 
 " tongues, painted in many places'^." And he bears 
 witness that the fashion had brought the results which 
 earlier Christians had dreaded : " I know many," he 
 writes, "who worship tombs and pictures ^" 
 
 ' Nilus, Epp. iv. 61. The letter was brought forward at the 
 Second Council of Nicjsa. In the following letter Nilus speaks 
 of a young monk who recognised a martyr who appeared to 
 him from having seen him often represented " in the paintings" 
 (e'/c Tov TroWcLKLS TOP xapaKT^/aa rod ayiov eirl twv elK6vwv Tedea- 
 cdaC). The phrase sounds like one of a later time. But Chryso- 
 Btom beaxs witness to the custom in his Homily on Meletius 
 (ii. 2, p. 516, ed. Migne) ; he says that the portrait of that 
 Saint was drawn on "rings, seals, bowls, and chamber walls." 
 
 2 c. Faust, xxii. 73. Compare also De cons. evv. i. x. 16, 
 Sic omnino errare meruerunt qui Christum et apostolos ejus 
 non in Sanctis codicibus sed in pictis parietibus quaesierunt; 
 nee mirum si a pingentibus fingentes decepti sunt. 
 
 3 de Mor. Eccles. Cath. i. 34 (75) novi, multos esse sepul- 
 crorum et picturarum adoratores. The fatoous phrase "picturaj 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 301 
 
 The remains of early Christian Sculpture are sin- 
 gularly few. This may be due partly to the costli- 
 ness of such works, and still more to the nature of 
 the Art itself. Sculpture far more than painting was 
 identified with idolatry. The aversion from "the 
 graven image" has perpetuated itself in the Greek 
 Church', and even to the present time Sculpture is 
 for the most part inspired by the spirit of the old 
 world. A single ideal figure, the Good Shepherd of 
 the Vatican, which seems to have been suggested by 
 the type of the Hermes Kriophoros, is referred to the 
 fourth century 2 ; part of a single portrait statue, that 
 
 (imagines) sunt idiotarum libri" is often referred to Augustine, 
 but, as far as I know, wrongly. 
 
 ^ I am informed that statues are used as ornaments of 
 Russian churches, as (for example) on the outside of the Isaac 
 Church at St Petersburgh. I may add here that a friend, who 
 has given a considerable amount of study to the monuments of 
 early Celtic hagiology, especially of the Scoto-Irish school, 
 informs me that, as far as his reading has extended, he 
 "cannot remember meeting with any mention of a sacred 
 picture or image, unless it be in one passage in the Life of 
 Brigid by Cogitosus, a work which Colgan attributes to the 
 last quarter of the sixth century. It is there stated that in 
 the church of Kildare, in which the body of Brigid was still 
 lying buried in the time of the author, the paries tahulatus, 
 which separated the eastern part from the twin naves, was deco- 
 rdtus et imaginihxis depictus, ac linteaminibus tectus (Cogitosus, 
 cap. XXXV., in the Trias Thaumaturga, p. 523). But what 
 subjects these imagines depicted is not hinted: it is possible 
 that only flowers, or, at most, figures of angels, are meant." 
 
 2 According to Eusebius (Vit. Const, iii. 497) Constantine 
 set Tip in the market at Constantinople ''the representation of 
 
f 
 
 802 THE RELATION OF 
 
 of Hippolytus, is referred to the fifth century. To 
 these two works may be added a small statue of the 
 Good Shepherd found at Seville, and perhaps the 
 famous bronze statue of St Peter ; and the list of the 
 tixtant Christian statues of the first five centuries is 
 complete'. The other early works of sculpture are 
 sarcophagi, one of which belongs to the third century ^ 
 
 the Good Shepherd familiar to students of Scripture (ra tou 
 KoXou iroifiivos cri/x^oKa, roh oltto tQv deiuv Xoyiwv opfiwjxivots 
 yvwpifxa), and a gilded bronze figure of Daniel with the lions." 
 
 1 The two other figures of the Good Shepherd which remain 
 (Appell, I. c. p. 5) are hardly so early. A statuette of St Peter 
 (Appell, p. 6) which was once at Berlin appears to be of early 
 date ; but is known only by engravings. 
 
 2 It is dated 273. See Le Blant, Etude sur les Sarcophages 
 Chretiens de la ville d'Arles, p. iv. ; and compare id. pi. xxxiv. 
 Le Blant assigns to the same age the sarcophagus of Li via 
 Primitiva, which bears a rude representation of the Good 
 Shepherd between two sheep, a fish and an anchor : /. c. Bot- 
 tari, T. xxxv. 2. 
 
 Garrucci's fifth volume contains the sarcophagi. A very 
 careful and valuable list and description is given by Dr Appell, 
 Monuments of Christian Art... 1S72. 
 
 Prof. Eamsay has shewn me a drawing of a most interest- 
 ing relief which is probably the oldest remaining specimen of 
 Christian sculpture. It is found on a monument erected by 
 "Abercius a deacon, to himself, his wife, and his children," 
 and represents a small figure with one arm laid across the 
 breast standing between two profiles of a man and a woman 
 executed on a larger scale. These profiles are evidently portraits, 
 and that of the woman has considerable artistic merit. Prof. 
 Ramsay placed the work c. 200. [He inclines now to a later 
 date.] 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 803 
 
 In spite of the limited scope which sarcophagi 
 offered to the artist the sculptures which they present 
 are of great interest as confirming the general imptea- 
 sions conveyed by the remains of early Christian 
 painting. The sarcophagi of Helena and Constan- 
 tina, the mother and daughter of Constantino, are 
 perfectly classical in character. The vine and wine- 
 making which are represented on the latter recall the 
 earliest wall-paintings. Such objects lend themselves 
 readily to a Christian interpretation while they are not 
 distinctively Christian. In other cases classical imagery 
 is found to which a Christian meaning can only be 
 given with difficulty*. But for the most part the 
 same scenes are found as in the Catacombs, and they 
 are treated in the same manner. The sculptor brought 
 to his work the experience and the traditions of ancient 
 art, as far as they still survived, and used them for 
 the expression of new ideas ^ 
 
 Meanwhile Christian Architecture had made vigor- 
 
 1 E.g. The figures of the Dioscuri on a sarcophagus at 
 Aries. Le Blant, pi. xxiii. pp. 38 ff. On the use of classical 
 details see Le Blant, I. c. Introduction, pp. x. f.; 19. 
 
 2 Some examples shew considerable artistic merit. For 
 example a sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum, given in 
 Northcote and Brownlow, ii. 255; Parker, pi. xvii.; Bottari, 
 T. xxxiii. The sarcophagus of Junius Bassus {a.d. 359) shews 
 thoughtful work. It is hard to understand how other engravings 
 come to represent Daniel as nude, according to all but universal 
 custom, while Parker's engraving "taken from a photograph" 
 (pi. xiii.) represents him as fully clothed. Dr Appell says that 
 the figure is modern. {^Monuments of Christian Art, p. 10.) 
 
304 THE RELATION OF 
 
 ous pmgress. When the persecution of Diocletian 
 broke out at Nicomedia (a.d. 303), "a most lofty 
 te^iple" there was one of the first objects of de- 
 struction. At that time it is evident that the re- 
 ligious buildings of Christians were of considerable 
 importance ; and the church which Paulinus erected 
 at Tyre not many years afterwards (a.d. 313) pro- 
 bably only reproduced the type of earlier works of 
 which no detailed description has been preserved. 
 Eusebius has fortunately given an account of this 
 which proves beyond question that Christians were 
 ready to devote the costliest work to purposes of 
 Divine worship'. The central door was decorated 
 ** with plates of bronze and reliefs " (TrapaTnyy/iao-i re 
 )(aX.KOv crtSiypoScTOts kol TroiKtA/xatriv avayXv'c^ot?). Ela- 
 borate carvings of wood were freely used. The roof 
 was made of cedar. And Eusebius taxes the powers 
 of his rhetoric to represent the splendour of the 
 effect produced both by the costliness of the materials 
 and by the beauty of the workmanship. The external 
 magnificence was indeed designed, if we may believe 
 him, to attract passers by and lead them to enter the 
 sacred precincts ^ 
 
 The church of Paulinus was a genuine expression 
 of Christian feehng. Less stress can be laid on the 
 
 1 H. E. X. 4. 
 
 2 Euseb. I. c. US df fiT] TaparpixQ ^ts ^ti firj Ti}V rf/vxw Kara- 
 pvyeU irpbrepov fJ-vri/xri ttjs re vplv eprj/xlai Kal rrjs vvv irapado^ov 
 dav/JMTOvpyias, vcpl' tJs t&xo. kuI iXKvadi^a-eadat. Karapvyii/ra Kal 
 7r/)os avT^i ttjs 6\f/€U}i eirl tt]v et(ToS,ov irpoTpairrjaeadai rjKinffev, 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 305 
 
 evidence furnished by the works of Constantine at 
 Jerusalem. These so impressed Eusebius that he 
 suggests that they may have been prefigured by the 
 prophets in their description of tlie New Jerusalem ^ 
 No kind of rich decoration was spared. The interior 
 walls were encrusted with variegated marbles. The 
 carved ceiling was gilded throughout. The semicir- 
 cular apse was adorned with twelve columns, support- 
 ing as many silver vases which the Emperor ''presented 
 " as an offering to his God." And Eusebius- says that 
 ^le could not enumerate the other gifts " of gold and 
 " silver and precious stones " with which the building 
 vvas enriched ^ 
 
 The works of Constantine at Rome seem to have 
 been of a similar type ; and the drawings of the ori- 
 ginal Basilica of St Peter which have been preserved 
 are so full of beauty that it is difficult not to feel that 
 the present building has been dearly purchased by 
 the loss of the greatest of his churches. 
 
 The development of Christian Architecture gave 
 occasion to the first original effort of Christian Art, 
 the application of Mosaic on a large scale to wall- 
 pictures. The earliest remaining examples are in the 
 churches of St Constantia and St Maria Maggiore at 
 Rome ; and one of the most beautiful in the tomb of 
 Galla Placidia at Ravenna ^ This form of art, it is 
 
 1 Vit. Const, ii. 33. 
 
 2 Id. 34—40. Bingham {Antiquities, viii. § 5) has given an 
 interesting early inventory of Church vessels. 
 
 3 There is a drawing of this Mosaic in D. C. A. ii. 6, 1328, 
 
 W. E. 20 
 
S06 THE RELATION OF 
 
 obvious, leuds itself naturally to conventional repre- 
 sentation ; and it is not unlikely that the latei 
 Mosaics preserve unchanged the earliest types m 
 they were successively fixed. 
 
 One example deserves to be specially noticed, thai 
 on the apse of the church of St Pudentiana at Rome, 
 No existing work gives a better idea of the peculiai 
 spirit and power of early Christian Art. The treat- 
 ment is conventional without being lifeless. A spi- 
 ritual purpose is dominant without destroying the 
 natural dignity of the figures and the grouping. The 
 spectator is forced by the beauty of that which he 
 sees to look beyond to that which is suggested*. 
 
 There are very few traces of the domestic Art ol 
 the early Christians. Clement of Alexandria gives a 
 list of subjects which might properly be engraved on 
 rings ; and existing specimens present nearly all the 
 types which he alIows^ Many early Christian lamps 
 
 and a large coloured drawing at South Kensington. It is ex- 
 cellently described in Woltmann and Woermann, Hist of Paint- 
 ing, London, 1880, i. 167 f. 
 
 1 There are valuable representations of early Mosaics in the 
 South Kensington Museum. See Christian Mosaic Pictures by 
 J. W. Appell, Ph. D., 1877. 
 
 Garrucci devotes his fourth volume to Mosaics. 
 
 2 For the history and remains of early Christian glyptic Art 
 Bee C. W. King, Antique Gems and Rings, ii. § vii. pp. 24 ff. 
 London, 1872; and Dr Babington's article Gems in D. C, A. 
 
 A simple enumeration of the subjects of the small collection 
 of early Christian gems in the British Museum will give a fair 
 idea of the general character of these works. 
 
 1. A dove, olive branchand star (ruby). 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 307 
 
 are works of considerable merit*. And one of the 
 gold coins of Constantino offers a unique and most 
 
 2. A fish, olive, pastoral staff. 
 
 3. A fish and anchor, with the word eniTYNYANOY (D. C. 
 
 A. p. 714). 
 
 4. A cross, fish and dove (D. C. A. p. 713). 
 
 5. Two fish (ascending and descending) and a bowl. 
 
 6. An anchor between two dolphins with the letters a. p. l. 
 
 7. An anchor between two fish. 
 
 8. 1x9 yc enclosed between two olive branches (sard). 
 
 9. An anchor-cross with two doves resting on the arms, 
 two fish (ascending and descending), and two palms. 
 
 10. Good Shepherd under an olive with two dovea (heema- 
 tite). 
 
 11. Good Shepherd between two sheep: very rude. 
 
 12. Good Shepherd with m xc : very rude. 
 
 13. Good Shepherd, with sheep and two lambs, under a 
 tree with a dove : very rude. 
 
 14. Good Shepherd and Jonah cast out by the monster : 
 a dove with olive branch: a palm and gourd with a star 
 between : in the centre the monogram. 
 
 15. Two parts: above, the Good Shepherd and Jonah 
 under the gourd: below, an anchor, dove, branches, fish, 
 figures kneeling, a figure floating above. 
 
 16. A Cross, which has become a living tree, with a dove 
 resting upon it. (This is a singularly interesting device.) 
 
 17. Two sheep between two palms : very well executed. 
 
 18. Chariot with two horses and angel. 
 
 19. Four sheep with collars. 
 
 20. The temptation. 
 
 21. Cross with the Chrisma (sapphire). 
 
 22. Palm between two branches. 
 
 23. Palm tree, two branches and two birds with inscription : 
 very rude. 
 
 1 See Dr Babington's article in D. C. A. 
 
 20—2 
 
308 THE RELATION OF 
 
 beautiful embodiment of a Christian thought. The 
 Emperor is represented as "looking upwards in the 
 "attitude of prayer:" so, Eusebius says, he wished 
 to express his faith \ 
 
 The rapid sketch which has been given of the pro- 
 gress of Christian Art in different directions will be 
 sufficient to indicate the circumstances under which 
 it gained finally a recognised place in Christian life, 
 and especially in Christian worship. It was, as we 
 
 ^ Vit. Const, iv. 15. An engraving of the coin, which 
 does not do it justice, is given in D. C. A. Money, Fig. 23. 
 Dr Babington (D. C. A. i. p. 720) refers to an agate in vsrhich 
 the Emperor is represented in the same way. 
 
 Some other coins of Christian emperors deserve mention as 
 illustrating the symbolism of Christian Art. Most conspicuous 
 among these is the small "third brass" coin of Constantine, 
 bearing on the reverse the words spes puhlica with the laba- 
 rum, the spiked end of which pierces the serpent (D. C. A. s.v. 
 Labarum and Money, fig. 16). A variation of this design Con- 
 stantine is said to have set over the portal of his palace (Euseb. 
 Vit. Const, iii. 3). The old device of the phoenix with the 
 legend Felix temporum reparatio occurs on coins of Constans 
 and Constantius. On coins of the two Eudoxias Victory is 
 represented inscribing the letters of the sacred monogram on 
 a shield. On a coin of Valentinian III., which has the common 
 legend Victoria Augusti, Satan takes the place of the barbarian 
 whom the Emperor treads under his feet. At last the head of 
 the Lord, of a singularly dignified type, appears on a gold coin 
 of Justinian II. Compare C. W. King, Early Christian Numis- 
 matics, pp. 35 £f. 
 
 A very complete account of the interesting Christian glass 
 work is given by Dr Babington in D. C. A. {Glass). See also 
 Garrucci, Tom. iii. - 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 809 
 
 have seen, fashioned on classical models ; it inherited 
 the use of classical methods ; it incorporated some of 
 the familiar subjects of classical use*; but at the 
 same time it embodied, even if only in an elementary- 
 form, the power of a new life. It was conventional 
 and it was S3anbolic. By these characteristics it 
 claimed effectually the office of interpreting the invi- 
 sible through the visible, of giving predominance to 
 the spiritual idea over the external appearance, of 
 advancing from within outwards, from the thought to 
 the expression. The means adopted for securing these 
 ends belong, no doubt, to the infancy of Christian 
 Art. Efforts which were arrived at directly and 
 simply in the first stage of the new artistic life can be 
 secured now without any sacrifice of the freedom or 
 of the fulness of the artist's labours. But this fact 
 does not deprive the earliest works of their distinctive 
 meaning and importance. 
 
 Early Christian Art is conventional. This is true 
 both as to the choice and as to the treatment of sub- 
 jects. It is indeed necessary to remember that our il- 
 lustrations are chiefly drawn from the Catacombs, from 
 tombs and sarcophagi. But when allowance is made 
 for the limitation of the artist's freedom by the nature 
 of his work, it seems certain that other influences 
 must have kept him within the narrow circle of sub- 
 jects to which he confined himself. He made a new 
 departure in Art, though perhaps unconsciously, and 
 strove to call attention to the divine element in life. 
 1 See p. 343, n. 1. 
 
310 THE RELATION OF 
 
 For this purpose it was necessary to take a few fami- 
 liar subjects which could easily be made to express a 
 universal spiritual truth. Scenes and figures came 
 in this way to express great thoughts ; and when this 
 correspondence between facts and ideas was estab- 
 lished in a few cases, a lesson of wide application was 
 surely taught. 
 
 Thus it is that a few subjects from the Old Testa- 
 ment and a few from the New Testament are repeated 
 both in painting and sculpture with almost wearisome 
 monotony. Among these three scenes from the his- 
 tory of Jonah ({a) Jonah cast out of the ship ; (b) 
 disgorged by the sea-monster; (c) resting under the 
 gourd), Daniel between two lions, Noah in the ark, 
 the Feeding of the multitudes and the Raising of 
 Lazarus are perhaps the most frequent in early works ; 
 and next to these the Fall, Moses striking the rock, 
 the Three Children in the furnace, Job in his distress, 
 the Sacrifice of Abraham, the Ascension of Elijah, the 
 Adoration of the Magi, the Miracle of Cana\ It is 
 very remarkable that only one representation of David 
 
 1 Lists of examples of these different subjects are given in 
 various writers. It is sufficient to refer to Canon Venables' 
 articles Fresco and Old Testament in D. C. A., and Mr Tyrwhitt's 
 article in the same work on the different subjects. See also 
 C. J. Hemans, " The Church in the Catacombs," Cont. Rev. 
 Oct. 1866. 
 
 How great was the tendency of the subjects to become fixed 
 is shewn by the identity of. the decorations of two sarcophagi, 
 one at Eome (Bottari, xxiv.) and the other at Aries (Le Blant, ix.). 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 311 
 
 is referred to by the historians of early Christian 
 Art'. 
 
 The treatment of these subjects offers little varia- 
 tion. Jonah is always represented nude, and the sea- 
 monster seems to have been modelled on the type of 
 that found in representations of Andromeda. Daniel, 
 nearly always nude, stands in the attitude of prayer • 
 between two lions placed symmetrically. Lazarus is 
 drawn like a mummy, and his tomb commonly appears 
 like a small chapel, while the Lord holds a rod in 
 hand. The Magi are dressed in Persian (Phr5'gian) 
 costume. The treatment of the Good Shepherd offers 
 a partial exception to the general uniformity. In 
 addition to the commonest type in which He bears 
 the lamb over His shoulders, the Shepherd is repre- 
 sented with the pipe, and leaning on His staff, and 
 with goats ^; and on a sarcophagus He appears in 
 three separate forms ^ It is not difficult to see the 
 special colouring which is given in each case to the 
 common thought. Elsewhere there is little change; 
 and anyone who examines the work of Garrucci will 
 feel the truth of the words used at the Second Council 
 of Nicsea, " the making of pictures is not the invention 
 " of artists but the admitted legislation and tradition 
 " of the Catholic Church^" 
 
 1 See p. 316, n. 5. 
 
 * Compare Northcote and Brownlow, ii. p. 24. Bottari, 
 Ixxviii., Ixxx., xcvii., ciii., cv., cxiii., cxvi., cxviii., cxliii., C3dv., 
 civ., clxxii., clxxix. 
 
 * Bottari, clxiii. 
 
 * 0^ ^(i3ypd<pu3v itpe^pens ij tQv elKoyup nolrjais dWd ttjs 
 
312 THE RELATION OF 
 
 This view as it was maintained by the artists of 
 V the Greek Church was necessarily fatal to Art. The 
 conventionalism of early work was no more than a 
 first step in the new life. Conventionalism was the 
 » condition of Symbolism, that is of the simplest asser- 
 tion of the spiritual purpose of Art. But when the 
 end was gained, the provisional restriction of subjects 
 ceased to be necessary. 
 
 We are thus brought to the second characteristic 
 of early Christian Art : it was symboUc. There is no 
 doubt some exaggeration in the theory, which has 
 gained the support of De' Rossi, that Christian artists 
 worked under the direction of theologians and em- 
 bodied definite schemes of doctrine in their pictures. 
 But it is impossible to study the cycle of subjects in 
 connexion with early Christian literature and not feel 
 that the artists embodied thoughts which their reli- 
 gious services brought before them. Scenes in the 
 ^ Old Testament shadowed forth truths of the Gospel 
 and illustrated the reality of the one purpose under- 
 lying all life. By repeating these it was not difficult 
 to suggest the thought of the correspondence between 
 different stages in the fulfilment of the divine will, of 
 the inner meaning of ordinary events, of the way in 
 which things are set "one over against another." 
 The offering of Isaac indicated as much as the early 
 believer thought could be safely indicated, in a direct 
 representation, of the Lord's Passion. The deliver- 
 
 Ktt^oXifc^s eKKXrjaias iyKpiros decrfiodeaia Kal irapiiSoais. Cone. 
 Nic. II. Act. \i. (Concil. viii. 10S5, ed. Colet.) 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 818 
 
 ance of Noah from and by the waters was an eloquent 
 symbol of salvation in the Church "through water." 
 The four rivers of Paradise suggested thoughts of the 
 streams of grace flowing to the Church through the 
 Gospel and the Gospels. The domestic feast, and the 
 feeding of the multitudes called up recollections of 
 the provision which the Lord had made and still con- 
 tinues to make for the material and spiritual susten- 
 ance of His people. Above all the familiar figure of 
 the Good Shepherd brought together the imagery of 
 the Old Testament and the experience of daily life, 
 and in some degree perhaps symbolic forms of ancient 
 art'. In one subject at least the imagination of the 
 old world was allowed its full right. The myth of 
 Orpheus expressed with far-reaching pathos the faith 
 of man in a restored order of creation; and the 
 Christian artist gladly accepted the pictured parable 
 of which his faith gave the meaning. 
 
 The reality of this definite symbolism is placed 
 beyond all question by the direct testimony of the 
 monuments themselves. In several cases St Peter, 
 "the leader of the New Israel/' is represented under 
 the figure of Moses striking the rock. Not only is 
 the figure of Moses commonly given in the conven- 
 tional type of St Peter, but the identification is com- 
 pleted by the addition of the name, Peter I In other 
 
 1 On the relation of the Good Shepherd to the Hermes 
 Kriopboros see Northcote and Brownlow, ii. pp. 26 ff. 
 
 2 Compare Northcote and Brownlow, ii. frontispiece, and 
 p. 180; Le Blant, Sarc. Chret. p. xxii.; pp. 36 f. 
 
314 THE RELATION OF 
 
 examples Christ Himself appears as Moses' and again 
 as Abraham ^ Elsewhere, as when a young Christian 
 man in the attitude of prayer occupies the place of 
 Noah in the ark, the lessons taught by the experi- 
 ence of the old saints are brought down into actual 
 life^ 
 
 An illustration of a different kind is furnished by 
 the sarcophagus of Bassus. On this, in the small 
 reliefs which fill the spandrils of the arcade, a sheep 
 occupies the place of the divine representation in the 
 familiar cycle of subjects. A sheep receives the Law, 
 
 * Garrucci, Iv. 2; xliii. 1. 
 
 2 Garrucci, t. xliii. 1. 
 
 5 It is enough simply to refer to the unquestioned symbol- 
 ism of "the Fish" (I X0 YC). Except in scenes of "fishing" this 
 figure hardly comes within the proper scope of Art, though it 
 illustrates the attitude of the artist. Compare D. C. A. s. v. 
 The most remarkable use of "the Fish" which I have seen is in 
 a picture from Cyrenaica, where several distinct kinds of fish 
 are combined with a figure of the Good Shepherd (Garrucci, 
 tav. 105 c). Fishing and Baptism are combined: Garrucci, 
 vii. 2. Figures of some very curious gems with the "Fish" 
 are given in D. C. A. i. p. 713. Le Blant {Sarc. Chret. Inir. 
 § 5) has pointed out the remarkable correspondence between 
 the subjects on sarcophagi and the historical references in the 
 Offices for the dead. His last words are well worth quoting : 
 Mais, je le repute, ce qui me semble dominer dans le cycle 
 des representations figur^es sur les tombes, c'est I'idee meme 
 dont s'inspirent les liturgies fun6raires et qui fit mettre aux 
 Idvres du preux Roland ce cri supreme ; notre vrai Pere, toi 
 qui ressuscitas saint Lazare d'entre les morts et qui defendis 
 Daniel contre les lions, sauve mon arae et prot6ge-la contre tous 
 perils (p. xxxix). 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 315 
 
 strikes the rock, administers Baptism, multiplies the 
 loaves, raises Lazarus. So the unity of the working 
 of God throughout the Old and New Testaments is 
 vividly brought out\ 
 
 When the general principle is once recognised it 
 is scarcely possible to overlook the combination of 
 thoughts which is indicated by definite groupings of 
 types, such as Moses striking the rock and the raising 
 of Lazarus^; Moses striking the rock and Baptism^; 
 Christ teaching in the centre, and grouped round the 
 sacrifice of Abraham, the feeding of the multitudes, 
 Moses striking the rock, Noah, the Three Children*; 
 and again, Orpheus in the centre, and around David 
 with the sling ^ Moses striking the rock, Daniel, the 
 raising of Lazarus, separated by four pastoral scenes '' ; 
 yet again, the Good Shepherd in the centre, and around 
 the raising of Lazarus, Moses striking the rock, the 
 healing of the Blind, Job^ In one example Daniel, 
 the Good Shepherd, and Jonah cast to the whale 
 occur in a continuous pictured 
 
 ^ Compare Northcote and Brownlow, ii. p. 260. 
 2 Bottari, t. cxxix. 
 » Le Blant, xv. 
 
 4 Bottari, t. lix.;'Garr. xxiv. 
 
 5 Bottari says that this is the single representation of David 
 with which he is acquainted in early Art (p. 32). May not the 
 figure really be that of the Sower? 
 
 *• Bottari, Ixiii. ; Garr. xxv. 
 
 7 Bottari, xci,, Garr. xl. Other examples are given, Gar- 
 rucci, xliii.; xlviii ; li. (Bottari, cxviii.). 
 
 8 Bottari, t. clxx. 
 
316 THE RELATION OF 
 
 The symbolism of Christian Art is one expression 
 of another mark by which it is distinguished, its re- 
 serve. This characteristic is specially illustrated by 
 the treatment of subjects from the Gospels, and espe- 
 cially of the Person of the Lord. As early as the 
 second century Gnostic sects had alleged portraits of 
 the Lord\ Such representations were foreign to the 
 mind of the Church. They do not occur in works 
 connected with the Catholic Communion till the fourth 
 century at the earliest, and then in conventional types ^ 
 At the same time the figures of the Lord which ap- 
 pear commonly on sarcophagi shew Him as a youthful 
 figure of a pure classical form with no attempt at 
 realistic portraiture'. It is no doubt due to the 
 
 1 Iren. i. 24, 25. Compare D. C. A. Gems, i. p. 721. 
 
 2 Compare Northcote and Brownlow, ii. 216 ff. ; Pearson On 
 the Greed, p. 88 note; and the articles by Mr Tyrwhitt and 
 A-rchd. Cheetham in D. C. A. i. pp. 874 ff. 
 
 The famous statue at Csesarea (Euseb. vii. 18) cannot in 
 . any case be regarded as contravening the general statement. 
 
 I do not enter on the question of the date of the legendary 
 portraits of the Lord. The two specimens on "cloth" repro- 
 duced by Mr Heaphy in his work on The Likeness of Christ (edited 
 by W. Bayliss, London, 1880), from the originals at St Peter's at 
 Eome, and St Bartholomew's at Genoa, are most remarkable 
 works. I know nothing in early Christian Art at all resembling 
 the former in style. Those who have seen "the Holy Face" at 
 Lucca speak of it as being no less impressive. 
 
 3 A very fine example is found on the sarcophagus of Junius 
 Bassus. Appell, p. 9; Bottari, xv.; Parker, xvii. See also 
 Bottari, xxxiii. Another remarkable example is given in Bot- 
 tari, liv. With these may be compared the corresponding 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 317 
 
 reverent shrinking from all representations of the 
 Lord in His human Presence that scenes from the 
 Gospel history were with very few exceptions carefully 
 avoided. 
 
 A rude sketch of the Nativity is found upon a 
 fragment of a sarcophagus dated a.d. 343'. There 
 are representations of the visit of the Magi of as early 
 a date^ Other scenes, except the Raising of Lazarus, 
 are very rare and of isolated occurrence. 
 
 In this connexion the early treatment of the Pas- 
 sion is of the deepest interest. One of the earliest 
 representations of the subject is of singular beauty 
 and impressiveness. It is found on a sarcophagus 
 preserved in the Lateran and referred to the fourth 
 century ^ The face of the sarcophagus is divided by 
 columns into five compartments. The two end com- 
 partments shew on one side Christ, a youthful figure, 
 led by a soldier, and Pilate washing his hands ; on the 
 other Christ crowned by a soldier with a crown not of 
 
 figures of the bearded Christ; Le Blant, pi. iv.; Bottari, xxi., 
 xxii., xxiii., xxv., xxviii. The distinction which has been drawn 
 between the beardless and bearded figures as expressing the 
 human and divine aspects of Christ's Person (see Le Blant, 
 p. 25) does not seem to hold good. 
 
 1 Northcote and Brownlow, ii. 235. 
 
 * The occurrence of the Star in the group noticed above, 
 p. 343, n. 2, seems to shew that that really represents the visit 
 of the Magi. 
 
 3 Appell, p. 21; Parker, xv.; Northcote and Brownlow, 
 ii. 253. Compare Paulinus, Ep. xxxii. 17, quoted above, 
 p. 346 n. 
 
318 THE RELATION OF 
 
 thorns but of flowers, and Simon the Cjrrenian bearing 
 His Cross'. In the centre is the Cross terminated by 
 the sacred monogram encircled by a wreath. On the 
 anus of the Cross two doves are resting, and beneath 
 are two figures of the Roman guards, one watching 
 and one sleeping. So the whole story of sadness and 
 joy, of suffering and glory, of death and triumph, is 
 eloquently told. 
 
 This representation of the Passion was widely 
 spread, though without the accompanying scenes'. 
 
 In one example below the Cross, in the place com- 
 monly occupied by the two guards, the Lord is repre- 
 sented appearing to two women ^ In another the 
 crowned Cross is the object of devout contemplation 
 to the apostles, who stand six on either side with their 
 right hands upraised, while from above out of the 
 starry heaven a hand places a crown upon the head of 
 each\ 
 
 Another treatment of the idea of the Passion, which 
 occurs on the sarcophagus of Anicius Probus, who died 
 
 * This is well pointed out by Le Blant, Sarc. Chret. p. 18. 
 His engraving p. xxxiii. is admirable. The smaller size and 
 dress of the figure bearing the Cross leave no doubt as to the 
 artist's meaning. 
 
 Le Blant observes that this is the single example in which 
 any incident of the Passion subsequent to the appearance before 
 Pilate is represented in early art {I. c). 
 
 2 Examples are given by Garrucci, taw. 349—363 ; 403. 
 
 3 Bottari, t. xxx. ; Garrucci, t. cccl. 
 
 * Le Blant, pi. xiv. A small engraving of this work is 
 given in D. G. A. i. p. 108. 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 319 
 
 in 395, is scarcely less beautiful. In this case also the 
 face of the sarcophagus is divided into five compart- 
 ments. The two on either side are occupied each by 
 two disciples. In the centre one, which is wider, the 
 Lord appears between St Peter and St Paul. He 
 stands; a graceful youthful figure, upon a mound from 
 which flow the four streams of the new Paradise : in 
 His left hand He holds the roll of the Gospel, and in 
 the right a jewelled cross*. 
 
 The full meaning of this representation is brought 
 out more clearly in other examples, where the Lord 
 stands on the mound, and by Him a Lamb bearing 
 the Cross upon its head^ The same thought is indi- 
 cated by a Lamb standing in front of the Cross ; or by 
 a Lamb with a cruciform nimbus which stands upon a 
 mound from which issue the four rivers^; and less 
 distinctly by a Cross or the Chrisma between two 
 lambs*. 
 
 Yet more significant and touching is a representa- 
 
 * Bottari, t. xvi. A similar group with the addition of two 
 palm trees is found on another sarcophagus; Bottari, t. xxxv. 
 
 2 Bottari, taw. xxi., xxii., 1. With this may be com- 
 pared the rude, almost startling, figure of Christ throned with 
 the Chrisma upon His head : Le Blant, pi. xxvii. 
 
 3 Garrucci, t. ccclvi. ; t. 355. 
 
 * Garrucci, taw. 10, 303, 337, 345, 389, 393, 422, 426. 
 
 On the cover of an Evangelarium at Milan are several typical 
 Bcenes from the Lord's Life; but there is no Crucifixion. In 
 place of this there is a Lamb in the centre with a wreath: 
 Labarte, Hist, des Arts industnels... 1864; pi. vi.; Garrucci, 
 t. 454. 
 
320 THE RELATION OF 
 
 tion of the Passion which is found on a slab preserved 
 in Wirksworth Church, Derbyshire. The slab was 
 found some years ago buried under the floor of the 
 Chancel. The work is rude, and was probably exe- 
 cuted by some English sculptor of the ixth or xth 
 century, but the design is of a much earlier date, and 
 may reasonably be referred to an Italian artist of the 
 vith or viith century. 
 
 The larger portion of the slab which remains is in 
 good preservation, and contains scenes from the Life 
 of the Lord; among others less distinct, the Nativity 
 and the Ascension in a most suggestive juxtaposition, 
 the Feet- washing and the Burial, and between these a 
 
 , symbolic image of the Passion. On the centre of a 
 plain Greek Cross is laid the figure of a dead lamb. 
 As far as I can learn the conception is unique \ The 
 drooping head and the bent legs of the victim tell of 
 
 ^ death with eloquent force ; and under this limited 
 aspect it is perhaps allowable to present for contem- 
 plation the Dead Christ''. No one, I think, can regard 
 
 1 The image of the Living Lamb is found on the centre of 
 the Vatican Cross (D. C. A. 1, 513) and elsewhere. A very 
 striking example occurs in ajbas-relief on the Ciborium at St 
 Mark's Venice : Grimouard de St L&nrent. IconograpJiie de la 
 Croix... in Didron's Annales Archeologiques, xxvi. p. 213 (Paris, 
 1869). It is said that the Face of the Lord is represented as the 
 intersection of the arms of the Cross in the Transfiguration at 
 Eavenna: D. C. A. p. 494, 
 
 2 I feel unable to beheve that a gem representing the Dead 
 Christ (D. C. A. i. p. 718) can be as early as the ivth century. 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 321 
 
 it without feeling that we have lost greatly by sub- . 
 stituting a literal representation for such a symboP. 
 
 The same spirit of reserve which led Christian 
 artists to shrink from direct representations of the 
 Lord's sufferings, kept them also from representing 
 the sufferings of His martyrs. A single painting in 
 the Cemetery of St Callixtus is supposed to portray 
 the trial of Christian confessors*. And a single gem, 
 a new-year's gift, of unusually good execution, which 
 is referred to the age of Constantine, represents an 
 actual martyrdom, perhaps that of St Agnes ^ It 
 seemed enough for the most part to represent the 
 death and deliverance of martyrs by the type of the ' 
 Three Children. 
 
 In correspondence with the reserve of early Chris- 
 tian Art we may also notice its joyousness. The 
 reserve was a natural consequence of the vivid reali- 
 sation of spiritual truth : the aim of the artist was, so 
 to speak, to let earth speak of heaven and not to con- 
 fine heaven in forms of earth. The joyousness was 
 another manifestation of the same faith. In spite of , 
 appearances the Christian believed that the victory 
 
 ^ This is not the place to enter on the history of the direct 
 representations of the Crucifixion, first ideal and then realistic. 
 The subject is of deep theological importance, but it belongs 
 wholly to a later period than that with which we are concerned 
 here. The essay of M. Grimouard de St Laurent referred to in 
 note ^, p. 320, is a valuable contribution to the history, but by 
 no means exhaustive. 
 
 * Northcote and Brownlow, i. pi. 8, ii. 173. 
 
 3 D. C. A. i. p. 719. 
 
 W. E. 21 
 
322 THE RELATION OF 
 
 ^ over sin and death was already won ; and he gave ex- 
 pression to his conviction. The characteristic words 
 * in pace ' which marked the * rest ' of the believer were 
 reflected in all the associations of death. The painful 
 literalism which deforms many of the monuments of 
 the xvth and xvith centuries found no place in the 
 vth and vith, and still less in earlier times. The 
 terrible pictures which TertuUian drew of the suffer- 
 ings of persecutors, and the scarcely less terrible de- 
 scriptions by Augustine of the sufferings of the wicked 
 were not as yet embodied by Art. No attempt was 
 made to give distinctness to the unseen world. It is 
 doubtful whether there are any representations of 
 angels earlier than the latter half of the fourth cen- 
 tury, and it seems certain that there are no repre- 
 sentations of powers of evil, other than the natural 
 serpent, till a later date. 
 
 By that time the work of early Christian Art was 
 ended. 
 
 ni. 
 
 From what has been said it will appear that the 
 relation of Christianity to Art is that which it holds 
 generally to life. It answers to a fresh birth, a trans- 
 figuration of all human powers, by the revelation of 
 their divine connexions and destiny. The pregnant 
 words of St Paul, 'old things (to. dpxaia) passed away: 
 behold, they have become new,' have an application 
 here. There is no loss, no abandonment of the past 
 triumphs of thought and insight and labour, but they 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 323 
 
 are quickened by a new power, and disclosed in a new 
 position with regard to the whole discipline of man. 
 Christian Art is the interpretation of beauty in life 
 under the light of the Incarnation. The ministry of 
 the beautiful in every shape, in sound, in form, in 
 colour, is claimed for God through man. 
 
 The realisation of this idea must necessarily be 
 slow, but it is impossible that the facts of the Incar- 
 nation and Resurrection can leave Art in the same 
 position as before. The interpretation of Nature and 
 the embodiment of thought and feeling through out- 
 ward things must assume a new character when it is 
 known not only that Creation is the expression of the 
 will of God, and in its essence 'very good,' but also 
 that in humanity it has been taken into personal 
 fellowship with the Word, through whom it was called 
 into being. Such a revelation enables the student to 
 see in the phenomena of the visible order Sacraments, 
 so to speak, of the spiritual and unseen, and free him 
 from bondage to 'the world' while he devotes himself 
 with devout enthusiasm to the representation of the 
 mysterious beauty which it contains. The Old Tes- 
 tament teaches us to regard Creation as an embodi- 
 ment of a Divine thought, marred by the self-asser- 
 tion and fall of its temporal sovereign : the New Tes- 
 tament teaches us to see it brought again potentially 
 into harmony with GrOD through the Blood of Him 
 who is its Eternal Author and Head (Col. i. 14 — 23). 
 
 The Gospel therefore seeks the service of Art in 
 the sensible proclamation of its message. The spirit 
 
 21—2 
 
324 THE RELATION OF 
 
 must clothe itself in some way, and the dress may 
 help to emphasise salient features in that which it 
 partly veils. No doubt it is true that the spirit can 
 in any case illuminate that in which it is confined; 
 but it is no less true that it has a necessary tendency 
 to fashion its own shrine, even as the soul "doth the 
 body make V 
 
 The early controversy as to the outward appear- 
 ance of the Lord illustrates this twofold truths Some 
 argued from the description of "the servant of the 
 Lord" that the Son of man had "no form or comeli- 
 ness," "no beauty that we should desire Him." And 
 others replied that it could not but be that perfect 
 holiness should become visible in perfect beauty. To 
 the spiritual eye, we feel, there would be no final an- 
 tagonism in the two statements. And Art by spiritual 
 sympathy is able to guide the spectator to a right 
 vision of that which is not naturally discerned. 
 
 1 A remarkable and somewhat obscure passage of Athena- 
 goras points to one aspect of this truth in the discussion of the 
 objects of worship in pras-Christian times. After quoting the 
 famous lines from the Melanippe of Euripides (op^s t6v vtpov 
 t6p8^ direipop aidipa...) he says rdv iikv yhp oUre ras o^a/as, 
 oTs eTiKaTTjyopeiadat to 6vona ffv/i^ipTiKeUf {/iroKcifiivas idpa... 
 TOP Se dTTO TUP ipytap (sc. ewpa), 8^ei tQp dS^Xwi* pooip to. (fxu.- 
 pSfiepa, 0.4 pos, aWipos, yijs {Legat. pro Christ, c. 5). To the true 
 spiritual eye natural phenomena reveal something of the Divine 
 character more really than any creation of the imagination of 
 man. 
 
 2 On the appearance of the Lord compare the Oxford trans- 
 lation of Tertullian, note F, pp. 252 ff. 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 325 
 
 Or, to present the same thought from the opposite 
 side, as all Art brings the ideal, in some sense, before 
 us in a material form, and preserves for earth a 
 definite place in the present order, so Christian Art 
 is characterised by the endeavour to present "in many 
 parts and in many fashions " that view of Creation 
 wherein it is shewn in *' earnest expectation" "waiting 
 for the revelation of the sons of God" (Rom. viii. 19). 
 In other words Christian Art treats its subject as that 
 which has partly lost and is partly striving towards a 
 divine t3rpe, not self-complete and not an end, and 
 seeks to make clear the signs of the true character 
 and the true goal of all with which it deals. It is 
 directed not to humanity and nature in themselves, but 
 to humanity and nature as revelations of the Divine. 
 
 Such an effort is obviously of universal application. 
 Christian Art, like Christianity itself, embraces all 
 life. The inspiration of the new birth extends to 
 every human interest and faculty. Christian Art, as 
 Christian, does not differ from classical Art in range 
 of subject but in its prevailing treatment. It will 
 indeed happen again and again that "the soul na- 
 turally Christian" unconsciously fulfils its high office 
 of spiritual interpretation in classical works, but 
 Christian Art exists by and for this. And there is 
 nothing to which the office does not apply, nothing 
 in which it does not find scope for exercise. The 
 joys and sorrows and energies of men, the manifold 
 forms and varying moods of nature, all have their 
 "religious" aspect, if religion be, as it assuredly is. 
 
THE RELATION OF 
 
 the striving towards the unity of man, the world, and 
 God. Music, which is, as it were, the voice of the 
 society, and architecture which is as its vestment, 
 have in all their applications a religious power. This 
 Christianity affirms as its postulate, and by affirming 
 determines its relation to Art. 
 
 The fulfilment of this universal claim, as has been 
 already said, will be necessarily slow. The conquest 
 of life for Christ is gradual and not without reverses. 
 New forces are not subdued without a struggle, and 
 old forces, which have been subdued, not unfrequently 
 rise up again in dangerous rebellion. More than once 
 the fanatical iconoclasm of a false Judaism, and the 
 sensual nature worship of a false Hellenism, have 
 troubled the development of Christian Art. No 
 struggle indeed has been fruitless ; but even now we 
 cannot dare to say that the office of Art is frankly 
 acknowledged, or the exercise of Art spiritually disci- 
 plined. 
 
 The development of Christian Art has been 
 gradual, and it has been unequal in different bran- 
 ches. The social Arts, if I may so describe them. 
 Music and Architecture, were soon welcomed by the 
 Church and pursued in characteristic forms. It is 
 not too much to say that modern Music is a creation 
 of the Church; and the continuous and rich growth 
 of Christian architecture up to the Renaissance in 
 t3^es of varied beauty is in itself a sufficient proof of 
 the power of the Faith to call out and train the 
 highest genius in Art. The advance of painting and 
 
I 
 
 CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 327 
 
 sculpture was checked perhaps in a great degree by 
 the influence of Eastern asceticism. Both were treated 
 as subsidiary to architecture, which was preeminently 
 the Art of the Middle Ages ; but some of the single 
 statues of the xiiith century contain a promise, not yet , 
 fulfilled, of a Christian Art worthy to crown that of 
 Greece. Meanwhile a new style of painting was being 
 prepared by the illumination of manuscripts, in which 
 not only scenes and persons but small natural objects, 
 flowers and insects, were treated with the utmost 
 tenderness and care. Here again the Renaissance 
 checked the direct development of the twofold pro- 
 mise over which the student lingers in admiration 
 and hope as he regards at Bruges side by side the 
 works of Van Eyck and Memling. 
 
 The forces of the Renaissance have not yet been 
 completely assimilated. The wealth of ancient mate- 
 rial then poured at once before Christian Artists 
 hindered their normal progress ; but they have moved 
 since along their proper lines and the Past contains 
 the assurance that "all things" are theirs. 
 
 So much at least the history of Christianity 
 fairly shews, that nothing which is human lies beyond 
 its range. It lays the greatest stress upon practical 
 duties, upon "the good part" of moral discipline, but 
 none the less it finds place for the satisfaction of 
 what we regard as less noble instincts. The single 
 incident recorded in the Gospels in which the Lord 
 received a costly ofiering seems to illustrate the prin- 
 ciples which hallow even the simplest gratifications of 
 
328 THE RELATION OF 
 
 sense. When Mary lavished the precious spikenard 
 over the Head and Feet of her Master, "the house," 
 St John tells us, "was filled with the odour of the 
 ointment." It was natural that the thought of the 
 Apostles should find expression by the lips of Judas. 
 "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred 
 pence and given to the poor?" "To what purpose 
 was this waste?" And the judgment was given: 
 "Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall 
 be preached in the whole world, there shall also this 
 that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of 
 her." The fragrance was most transitory, but it was 
 diffusive: the waste was most complete, but it gave 
 clear witness of love, of that highest love of which 
 the chief reward is that it should be known that its 
 object inspired the devotion of perfect sacrifice. So 
 it is with every work of Christian Art. It aims not at 
 a solitary but at a common enjoyment : it seeks to 
 make it clear that all to which it is directed has a 
 spiritual value able to command the completest ser- 
 viced 
 
 1 This is the lesson of the soul in The Palace of Art. 
 
 "Make me a cottage in the vale," she said, 
 
 "Where I may momn and pray. 
 Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 
 
 So lightly, beautifully built: 
 Perchance I may return with others there 
 
 When I have purged my guilt." 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 329 
 
 IV. 
 
 Christianity, it has been seen, claims the ministry 
 of Art in the whole field of life. What then is the 
 peculiar office of Art? It is in a word to present the 
 truth of things under the aspect of beauty, to bring 
 before us the "world as God has made it" where "all 
 is beauty." The fulfilment of this office involves the 
 exercise not only of insight but of self-control. Man 
 and nature are evidently disordered. The represen- 
 tation of all the phenomena of life would not be the 
 representation of their Divine truth. Love therefore, 
 a looking for the highest good of the whole, will guide 
 and limit the search after beauty to which Art is 
 directed. 
 
 In the imitative arts, painting and sculpture, the 
 effort to make visible the truth of God in man and 
 in nature is immediate and direct. In the creative 
 arts, music and architecture, the effort is to find an ex- 
 pression, an embodiment, harmonious with the truth 
 of things for elementary emotions and wants. Men 
 in society seek a common voice, a common home : the 
 hymn and the temple belong to the first stage of the 
 state. But in these arts there is necessarily more 
 freedom and variety than in those which are directly 
 imitative. The application of the general laws of 
 Art to them is complicated by many physical influ- 
 ences. It is best then to endeavour to determine the 
 office of Art by a consideration of the imitative arts, 
 
330 THE RELATION OF 
 
 and specially of painting, which is both richer than 
 sculpture in its effects and wider in its range. 
 
 In three most suggestive studies of painters of the 
 Renaissance Browning has marked with decisive power 
 the mission of Art, and the grounds of its failure. 
 He has not crowned the series by a portraiture of the 
 ideal artist, but it is not difficult to gather his linea- 
 ments from the sketches of the other three. In "Fra 
 Lippo Lippi" the poet vindicates the universality of 
 Art answering to the fulness of life, and yet plainly 
 indicates the peril which lies in this frank recognition 
 of "the value and significance of flesh." In "Andrea 
 del Sarto" he shews the power of faultless execution 
 neutralised by the deliberate acceptance of a poor 
 and selfish motive. In "Pictor ignotus," the loftiest 
 ideal and the fullest power of imagination and execu- 
 tion are supposed to be combined, but the artist 
 shrinks from facing a world sordid proud and unsym- 
 pathising, and buries his work in obscurity. 
 
 It would not be possible to describe the artist's 
 feeling more truly than in Lippi's words : 
 
 This world's no blot for us 
 Nor blank: it means intensely, and means good: 
 To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 
 
 So it is that for him to see the world is to see 
 
 The beauty and the wonder and the power, 
 
 The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades, 
 
 Changes, surprises — and God made them all... 
 
 ... paint any one, and count it crime 
 
 To let a truth slip. 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 331 
 
 If it be said that nature is before us, and that the 
 artist can neither surpass nor reproduce it, the answer 
 is complete : 
 
 we're made so that we love 
 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;... 
 
 ... Art was given for that; 
 God uses us to help each other so, 
 Lending our minds out. 
 
 It is therefore faithless disloyalty to the Creator 
 to seek to "paint the souls of men" by disparaging 
 their bodies. Even if such a thing as soulless beauty 
 were possible, the devout spectator would "find the 
 soul he wants within himself, when he returns God 
 thanks." 
 
 These pregnant words describe the manifold field 
 of Art, its peculiar interpretative power, and its moral 
 eff"ect, but in connexion with a perfect, an unfallen, 
 world. They take no account of the sorrows and 
 failures which come from "what man has made of 
 man;'^ and the circumstances under which they are 
 spoken give powerful emphasis to the reality of that 
 disorder in life which imposes on Art the necessity of 
 discipline. There must indeed be no violent suppres- 
 sion of any part of true nature in the endeavour to 
 gain the highest lesson of earth, but the divine mean- 
 ing must be sought through the traces of the divine 
 ideal, so that the artist "makes new hopes shine 
 through the flesh they fray." 
 
332 THE RELATION OF 
 
 The failure of Lippi springs from a reaction 
 against conventionality. In the assertion of the 
 divine glory of Nature he overlooks the reality of 
 corruption. The failure and the success of Andrea 
 del Sarto are of a different kind. There is in him no 
 sense of an illimitable progress of Art as it "inter- 
 prets God to men." "I can do," he says, "do easily, 
 
 what I know, 
 What I see, what at bottom of my heart, 
 I wish for, if I ever wish so deep." 
 
 The last words give the clue to his position. He 
 has deliberately, irrevocably, limited his idea by an 
 unworthy passion. In earth and in heaven, as he 
 looks forward, he accepts defeat as the consequence : 
 so he chooses. He has fettered himself and strives to 
 think that "GoD laid the fetter." 
 
 But none the less he is conscious that his match- 
 less power was given him for something nobler. He 
 recognises truer greatness in pictures less perfect than 
 his own. The complete fulfilment of his design is 
 his condemnation : 
 
 a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
 Or what's a heaven for? all is silver grey, 
 Placid and perfect with my art — the curse! 
 
 He had said of the Madonna, which was but the 
 image of his wife. 
 
 It is the thing, Love! so such things should be — 
 
 but yet looking back to the early and unsullied days 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 333 
 
 he thinks, addressing Lucrezia, how he 
 
 could paint 
 One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face, 
 Not your's this time! 
 
 The artist has need of discipline : he has need of 
 devotion to an unattainable ideal : he has need also 
 of un-sel£regarding courage. The pathos of earthly 
 passion in the confession of Andrea is less touching 
 than the self-effacement of "the unknown painter," 
 who, conscious of power and purpose, keenly alive to 
 the joy of triumphs which he might secure, yet 
 shrinks from the cold hard criticism of the crowd, "as 
 from the soldiery a nun," and chooses for his works 
 silent unnoticed decay. He has failed to acknowledge 
 the reality of his mission. The right question for 
 him was not how men would judge him, whether 
 "their praise would hold its worth," but whether he 
 had a trust to discharge, different from that mono- 
 tonous task which he took to himself, painting 
 
 ...the same series, Virgin, Babe and Saint, 
 With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard. 
 
 It might have been that "merchants would have 
 trafficked in his heart;" but they could not have 
 disguised the heart's teaching. It might have been 
 that his pictures would have lived with those who 
 
 count them for garniture and household-stuff, 
 
 but no dull eye could have extinguished the light of 
 his interpretation of life. The work of the artist is a 
 
834 THE RELATION OF 
 
 battle, not without loss and suffering, and he must 
 bear its sorrows, just as he must exercise the patient 
 self-control of one who has to recover an image partly 
 marred and defaced, and to keep in vigorous activity 
 his loftiest aspiration. 
 
 All nature, aU life, so far as it can be presented 
 under the form of beauty, is the field of Art. But 
 the beauty which is the aim of Christian Art is 
 referred to a Divine ideal. It is not "of the world," 
 as finding its source or its final measure there, but 
 "of the Father," as corresponding to an unseen truth. 
 The visible to the Christian eye is in every part a 
 revelation of the invisible. The artist, like the poet, 
 sees the infinite in things, and, under the conditions 
 of his works, suggests it. 
 
 So far the artist's pursuit of beauty is limited. 
 The boundaries within which he is confined will not 
 always be the same, but they will always have the 
 same relation to moral discipline. They will corre- 
 spond with the circumstances of the time. And the 
 discipline of sense has a positive and not only a 
 negative value. It brings into healthy action a power 
 of goodness which a rigid asceticism keeps unused 
 and tends to destroy. In this way Christianity is 
 able to give back, as has been already indicated, 
 what was lost by the corruption of the old Aryan 
 passion for Nature. AU that was at first referred 
 to limited divinities is shewn to be essentially an 
 expression of one Divine Will. The spiritual signs 
 may be greatly obscured:- they may not be in everj' 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 335 
 
 case distinctly discoverable ; but the assurance of the 
 significance and purpose of the whole cannot but 
 illuminate the study of every part. 
 
 And while the field of Christian Art is in one 
 sense limited by the recognition of a spiritual destiny 
 of all its fruits, it is, in another sense, unlimited. The 
 understanding of Nature is deepened and enlarged 
 with the progress of life. Every discovery as to the 
 history of creation, sooner or later, places new forces 
 in the artist's hands. It may be some detail as to 
 the formation of rocks, some law as to the arrange- 
 ment of leaves and branches, some phenomenon of 
 light or vapour, which has been more firmly seized; 
 and shortly the painter's interpretation of the land- 
 scape will offer a fuller truth. The instructed eye 
 will discern the importance of some minute effect and 
 the artistic instinct will know how to convey it to the 
 ordinary spectator \ 
 
 For the artist has both to interpret and to em- 
 body. He has to gain the ideal of his subject, and 
 then he has to present it in an intelligible shape. He 
 has to give the right effect and to call out the right 
 feeling. He has, as it were, to enter within the veil, 
 and coming forth again to declare his heavenly visions 
 
 1 When the Turner Collection was first exhibited at Marl- 
 borough-House I remember examining a sketch-book which con- 
 tained some studies of laurel bushes. At the side was a note 
 to the following effect: "N.B. The under-side of a laurel-leaf 
 does not shine." It would be interesting to know how Turner 
 conveyed the effect which he noticed. 
 
336 THE RELATION OP 
 
 to men. He is not a mirror but a prophet. The 
 work of the photographer may help him, but it in no 
 sense expresses his aim, which is not reproduction 
 but translation. He has abdicated the office of an 
 artist who simply repeats for the mass of men what 
 they see themselves. The artist bids them behold 
 the ideal as it is his privilege to realise it. He 
 strives to make clear to others what his keener 
 sensibility and penetrating insight have made visible 
 to him. There is, as in every true poem, an element 
 of infinity in his works. They suggest something 
 beyond that which they directly present: something 
 to be looked for, and felt after, thoughts which they 
 quicken but do not satisfy. So it is that 
 Art may tell a truth 
 
 Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, 
 
 Nor wrong the thought. 
 
 This consideration places in a true light the 
 danger of the popular realism in Art. There is a 
 charm, no doubt, in being enabled to see some scene 
 far removed from us in time or place as it would 
 have presented itself to an ordinary observer ; but 
 exactly in proportion to the grandeur of the sub- 
 ject such a superficial portraiture is likely to be mis- 
 leading. The spectator is tempted to rest in that 
 which he understands at once ; and the loftier though 
 vague impression which he had before is lost and not 
 assisted by the external details which profess to give 
 the literal truth. Or, to put the truth in another 
 light : the divine act was fitted to convey the divine 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 337 
 
 meaning at the time of its occurrence, in relation to 
 those who witnessed it, but a realistic representation 
 could not give the same impression to a different age. 
 
 This is signally the case with scenes in the Gospel 
 History. The early Church by a right instinct re- 
 frained from seeking any direct representation of the 
 Lord. It was felt that the realistic treatment of His 
 Person could not but endanger the living sense of the 
 Majesty which the Church had learnt to recognise. 
 By no effort could the spectator in a later age place 
 himself in the position of the disciples before the 
 Passion and the Ascension. The exact reproduction, 
 if it were possible, of what met their eyes would not 
 produce on him the effect which they experienced. 
 The scene would require artistic interpretation in 
 order that the idea might be preserved. 
 
 A great artist can alone determine what the law of 
 interpretation must be, and even then he will not him- 
 self always obey it. Two illustrations taken from the 
 commonest of sacred subjects, the Madonna and the 
 Crucifixion, may serve to bring out the thought which 
 I wis)i to emphasise. In the Madonna delta Seggiola 
 Raflfaelle has given an exquisite natural group of a 
 Mother and Child, overflowing with human tender- 
 ness, affection and proud joy, and we look no further : 
 in the Madonna di San Sisto he has rendered the 
 idea of divine motherhood and divine Son ship in 
 intelligible forms. No one can rest in the individual , 
 figures. The tremulous fulness of emotion in the face 
 of the Mother, the intense far-reaching gaze of the 
 w. E. 22 
 
338 THE RELATION OF 
 
 Child, constrain the beholder to look beyond. For 
 him too the curtain is drawn aside : he feels that there 
 is a fellowship of earth with heaven and of heaven 
 with earth, and understands the meaning of the 
 attendant Saints who express the different aspects of 
 this double communion. It may well be doubted 
 whether the Crucifixion is in any immediate shape a 
 proper subject for Art. The image of the Dead 
 Christ is foreign to Scripture. Even in the record of 
 the Passion Death is swallowed up in Victory. And 
 the material representation of the superficial appear- 
 ance of that which St John shews to have been life 
 through death defines and perpetuates thoughts 
 foreign to the Gospel. The Crucifixion by Velasquez 
 with its overwhelming pathos and darkness of desola- 
 tion, will shew what I mean\ In every trait it 
 presents the thought of hopeless defeat^. No early 
 Christian would have dared to look upon it. Very 
 difi'erent is one of the earliest examples of the treat- 
 ment of the Crucifixion on the Sigmaringen Crucifix ^ 
 In that life, vigour, beauty, grace, the open eye, and 
 the freely outstretched arm, suggest the idea of loving 
 and victorious sacrifice crowned with its reward. This 
 
 1 A small engraving is given in Mrs Jameson's History of 
 the Lord, ii. 205. 
 
 2 The Lord's words in the Gospel narrative speak of the 
 uttermost conflict as over before the physical Death : tpa ri fie 
 eyKariXiires ; 
 
 3 Mrs Jameson's History of the Lord, ii. 330. It is, I fear, 
 doubtful whether the youthful figure is correctly given. 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 339 
 
 is an embodiment of the idea : the picture of Velas- 
 quez is a realisation of the appearance of the Passion. 
 
 If the view of Art which has been given is correct, 
 its primary destination is public and not private, and 
 it culminates in worship. Neither a great picture 
 nor a great poem can be for a single possessor. So it 
 has been at all times when Art has risen to its highest 
 triumphs. But as an element of worship Art must be 
 seen to be distinctly ministerial. In every form, 
 music, painting, sculpture, it must point beyond the 
 immediate effect. As long as it suggests the aspira- 
 tion ^'to Thy great glory, Lord," it is not only 
 an offering, but a guide and a support. When it 
 appears to be an end idolatry has begun. 
 
 The artist, we have seen, must use every fresh 
 help and discovery : he must make evident new 
 thoughts or illuminate thoughts which are imper- 
 fectly understood. It is clear therefore that he can- 
 not follow one constant method in the fulfilment of 
 his office. His work will be accomplished according 
 to the conditions of his time. He will choose that 
 mode of presenting the truth that he sees which is on 
 the whole likely to be most effective. As a teacher, 
 with a limited and yet most noble range of subjects, . 
 he will consider how he can best serve his age. No- 
 thing short of this conviction can overcome the 
 influence of fashion, or sustain that resolute purpose 
 which bears temporary failure. 
 
 I have touched only upon the highest forms of 
 creative Art. The principles by which these are 
 
 22—2 
 
340 THE RELATION OF 
 
 animated apply also with necessary modifications to 
 the humbler types of decorative art. The problems 
 which these raise are in many respects more difficult 
 and of wider application than those connected with 
 the artistic interpretation of nature and life. It is no 
 aftectation to speak of the moral influence of colours 
 and shapes in the instruments and accessories of 
 everyday life. Here also there is room for a manifold 
 apprehension and embodiment of truth. If once 
 thoughtfulness of workmanship could be placed in 
 general estimation before richness of material, a legi- 
 timate and fruitful field would be opened for domestic 
 Art. When Greek Art was greatest it was consecrated 
 to public use ; and one chief danger of modem society 
 is lest the growth of private wealth should lead to the 
 diversion of the highest artistic power from the com- 
 mon service, and at the same time leave the appro- 
 priate labours of domestic art unencouraged. 
 
 This however is not the place to pursue the ques- 
 tions which are thus opened for inquiry. It is enough 
 to have shewn that Christian Art is a necessary 
 expression of the Christian Faith; that the early 
 antagonism of Christianity to ancient Art was an 
 antagonism to the idolatry, the limited earthliness, 
 of which it was the most complete expression ; that 
 from the first beginnings of the Faith there were 
 strivings after an Art which should interpret nature 
 and life as a revelation of God, leading the student 
 through the most patient and reverent regard of 
 phenomena to the contemplation of the eternal ; that 
 
CHRISTIANITY TO ART. 341 
 
 the consecration of Art, involved in the facts of the 
 Christian Creed, limits the artist only in the sense 
 that a clear exhibition of the ideal saves the beholder 
 from following wayward and selfish fancies. 
 
 The works of the greatest masters of the Middle 
 Ages, of the greatest masters of the Renaissance, and 
 the statement holds good still, shew how constantly 
 foreign elements, fragments of the old life, not wholly 
 transfigured, intrude themselves into that which as 
 a whole belongs to a new order. Here perhaps traces 
 of sensuousness, there traces of unlicensed satire, 
 reveal disturbing forces in the artist's soul which are 
 yet powerful enough to make themselves felt. But it 
 is true, I believe, without exception that the noblest 
 works, those on which we look with the deepest 
 gratitude, drawing from them new powers of spiritual 
 vision, new convictions of a spiritual world about us, 
 are those which are most Christian. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 
 
 pHRISTIANITY claims to be a Gospel; to offer to 
 ^^ men that which answers to their needs; to dis- 
 close in a form available for life eternal truths which 
 we are so constituted as to recognise, though we 
 could not of ourselves discover them. Its verification 
 therefore will lie in its essential character; in its 
 fitness to fulfil this work, which is as broad as the 
 world. And it may be worth while, in the presence 
 of much apparent misunderstanding, to endeavour to 
 indicate the points which must be noticed in any fair 
 estimate of its relations to modern thought. 
 
 I assume that men are born religious. By this I 
 mean that they are so constituted as to seek to place 
 themselves in harmony with the powers without 
 them, and to establish a harmony between the forces 
 which are revealed in their own persons. The effort 
 to obtain this twofold harmony will be directed by 
 many partial interpretations of the phenomena of 
 existence. The results of experience gained during 
 the life of humanity and (during the life of the indi- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AS THE ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 343 
 
 vidual present the elements with which religion has 
 to deal in various lights. Children and childlike 
 races have of necessity different conceptions of self 
 and the world and God — the final elements of religion 
 — from those which belong to a maturer age or to a 
 later period of national growth. The religion which 
 is able to bring peace at one stage of human develop- 
 ment may be wholly ineffective at another. 
 
 When, therefore, we look for a religion which 
 shall perfectly satisfy the needs of men, we look for 
 one which is essentially fitted for the support of man 
 as man; which is able to follow him through the 
 changing circumstances of personal and social growth, 
 able to bring from itself new resources for new re- 
 quirements, able to reveal thoughts out of many 
 hearts, and to meet them with answers of wider 
 knowledge. Such a religion must have a vital energy 
 commensurate with all conceivable human progress. 
 
 And yet again : the perfect religion must not only 
 have the power of dealing with man and men 
 throughout the whole course of their manifold deve- 
 lopment; it must have the power of dealing with the 
 complete fulness of life at any moment. It must 
 have the present power of dealing with the problems 
 of our being and of our destiny in relation to thought 
 and to action and to feeling. The Truth which reli- 
 gion embodies must take account of the conditions of 
 existence, and define the way of conduct, and quicken 
 the energy of enterprise. Such Truth is not for 
 speculation only : so far it is the subject of Philoso- 
 
344 CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 
 phy. It is not for discipline only : so far it is the 
 subject of Ethics. It is not for embodiment only: 
 so far it is the subject of Art. Religion in its com- 
 pleteness is the harmony of these three, of Philoso- 
 phy, Ethics, and Art, blended into one by a spiritual 
 force, by a consecration at once personal and absolute. 
 The direction of Philosophy, to express the thought 
 somewhat differently, is theoretic, and its end is the 
 true, as the word is applied to knowledge ; the direc- 
 tion of Ethics is practical, and its end is the good; 
 the direction of Art is representative, and its end is 
 the beautiful. Religion includes these several ends, 
 but adds to them that in which they find their con- 
 summation, the holy. The holy brings an infinite 
 sanction to that which is otherwise finite and relative. 
 It expresses not only a complete inward peace, but 
 also an essential fellowship with God. 
 
 Every religion, even the most primitive, will ex- 
 hibit these three aims, these three elements, at least 
 in a rudimentary form : the perfect religion will 
 exhibit them in complete adjustment and efiicacy. A 
 perfect religion — a religion which offers a complete 
 satisfaction to the religious wants of man — must (to 
 repeat briefly what has been said) be able to meet the 
 religious wants of the individual, the society, the 
 race, in the complete course of their development and 
 in the manifold intensity of each separate human 
 faculty. 
 
 This being so, I contend that the faith in Christ, 
 born, crucified, risen, ascended, forms the basis of 
 
ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 345 
 
 this perfect religion ; that it is able, in virtue of its 
 essential character, to bring peace in view of the pro- 
 blems of life under every variety of circumstance and 
 character — to illuminate, to develop, and to inspire 
 every human faculty. My contention rests upon the 
 recognition of the two marks by which Christianity is 
 distinguished from - every other religion. It is abso- 
 lute and it is historical. 
 
 On the one side, Christianity is not confined by 
 any limits of place, or time, or faculty, or object. It 
 reaches to the whole sum of being and to the whole 
 of each separate existence. On the other side, it 
 offers its revelation in facts which are an actual 
 part of human experience, so that the peculiar 
 teaching which it brings as to the nature and rela- 
 tions of God and man and the world is simply the 
 interpretation of events in the life of men and in the 
 life of One who was truly Man. It is not a theory, a 
 splendid guess, but a proclamation of facts. 
 
 These, I repeat, are its original, its unalterable 
 claims. Christianity is absolute. It claims, as it 
 Was set forth by the Apostles, though the grandeur 
 of the claim was soon obscured, to reach aU men, 
 all time, all creation; it claims to effect the per- 
 fection no less than the redemption of finite being ; 
 it claims to bring a perfect unity of humanity with- 
 out destroying the personality of any one man; it 
 claims to deal with all that is external as well as 
 with all that is internal, with matter as well as with 
 spirit, with the physical universe as well as with the 
 
346 CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 
 moral universe; it claims to realise a re-creation co- 
 extensive with creation ; it claims to present Him 
 who was the Maker of the world as the Heir of all 
 things ; it claims to complete the cycle of existence, 
 and shew how all things come from God and go to 
 God. 
 
 Christianity is absolute : it is also historical. It is 
 historical, not simply in the sense in which (for 
 example) Mohammedanism is historical, because the 
 facts connected with the origin and growth of this 
 religion, with the personality and life of the Founder, 
 with the experience and growth of His doctrine, can 
 be traced in documents which are adequate to assure 
 belief; but in a far different sense also. It is histo- 
 rical in its antecedents, in its realisation, in itself; it 
 is historical as crowning a long period of religious 
 training, which was accomplished under the influence 
 of divine facts ; it is historical as brought out in all 
 its fulness from age to age in an outward society b)'" 
 the action of the Spirit of God; but, above aU, and 
 most characteristically, it is historical, because the 
 revelation which it brings is of life and in life. The 
 history of Christ is the Gospel in its light and in its 
 power. His teaching is Himself, and nothing apart 
 from Himself; what He is and what He does. The 
 earliest creed — the creed of our baptism — is the afiir- 
 mation of facts which include all doctrine. 
 
 Dogmatic systems may change, and have changed 
 so far as they reflect transitory phases of speculative 
 thought, but the primitive Gospel is unchangeable as 
 
ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 347 
 
 it is inexhaustible. There can be no addition to it. 
 It contains in itself all that will be slowly wrought 
 out in -thought and deed until the consummation. 
 
 In this sense, Christianity is the only historical 
 religion. The message which it proclaims is wholly 
 unique. Christ said, / am — not I declare, or I lay 
 open, or I point to, but / am — the Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life. 
 
 At first sight, the two characteristics of Christia- 
 nity which I have laid down, that it is absolute and 
 that it is historical, appear to be inconsistent. It 
 may seem that a revelation which is not only given 
 under particular conditions of time and place, but 
 also expressed under those conditions, must be limited ; 
 that the influence and the meaning of a life, however 
 powerful and sympathetic, must grow fainter in the 
 course of centuries, and cannot extend, even if it has 
 the capacity for extending, through all being. 
 
 It is a partial and suggestive answer to such 
 objections that, since we have to consider a final 
 revelation given to man, to man as he is in the fulness 
 of his being, such a revelation must come through a 
 true human life ; and further, that what is off'ered to 
 us in a representative life has contact with all life, as 
 the one life is unfolded in its manifold richness ; that 
 nothing in the whole realm of Nature can be alien 
 from man, who gathers in himself an epitome of 
 Nature ; that nothing, therefore, is incapable of 
 sharing in the consecration and transfigurement by 
 which he is ennobled. 
 
348 CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 
 But the complete answer lies in the personality of 
 Him who lived Man among men. The Word, we 
 read, became flesh. Here lies the secret of the power 
 of that one true life. The Son of man was also Son 
 of God. The Incarnation and the Resurrection recon- 
 cile the two characteristics of our faith — they esta- 
 blish the right of Christianity to be called historical, 
 they establish its right to be called absolute. 
 
 We are not now concerned with the "evidence" 
 for these transcendent facts, but I may make one 
 remark which is of considerable importance. There 
 cannot possibly be any antecedent objection to them. 
 They are as unique as the universe itself. There is 
 no standard of experience to which we can bring 
 them, and pronounce in virtue of the comparison that 
 they are "preternatural." 
 
 And it may be added that the antithesis of the 
 finite and the infinite which they combine underlies 
 all thought, all life. The antithesis exists ; conscious- 
 ness witnesses to it ; Christianity meets it, announc- 
 ing the vital union of the two terms as the funda- 
 mental Gospel, not as a speculation but as a twofold 
 fact. By the Incarnation it gives permanent reality 
 to human knowledge ; by the Resurrection it gives 
 permanent reality to human life. 
 
 Thus, the Incarnation and the Resurrection fur- 
 nish the basis for a religion which is intensely human, 
 and which, at every moment, introduces the infinite 
 and the unseen into a vital connexion with the things 
 of earth — a religion which illuminates the dark clouds 
 
ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 349 
 
 that lie over our work, which offers an ideal wherein 
 we can recognise the fulfilment of the destiny of 
 humanity, which supplies an inspiration of power 
 flowing from a divine fellowship — a religion, in other 
 words, which is a complete satisfaction of the religious 
 needs of man. 
 
 Let me endeavour to make these statements a 
 little clearer in detail. Men, as we have seen — men, 
 as born for religion — are born for knowing, for feel- 
 ing, for acting ; they need light, they need an ideal, 
 they need power. And (this is my contention) the 
 historic Gospel brings the light, the ideal, the power 
 which they need — the light, the ideal, the power 
 which we ourselves need in this crisis of our trial. 
 
 1. Men need light. No one can look either 
 within or without and fail to see clear marks, not 
 only of imperfection, but of failure. No one can 
 study the pictures which great writers draw of the 
 destiny of humanity, and not feel that the features 
 which he recognises have been grievously marred. 
 There is a terrible contrast between man's power and 
 man's achievements ; there is a terrible contrast be- 
 tween that which (as we are made) we feel must be 
 the purpose of Creation and the facts by which we are 
 encountered. Viewed in themselves, the phenomena 
 which suggest a design of love in the order of the 
 world issue in deeper sorrow. Naturally — and the 
 words have a manifold application — death closes all. 
 There is not, I think, a more impressive image in 
 literature than that in which Dr Newman describes 
 
350 CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 
 the first effect of the world upon the man who looks 
 there for tokens of the presence of God. "It is," he 
 says, "as if I looked in a mirror and saw no reflection 
 of my own face." This is the first, the natural effect. 
 
 But the record of the life of Christ, the thought 
 of the presence of Christ, changes all. Christ, as He 
 lived and lives, justifies our highest hope. He opens 
 depths of vision below the surface of things. He 
 transforms suffering ; He shews us the highest aspi- 
 rations of our being satisfied through a way of sorrow. 
 He redresses the superficial inequalities of life by 
 revealing its eternal glory. He enables us to under- 
 stand how, being what we are, every grief and every 
 strain of sensibility can be made in Him contributory 
 to the working out of our common destiny. 
 
 Such reflections have a social, and they have also 
 an individual, application. It was, as we read in St 
 Paul, the good pleasure of God " to sum up all things 
 in Christ" and ^'through Him to reconcile all things 
 to Himself.'^" 
 
 This purpose is, in potency, already accomplished 
 in Him. In one sense all is done already ; in another 
 sense, all has still to be realised. The fact at least of 
 a fellowship of earth and heaven is given us in life ; 
 and we can all strive towards the sense of the new 
 unity. Under this broadest aspect, the fact of Re- 
 demption carries us back to the fact of Creation, and 
 we are enabled to see how the will of (jOD is wrought 
 out in spite of man's self-assertion. 
 
 We may not indeed be- able to penetrate very far 
 
ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 351 
 
 into these great mysteries. "We shrink rightly from 
 confining, by any theory in the terms of our present 
 thoughts, truths which pass into another order. But 
 the vision which we can gain is sufficient to change the 
 whole aspect of life. Let us once feel that the an- 
 guish of creation is indeed the travail-pain of a new 
 birth, as Scripture teaches, and we shall be strength- 
 ened to bear and to wait. And, as I said, these 
 larger sorrows — sorrows which form a heavy burden 
 to many of us — find a counterpart in the single soul. 
 And here again light is thrown upon the discipline of 
 personal sufiering through the work of Christ. That 
 reveals to us the love from which it flows, and the 
 perfection to which it is able to minister. Again, we 
 may not be able to see far into the application of 
 these lessons ; but it becomes intelligible that if the 
 virtue of Christ's life and death was made available 
 for man through suffering — if it was through suffer- 
 ing that He fulfilled the destiny of man fallen — the 
 appropriation of that which He has gained may be 
 carried into effect through the same law. The mys- 
 tery of the forgiveness of sins is fulfilled, and we can 
 bear cheerfully the temporal consequences of sin. 
 
 In both respects, in regard to personal sufferings 
 and to social sufferings, it is enough to remember that 
 He who was the "Man of sorrows," He who ''was a 
 propitiation for our sins, and not for ottrs only, hut also 
 for th& whole world" first revealed the Fatherhood 
 of God. 
 
 These considerations, which I can only indicate 
 
352 CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 
 in the faintest outline, prove our first point. We 
 need light, as conscious of failure in ourselves, sen- 
 sible of failure around us ; and Christianity takes 
 the fullest account of this great gloom and illumi- 
 nates it. 
 
 2. But in the next place, as men — as men in our 
 essential constitution, and not only as fallen men — 
 we need an ideal which may move us to effort. Now 
 here, up to a certain point, there is no difference of 
 opinion. 
 
 It is generally agreed that the type of character 
 presented to us in the Gospels is the highest which 
 we can fashion. The Person of the Lord meets us at 
 every point in our strivings, and discloses something 
 to call out in us loftier endeavour. In Him we can 
 discover in the most complete harmony all the excel- 
 lences which are divided not unequally between man 
 and woman. In Him we can recognise the gift which 
 has been entrusted to each one of us severally, used 
 in its true relation to the other endowments of hu- 
 manity. He enters into the fulness of life, and makes, 
 known the value of each detail of life. 
 
 And what He is for us. He is for all men, and for 
 all time. There is nothing in the ideal which He 
 offers which belongs to any particular age, or class, 
 or nation. He stands above all and unites all. That 
 which was local or transitory in the circumstances 
 under which He lived, in the controversies of rival 
 sects, in the struggles of patriotism, in the isolation 
 of religious pride, leave no colour in His character. 
 
ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 353 
 
 All that is abiding, all that is human, is there without 
 admixture, in that eternal energy which man's heart 
 can recognise in its time of trial. 
 
 So it is that the Person of the Lord satisfies the 
 requirement of growth which belongs to the religious 
 nature of man. Our sense of His perfections grows 
 with our own moral advance. We see more of His 
 beauty as our power of vision is disciplined and 
 purified. The slow unfolding of life enables us to 
 discern new meaning in His presence. In His hu- 
 manity is included whatever belongs to the consum- 
 mation of the individual and of the race, not only in 
 one stage but in all stages of progress, not only in 
 regard to some endowments but in regard to the whole 
 inheritance of our nature enlarged by the most vigor- 
 ous use while the world lasts. We, in our weakness 
 and littleness, confine our thoughts from generation 
 to generation, now to this fragment of His fulness 
 and now to that; but it is, I believe, true without 
 exception in every realm of man's activity, true in 
 action, true in literature, true in art, that the works 
 which receive the most lasting homage of the soul are 
 those which are most Christian, and that it is in each 
 the Christian element, the element which answers to 
 the fact of the Incarnation, to the fellowship of God 
 with man as an accomplished reality of the present 
 order, which attracts and holds our reverence. In 
 the essence of things it cannot be otherwise. Our 
 infirmity alone enfeebles the eff'ect of the truth which 
 we have to embody. 
 
 w. E. 23 
 
354 CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 
 3. "Our infirmity." Here again the historic 
 Gospel comes to our aid. We need light; and, as we 
 have seen, it makes a sun to rise upon our darkness. 
 We need an ideal ; and it lifts up before us a Person 
 in whom, under every variety of circumstance, we 
 recognise the divine likeness for which we were 
 created. We also need power. It is true that we 
 instinctively acknowledge the ideal in Christ as thai 
 which interprets perfectly our own aspirations. Nc 
 accumulation of failures can destroy the sense of oui 
 destiny. But alone, in ourselves, as we look bad 
 sadly, we confess that we have no new resource o] 
 strength for the future, as we have no ability to undc 
 the past. The loftiest souls apart from Christ recog 
 nise that they were made for an end which "natu- 
 rally" is unattainable. They do homage (for example 
 to a purity which they personally dishonour. This 
 need brings into prominence the supreme character 
 istic of the faith. Christ meets the acknowledgmem 
 of individual helplessness with the offer of fellowship 
 He reveals union with Himself, union with God, anc 
 union with man in Him, as the spring of power, ant 
 the inspiration of effort. The knowledge which flows 
 from the vision of the world as He has disclosed it is 
 not simply for speculation : the glory of the image o 
 man which He shews is not for contemplative admira 
 tion. Both are intensely practical. Both tend directlj 
 to kindle and support love in and through Him ; anc 
 love, which is the transfigurement of pain, is alsc 
 strength for action and motive for action. 
 
ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 355 
 
 In this way believing in Christ — believing in Christ, 
 and not merely believing Christ — brings into exercise 
 the deepest human feelings. It has been excellently 
 laid down by one who was not of ns, that "the solu- 
 tion of the problem of essence, of the questions, 
 Whence? What? and Whither? must be in a life and 
 not in a book." For the solution which is to sway 
 life must have been already shewn in its sovereign 
 efficacy. And more than this, it must have been 
 shewn to have potentially a universal and not only a 
 singular application. And this is exactly what the 
 Gospel brings home to us. He who said, ''I came 
 forth from the Father, and am come into the world ; 
 again I leave the world, and go to the Father," illu- 
 minated the words by actions which made known the 
 divine original and the divine destiny of man. The 
 Son of man did not separate Himself from those whom 
 He was not ashamed to call brethren. He bade, and 
 bids, them find in His humanity — His "flesh and 
 blood " — the support of their own humanity. In His 
 life, for our sakes, the heavenly interpreted the earthly. 
 He called out, and He still calls out in us, as we 
 dwell upon the records of the Gospel, the response of 
 that which is indeed kindred to Himself, of that which 
 becomes one with Himself. 
 
 The sympathy which is thus awakened by Christ 
 makes known to the soul its latent capacities. Again 
 and again our own experience startles us with unex- 
 pected welcomes to the highest thoughts and claims. 
 Even in ordinary life contact with nobler natures 
 
 23—2 
 
356 CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 
 arouses the feeling of unused power, and quickens 
 the consciousness of responsibility. And when union 
 with the Son of man, the Son of God, is the basis of 
 our religion, all these natural influences produce the 
 highest conceivable effect. We each draw from fel- 
 Jowship with the perfect life that which our little life 
 requires for its sustenance and growth. 
 
 Such considerations enable us to understand a 
 little better than we commonly do those two words of 
 St Paul, " in Christ" which form an implicit creed. 
 We come to see that they correspond with the fact of 
 a larger life to which our lives are contributory, a life 
 which reaches potentially to all redeemed beings, a 
 life which takes into itself all that is harmonious 
 with its character, and conveys of its infinite wealth 
 to each fragment included in its organization. 
 
 The revelation which places us in direct connexion 
 with unfailing power supplies us also with a sovereign 
 motive. When we accept such a revelation, the same 
 instinct which constrains us to labour for ourselves 
 constrains us to labour for others. To labour for 
 others is, we then see in literal truth, to labour for 
 ourselves. The separate consciousness of the indi- 
 vidual parts of the body of Christ does not modify 
 their inter-dependence, but gives a new meaning to 
 the social destination of work. There is, we know, 
 no pain which the devotion of love is unable to trans- 
 figure ; and it is this devotion which the Christian 
 conception of humanity and nature is essentially 
 fitted to stir and to deepen. Not by accident, not 
 
 :m 
 
ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 357 
 
 by a remote or precarious deduction, but directly, 
 in its simplest announcement, the Gospel proclaims 
 that we are members one of another, and that all 
 creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of 
 God. 
 
 And it is obvious that this belief in the solidarity 
 of life, if once we could give it vivid distinctness, is 
 able — perhaps is alone able — to deal with the evils 
 which spring from selfishness. It enables us to esti- 
 mate rightly the burden of poverty and the heavier 
 burden of wealth, when we take account of the con- 
 ditions under which the one life is fulfilled in many 
 parts. It quickens that keen sense of responsibility 
 to God which best regulates the use of large means ; 
 and it quickens that conviction of Divine fellowship 
 which brings dignity even to indigence. And mean- 
 while it delivers us from the bondage of material 
 standards, when it makes known all that is of the 
 earth as that through which the spiritual is brought 
 within our reach. 
 
 If now I have succeeded in any degree in marking 
 clearly the lines of thought which I have wished to 
 trace, we shall see that the capacity of Christianity 
 to illuminate, to guide, to inspire, belongs to its very 
 nature ; that we cannot hold our Faith without find- 
 ing in it light to dispel the heaviest clouds of life, an 
 ideal to keep before us the divine purpose of creation, 
 power to support us in our strivings to fulfil God's 
 will ; that, when it fails us in theory or in deed, we 
 have so far limited or misunderstood or misused it. 
 
358 CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 
 In other words we shall see that Christianity is the 
 perfect religion. 
 
 It gives stability and energy to thought, and feel- 
 ing, and action. Nothing can be without its scope, 
 but to all things transitory it adds the element of the 
 infinite. 
 
 It supplies the foundation of perfect freedom in 
 absolute self-devotion. It ennobles dependence as 
 the correlative of social fellowship. It presents the 
 total aspect of being not as a conflict but as a unity. 
 Politicians aim at "the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number," but we have a surer and wider 
 l)rinciple for our guidance, that the happiness of the 
 whole is the happiness of all. 
 
 But it will be said that the theoretic claims of 
 Christianity are paralleled by the claims of other re- 
 ligions ; that they are disproved by the crimes of 
 Christians. I notice the objections only to point out 
 that they do, in fact, if fairly examined, confirm my 
 position with overwhelming force. If it could be 
 shewn that the vital force of any other great religion 
 was alien from Christianity ; if it could be shewn that 
 the crimes of Christians arose from that which is of 
 the essence of their Faith, then the objections would 
 be weighty ; but if, on the other hand, it is obvious 
 that the religions of the world each touched the hearts 
 of men by a power of order or devotion, of sympathy 
 with nature or of surrender to a supreme King, then 
 each prae-Christian religion becomes a witness to the 
 Faith which combines these manifold powers in a final 
 
ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 859 
 
 unity ; if it is obvious that the excesses of Christian 
 men and Christian States are in defiance of the mes- 
 sage of the Incarnation, then they only prove that 
 the approach to the ideal is slow, and that it rises 
 above attainment to condemn and to encourage. So 
 it is that the gathered experience of men bears testi- 
 mony to the truth of Christianity, both when it 
 records anticipations and when it records corruptions 
 of its teaching. In the one case it shews the Gospel 
 as satisfying the cravings of men, and in the other as 
 judging their self-will and selfishness. 
 
 And at the same time the wide, frank questionings 
 of history which lead to these results, the attempts, 
 however imperfect, to bring our Faith into actual 
 contact with the most varied facts of life, reveal its 
 breadth and grandeur and vitality. We are all tempt- 
 ed to limit our conception of its efficacy by our per- 
 sonal requirements. We forget that it is directed not 
 only to the redemption of man as fallen, but to the 
 consummation of man as created. It requires a 
 serious effort to look beyond ourselves, our nature, 
 our age, and recognise how it meets wants which we 
 have not felt, how it disciplines powers with which we 
 are not endowed, how it supplements our offerings by 
 the fruits of other service. The eifort is difficult, but 
 it brings for its reward a calm assurance which is as 
 firm as the far-reaching foundation of human experi- 
 ence on which it rests. 
 
 So it may well be that some of the lines of thought 
 which I have endeavoured to indicate - only to indi- 
 
360 CHRISTIANITY AS THE 
 
 cate — may be strange; but I know that they are 
 worth following. I know that they are able to bring 
 home to us with irresistible force the conviction that 
 Christianity has a message for us ; that the Holy 
 Spirit is speaking to us with a voice which we can 
 interpret ; that the currents of action and thought by 
 which we are swayed can be so guided as to generate 
 a divine light; that the conceptions of the depend- 
 ence of man upon man, and of man upon nature, of a 
 fundamental unity, underlying the progress of pheno- 
 mena, which are taking place about us, illuminate 
 mysteries of apostolic teaching ; that the theology 
 which expresses the temporal apprehension of the 
 facts of revelation advances still, as it has advanced 
 from the first, with the accumulated movement of all 
 ancillary sciences. 
 
 Such convictions restore to us the position and 
 the spirit of conquerors — the only position, the only 
 spirit which befit our Faith. "We are, we must be, as 
 believers in Christ, in the presence of a living, that is, 
 of a speaking God. Nothing, indeed, can be added 
 to the facts of the Gospel, but all history and all 
 nature is the commentary upon them. And the 
 loftiest conceptions of human destiny and human 
 duty cannot but be quickened and raised by the 
 message which reaches through the finite to the infi- 
 nite, through time to eternity: "In the beginning 
 was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
 Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh, 
 and tabernacled among us." Our imaginations are 
 
ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 361 
 
 dull and undisciplined. We can hardly for a brief 
 moment strive to realise what this Historic Gospel 
 means. Yet even so in the still silence it makes 
 itself felt. Then we confess that nothing beautiful, 
 or true, or good, which lies within the range of human 
 powers, can be outside its hallowing influence ; that it 
 calls for an expression in doctrine, and in conduct, 
 and in worship, which exercises the utmost gifts of 
 reason, and will, and feeling ; that it restores to man 
 the Divine fellowship which has been interrupted by 
 sin; that it discloses the importance of the present 
 through which the interpretation of the eternal comes 
 to us; that it confirms the value of the individual by 
 revealing his relation to a whole of limitless majesty; 
 that it off"ers a sovereign motive for seeking the help 
 of unfailing might ; that it asks, guides, sustains the 
 ministry of all life, and the ministry of every life; 
 and, therefore, that it is a complete satisfaction of the 
 religious needs of men. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE\ 
 
 rriHEE-E can, I think, be no better omen for the 
 -^ future of our lecture-room than that we should 
 first hear in it words of a former Provost through 
 whom some of the noblest thoughts of Cambridge 
 found shape and expression in an age of unparalleled 
 distress and anxiety, Benjamin Whichcote. 
 
 Whichcote was one of those men whose work is 
 their life. Such benefactors are naturally forgotten, 
 though their work lives on, if they do not find a 
 sympathetic biographer, and the only memorials oi 
 Whichcote's life which we have are the funeral ser- 
 mon of Abp. Tillotson, transcribed with a few addi- 
 tions and paraphrases by Allen, and the short but 
 careful notice prefixed by Dr Salter to Whichcote's 
 correspondence with Tuckney. But these scholars 
 witness to Whichcote's power, and a well-known pas- 
 sage of Burnet has preserved a clear if brief judgment 
 of the labours of our Provost. 
 
 1 A Lecture given at the opening of the new Lecture Boom, 
 
 King's College, Oct. 13, 1885. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 363 
 
 When describing the eiFects of the Restoration 
 upon the English clergy Burnet writes: ''with this 
 great accession of wealth [from the fines raised on 
 the Church estates] there broke in upon the Church a 
 great deal of luxury and high living on the pretence 
 of hospitality; while others made purchases and left 
 great estates, most of which we have seen melt away. 
 And with this overset of wealth and pomp, that came 
 on men in the decline of their parts and age, they 
 who were now growing into old age became lazy and 
 negligent in all the true concerns of the Church : they 
 left preaching and writing to others, while they gave 
 themselves up to ease and sloth. In all which sad 
 representation some few exceptions are to be made; 
 but so few that if a new set of men had not appeared 
 of another stamp the Church had quite lost her 
 esteem over the nation. These were generally of 
 Cambridge, formed under some divines, the chief of 
 whom were Drs Whitchcot, Cudworth, Wilkins, More, 
 and Worthington. Whitchcot was a man of rare 
 temper, very mild and obliging. He had- great credit 
 with some that had been eminent in the late times; 
 but made all the use he could of it to protect good 
 men of all persuasions. He was much for liberty 
 of conscience ; and being disgusted with the dry sys- 
 tematical way of those times, he studied to raise those 
 who conversed with him to a nobler set of thoughts, 
 and to consider religion as a seed of a deiform nature, 
 to use one of his o'wn phrases. In order to this he 
 set young students much on reading the ancient 
 
364 BENJAMIN WHIGHCOTE. 
 
 Philosophers, chiefly Plato, TuUy, and Plotin, and 
 on considering the Christian religion as a doctrine 
 sent from God, both to elevate and sweeten human 
 nature, in which he was a great example, as well as 
 a wise and kind instructor^" 
 
 Every detail of Whichcote's life which has been 
 recorded serves to confirm this estimate of his charac- 
 ter and influence and line of thought. The period 
 through which he lived made his work in every way 
 specially important. It was fitted to try to the utter- 
 most the power of calm and comprehensive modera- 
 tion. The vigour of his manhood was passed in a 
 time of revolution, in which every opinion and insti- 
 tution which had been held sacred in the past was 
 questioned or overthrown. He saw the rise of a new 
 philosophy, of a new civil constitution, of a new 
 ecclesiastical organization; and in part he saw the 
 old restored. As an undergraduate at Emmanuel he 
 might have met Milton at Christ's and Jeremy Taylor 
 at Caius. As a Fellow he was the tutor of Wallis, 
 Culverwel, John Smith, Worthington and Cradock: 
 the friend of Cud worth and More. The date of his 
 ordination by Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, coincided 
 with that of the imposition of the ship-money (1636). 
 He was appointed Provost in the year when Descartes 
 published his Principles of Philosophy (1644). He 
 was created D.D. with those friends who had taken a 
 leading part in the Westminster Assembly. His con- 
 troversy with Tuckney took place in the year of the 
 
 1 History of his own Tinie, i. 186 f., Orig. edit. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 366 
 
 battle of Worcester and the publication of Hobbes' 
 Leviathan (1656): his death in the year of the execu- 
 tion of Lord W. Russell and the Oxford declaration 
 in favour of passive obedience (1683). 
 
 Through these stirring crises of thought and action 
 Whichcote held on his way, unchanged except by 
 silent and continuous growth. 
 
 Trained, as it seems, in a Puritan family and en- 
 tered at Cambridge on the Puritan foundation of 
 Emmanuel College, he extended his sympathies from 
 the first beyond the narrow limits of the opinions of 
 those about him. "From your first coming to Cam- 
 bridge," his Emmanuel tutor Tiickney writes, "I loved 
 you, as finding you then studious and pious, and 
 very loving and observant of me." However, he goes 
 on to say, "I remember I then thought you somewhat 
 cloudy and obscure in your expressions; but I then 
 left you. Since I have heard, that when you came to 
 be lecturer in the College you in a great measure for 
 the year laid aside other studies and betook yourself 
 to Philosophy and Metaphysics \" 
 
 And Whichcote himself does not dissemble the 
 differences by which he was separated from his early 
 teachers, while he acknowledges his debt to them 
 with singular tenderness. "I have borne you rever- 
 ence," he writes to Tuckney, "beyond what you do or 
 can imagine, having in me a living and quick sense 
 of my first relation to you ; and of all men alive, I 
 have least aftected to differ from you; or to call in 
 
 1 Correspondence, p. 36. 
 
366 • BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 question what you have done or said or thought; 
 but your judgment I have regarded with reverence 
 and respect. I do not, I cannot, forget my four first 
 years' education in the University under you ; and I 
 think I have principles by me, I then received from 
 you\" 
 
 Nevertheless, while he writes with reverent love 
 for his old master, he maintains that he has gained a 
 nearer view of the truth. "I cannot," he says, "return 
 to that frame of mind . . . . you . . seem to advise me 
 to. I have had, in the former part of my life, expe- 
 rience thereof; and having freely and fully delivered 
 myself up to God to be taught and led into truth, my 
 mind is so framed and fashioned by Him .... that 
 I can no more go back than St Paul, after Christ dis- 
 covered to him, could return into his former strain^" 
 
 The circumstances indeed in which he was placed 
 made a larger, a more human, faith necessary. A 
 serious thinker, removed from the turmoil of affairs, 
 could not but look earnestly in such an age for some 
 stable foundation for life. Controversy had issued in 
 an anarchy of sects. Authority had been invoked 
 on opposite sides with peremptory sternness. Enthu- 
 siasts had ventured to claim for their extravagance 
 the title of inspiration. Theology, systematised with 
 logical precision in the Westminster Confession, had 
 failed to cover or to meet the facts of daily experi- 
 ence. It was not then strange that one whose work 
 was in the calm seclusion of the Eastern University 
 ^ Correspondence, pp. 6 f, '■^ Jb., p. 115. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 367 
 
 should attempt once more to look fairly at "all 
 reasons;" not strange that he should seek to co- 
 ordinate the conflicting phenomena which he regarded 
 from afar : not strange that he should find in charac- 
 ter and conduct the test of truth which he required. 
 
 "/ act therefore I am^" was the memorable sen- 
 tence in which he echoed and answered the cogito 
 ergo sum of Descartes. But then, as he paraphrases 
 the memorable sentence, I act not as my own maker, 
 not as my own sustainer, but as the creature and 
 servant of Him who is the original of all and will 
 be final to all: who is "to be adored as the chief est 
 beauty and loved as the first and chiefest good:" 
 who hath given us a large capacity which He will 
 fulfil and a special relation to Himself which He will 
 answer^. 
 
 Thus Whichcote's whole teaching may be de- 
 scribed as an expansion of Tertullian's appeal to the 
 " testimonium animse naturaliter Christianse." As 
 a College Lecturer (we have seen) he turned aside 
 from Protestant Scholasticism to 'Philosophy and 
 Metaphysics ^' As Vice-Chancellor he deliberately 
 justified his choice. And we must not fail to take 
 account of the originality of his position. By this 
 appeal to reason he traversed the one conclusion in 
 which the most powerful representatives of English 
 thought in his day outside Cambridge were united. 
 Bacon and Hobbes, Puritans and Prelatists, agreed in 
 
 1 Sermons, iii. 241. 2 jj.^ ij. 61 ; 94. 
 
 2 Correspondence, p. 36. 
 
368 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 treating philosophy and religion as things wholly dif- 
 ferent in kind. The extreme schools on each side 
 concurred in "wounding virtue," by destroying the 
 belief that it was in any way suited to our nature 
 and constitution^ as a source of good or happiness. 
 Against both Whichcote stood forth in the phrase of 
 Lord Shaftesbury as "the preacher of good nature," yet 
 so that he never contemplated man apart from God, 
 abhorring and detesting in his own vigorous words 
 "all creature-magnifying self-sufficiency^." According 
 to his judgment, in a phrase which his opponents 
 accused him of quoting " over-frequently," reason was 
 the candle of the Lord, lighted by God and lighting 
 us to God, res ilhiminata illuminans^. ' ' I count it true 
 sacrilege," he writes, "to take from God to give to 
 the creature, yet I look at it as a dishonouring of God 
 to nullify and make base His works, and to think He 
 made a sorry, worthless piece, fit for no use, when He 
 made man*." "This," he says again, "I dare defend 
 against the whole world, that there is no one thing in all 
 that religion which is of God's making that any sober 
 man in the true use of his reason would be released 
 from, though hemight have it under theseal of heaven." 
 He held that the vision of the Lord in glory to St Paul 
 was not more convincing than the exhibition of the 
 Gospel to the Soul^; and on the other hand, that no 
 miracle can warrant our belief unless it be in con- 
 
 ^ Shaftesbury, Preface, pp. xi. f. ^ Correspondence, p. 100. 
 
 3 Aplwrism, 916. * Cori'espondence, p. 112. 
 
 s Sermdns, iii. 88, 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 369 
 
 junction with a doctrine worthy of God^ "And to 
 me it seems" — so he declares with stem indignation — 
 " to be one of the greatest prodigies in the world that 
 men that are rational and intelligent should admit 
 that for religion which for its shallowness, emptiness, 
 and insignificancy, falls under the just reproof and 
 conviction and condemnation of reason; religion 
 which makes us less men : religion unintelligible or 
 not able to give satisfaction to the noble principles of 
 God's creation^" That is " not an action of religion 
 which is not an act of the understanding : for that is 
 not a religious act which is not human ^." 
 
 Such convictions, which Whichcote is never weary 
 of repeating, help us to understand how he was a 
 thinker rather than a reader in an age pre-eminent 
 for learning. In one of his letters to Tuckney, who 
 had referred his opinions to the influence of the con- 
 temporary Arminian and High Church writers, he 
 says : "Truly, Sir, you are wholly mistaken in the 
 whole course of my studies. You say you find me 
 largely in their [the Remonstrants] Apologia. To 
 my knowledge I never saw or heard of the book before 
 [which Tuckney says was greedily 'bought and read 
 by his friends'] ; much less have I read a tittle of it. I 
 should lay open my weakness if I should tell you how 
 little I have read of the books and authors you men- 
 tion : often years past [since 1641] nothing at all.... 
 Truly 1 shame myself to tell you how little I have 
 
 ^ Aphorisms, 1177. ^ Sermons, in. 249. 
 
 3 76td. i.lSlf.j 157. 
 
 W. E. 24 
 
370 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 I 
 
 been acquainted with books, but for your satisfaction 
 I do. While fellow of Emmanuel College employment 
 with pupils took my time from me. I have not read 
 many books but I have studied a few. Meditation 
 and invention hath been rather my life than reading. . . " 
 At the same time he mixed much with men, and in 
 conversation, he adds significantly, "I rather affect 
 to speak with them who differ from me than those 
 who, I think, agree with me\" 
 
 So it was that alone of the group of scholars with 
 whom he is associated, Tuckney, Hill, Arrowsmith on 
 the one side, Cudworth, Smith, More on the other, 
 Whichcote published nothing. The only writings of 
 his which have been preserved in a complete form 
 are four letters to his old tutor, Dr Tuckney, which 
 deal with the main points at which he was at issue 
 with orthodox Puritanism. Many of his Sermons 
 were published after his death, partly from notes of his 
 hearers and partly from his own notes ; and besides 
 these twelve centuries of "aphorisms" were taken 
 from his papers, of which the greater part are found 
 literally or substantially in his other remains. But 
 though these materials are fragmentary and in part 
 confused it is not difficult to gain a clear view of his 
 opinions. His frequent repetitions, his bright epi- 
 grams, his earnest simplicity, bring his main 
 thoughts vividly before the reader ; for when he 
 spoke from the pulpit he appears to have laid aside 
 the technical forms of expression which sometimes on 
 1 Correspohdence, pp. 53 ff. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 871 
 
 other occasions provoked the criticism of his contem- 
 poraries. Nor can I see any need for Lord Shaftes- 
 bury's apology for "the unpolished style and phrase 
 of an author who drew more from a College than a 
 Court ; and who was more used to School-learning 
 and the language of a University than to the conver- 
 sation of the fashionable world," as likely to " ill- 
 recommend his sense to the generality of readers \" I 
 should have ventured to say that there are few prose 
 writers of any time from whom one could gather more 
 "jewels five-words-long" than from Whichcote. Here 
 are a few as they are numbered in Salter's collection : 
 
 He that repents is angry with himself : I need not 
 be angry with him (1142). 
 
 Heaven is first a temper and then a place (464). 
 
 No one reverenceth a wicked man : no not a wicked 
 man himself (252). 
 
 In worldly and material things what is used is 
 spent : in intellectuals and spiritual things what is 
 not used is not had (1111). 
 
 A covetous man equally enjoys having nothing 
 and having all things (600). 
 
 We must be men before we can be Christians (997). 
 
 It is the chiefest of good things for a man to be 
 himself (416). 
 
 Where there is most of God there is least of self 
 (911). 
 
 God takes a large compass to bring about His 
 great works (903). 
 
 1 Preface, p. xv. 
 
 24—2 
 
372 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 No man can command his judgment: therefore 
 every man must obey it (871). 
 
 He that takes himself out of God's hands into his 
 own, by and by will not know what to do with him- 
 self (819). 
 
 He that is full of himself goes out of company as 
 wise as he came in (675). 
 
 Whosoever scornfully uses any other man dis- 
 parages himself the human nature (126). 
 
 Men have an itch rather to make religion than to 
 use it (36). 
 
 Every man hath himself as he useth himself (341). 
 
 For about ten years Whichcote worked at Cam- 
 bridge as Fellow and Tutor of Emmanuel. In 1643 
 he took the living of North Cadbury in Somerset- 
 shire, which was afterwards held by Cudworth. But 
 in the next year he was called back to Cambridge to 
 take the Provostship of our College from which Dr 
 Collins had been ejected. 
 
 "The choice," it is said, "was perfectly agreeable 
 to Dr Collins himself, but not quite so to Whichcote." 
 However, when after careful deliberation he accepted 
 the invidious honour, his conduct fully justified his 
 decision. As Provost, Tillotson says, and Allen adopts 
 his words, "he was a most vigilant and prudent 
 governor, a great encourager of learning and good 
 order, and by his careful and wise management of 
 the estate of the College, brought it into a very 
 flourishing condition and left it so." 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 373 
 
 At the same time he made generous provision for 
 Dr Collins, for "by the free consent of the College 
 there were two shares out of the common dividend 
 allotted to the Provost, one whereof was constantly- 
 paid to Dr Collins, as if he had been still Provost." 
 
 "And as he was not wanting either in respect or 
 real kindness to the rightful owner, so neither did he 
 stoop to do anything unworthy to obtain [the] place ; 
 for he never took the Covenant; and not only so, but 
 by the particular friendship and interest which he 
 had in some of the chief visitors, he prevailed to have 
 the greatest part of the Fellows of [the] College 
 exempted from that imposition, and preserved them 
 in their places by that means." "And this," Allen 
 adds, "does Walker reasonably assign as the main 
 cause why so few of this numerous society were sent 
 a begging in those destroying times, which almost 
 laid waste the University, for their unalterable steadi- 
 ness to the established Church and State." 
 
 It is therefore with good reason that Tillotson 
 remarks, "I hope none will be hard upon him, that 
 he was contented upon such terms to be in a 
 capacity to do good in bad times." Or, as Allen 
 paraphrases the clause, "as those times would not 
 endure the orthodoxy of Dr Collins and it was 
 absolutely necessary some person should supply such 
 a vacancy, and if good men cannot be prevailed on 
 worse men would, I cannot apprehend such impu- 
 tation can be justly fastened on our reverend Doctor 
 for suffering himself to be an instrument under wicked 
 
374 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 •I 
 
 magistrates perpetually labouring to work good out of 
 their sinister machinations." 
 
 "Besides his care of the College/' Tillotson con- 
 tinues, "[Whichcote] had a very great and good in- 
 fluence upon the University. Every Lord's day in the 
 afternoon, for almost twenty years together, he preach- 
 ed in Trinity Church, where he had a great number 
 not only of the young scholars but of those of greater 
 standing and best repute for learning in the Univer- 
 sity, his constant and attentive auditors ; and in those 
 wild and unsettled times contributed more to the 
 forming of the students of that University to a sober 
 sense of religion than any man in that age." 
 
 Whichcote's activity and position as Provost of 
 King's brought his peculiar opinions into prominence. 
 Little by little his old Puritan friends hung back from 
 him, grew silent and reserved in his presence, mur- 
 mured and criticised him among themselves ; and at 
 length on the occasion of his Commencement Sermon 
 as Vice-Chancellor in 1651, Dr Tuckney frankly 
 expressed, in a letter on the next day, his dissatis- 
 faction with his teaching 'on the use of reason in 
 religion, on the difi"erences of opinion among 
 Christians, on the reconciliation of sinners to God.' 
 A correspondence followed which is a model of 
 lofty and generous controversy. It closed without 
 changing the position or lessening the affection of 
 the disputants. "Could I syllabically and to a tittle 
 have said as you said, non. reclamantihus judicio et 
 conscieutia" Whichcote ' Avrites as his last words, "I 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 375 
 
 was under a temptation to do it through the respect 
 and honour I bear to your person ; and a desire in me 
 to keep all fair. Sir, wherein I fall short of your ex- 
 pectations I fail for truth's sake, whereto alone I 
 acknowledge myself addicted. So justifying nothing 
 contrary to my due respect to your person whom I 
 honour and shall most readily serve, I take leaved" 
 Five years afterwards "Whichcote joined in electing 
 Dr Tuckney to the Regius Professorship of Divinity. 
 
 The controversy with Tuckney enables us to picture 
 the keen questionings which occupied the leaders of 
 thought at Cambridge in the last year of the Com- 
 monwealth. Well would it have been if all could 
 have shared Whichcote's spirit. If I provoke a man, 
 he used to say, he is the worse for my company, and 
 if I suffer myself to be provoked by him I shall be the 
 worse for his. 
 
 In this respect Tillotson writes: "Though Which- 
 cote had a most profound and well-poised judgment 
 yet was he of all men I ever knew the most patient to 
 hear others differ from him, and the most easy to be 
 convinced when good reason was offered ; and, which 
 is seldom seen, more apt to be favourable to another 
 man's reason than his own." 
 
 A simple but characteristic anecdote has been 
 preserved which illustrates this trait of his character. 
 Once he was, it is said, engaged in a conversation 
 with Peter Sterry upon some abstruse points of 
 divinity, and when Sterry explained himself with 
 1 Correspondence, p. 134. 
 
376 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 
 great ease and cleverness " the Doctor rising from his 
 seat and embracing him expressed himself in this 
 manner : Peter, thou hast overcome me : thou art all 
 pure intellect." 
 
 In this way ready to learn even to the last, gladly 
 confessing that no man gains so much in any way as 
 by teaching, Whichcote was able to sympathise with 
 the "young scholars," who flocked to hear him, and 
 with the young divines of whom he was a great en- 
 courager and kind director. He had the character- 
 istics of the true master, tender in his patience, strong 
 in his wisdom, generous in the use of his endowments, 
 so that his greater pupil Smith could say that *' he 
 lived upon him\" 
 
 The Restoration put an end to this happy activity 
 at Cambridge. *' He was removed from the Provost- 
 ship by special order of the King'^ ;" but I can well 
 believe that it cost him far less to be deprived of the 
 office than it had cost him to assume it. Still, 
 "though removed he was not," Sadler says, "disgraced 
 or frowned upon ; so far from it he was on the con- 
 trary only called up from the comparative obscurity 
 of a University life to a higher and more conspicuous 
 station." He was in fact appointed two years after- 
 wards (1662) to St Anne's, Blackfriars. But his 
 connexion with Cambridge and the College was not 
 broken; and when his church was destroyed in the 
 
 1 Aphorisms, Pref. xviii. 
 
 2 See the interesting correspondence and documents in 
 Heywood's • King's College.' ' 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 377 
 
 great fire he came down to Milton, of which he held 
 the sinecure rectory, having been presented to it on 
 the death of Dr Collins. Here "he preached con- 
 stantly, and relieved the poor, and had their children 
 taught to read at his own charge ; and made up differ- 
 ences among the neighbours." 
 
 His last charge was St Lawrence, Jewry, where he 
 had the general love and respect of his parish ; and 
 where he found a "very considerable and judicious 
 auditory, though not very numerous, by reason of the 
 weakness of his voice in his declining age." 
 
 Whichcote's true work was done at Cambridge, and 
 he closed it there. 
 
 " He died," Tillotson writes, " in the house of his 
 ancient and most learned friend, Dr Cudworth, 
 Master of Christ's College, like a primitive Christian." 
 Allen, adds... "After receiving the sacrament he 
 said to Dr Cudworth, I heartily thank you for this 
 most Christian office. I thank you for putting me in 
 mind of receiving this sacrament... He disclaimed all 
 merit in himself... He expressed likewise great dislike 
 of the principle of separation ; and said he was the 
 more desirous to receive the sacrament that he might 
 declare his full communion with the Church of Christ 
 all the world over. He disclaimed popery, and, as 
 things of near affinity with it, or rather parts of it, all 
 superstition and usurpation upon the conscience of 
 men." 
 
 If you have followed the outline which I have 
 drawn, I shall be disappointed if you are not proud 
 
878 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 of our Provost of two centuries and a half ago ; if you 
 do not sympathise with him ; if you do not feel that 
 he has a message to us. The fragmentariness and 
 informality of the records of Whichcote's teaching 
 obscure in some degree its scientific merits; but it 
 is not difficult to see that he takes into account the 
 manifold elements which enter into the problems of 
 morality with a breadth of view which, as far as 
 I know, is found only in his pupil Smith, till it 
 appears again, though with more sombre effects, in 
 Bp Butler. As compared with the abstract school 
 of Clarke he insists on the coordination of all human 
 faculties and endowments. He finds the expression 
 of humanity in action and not in thought. He 
 comes before God in the fulness of his whole nature. 
 In the picture which he draws of man's moral con- 
 stitution he has many points of coincidence with 
 Shaftesbury, who "searched after and published" a 
 volume of his Sermons in 1698; but "Whichcote does 
 not like Shaftesbury hide the darker side of life. He 
 recognises harmony as the essential, divine law of the 
 universe, but he never fails to recognise that it has 
 been disturbed. His hope, as far as he defines it, 
 lies in the efficacy of the discipline of God, which, he 
 seems to imply, must sooner or later secure its end. 
 
 What then would he say if he were with us to- 
 night ? What thoughts would he strive to associate 
 with a room which as we trust will be a fruitful 
 scene of learning and teaching ? I do not doubt as 
 to the answer. He would tell us, as often as we 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 379 
 
 meet here, to remember that man is made for truth, 
 to recognise it and to embody it. He would tell us 
 that truth is one in all its variety of parts, answer- 
 ing to the fulness of our nature. He would tell us 
 that truth is not simply an intellectual result but 
 a moral force, the very soul of action. 
 
 The foundation of Whichcote's teaching is the 
 postulate or axiom that man was made by God to 
 know Him, and to become like Him. Of this truth 
 man, he affirms, is himself the witness, " God is the 
 centre of immortal souls." ..." If God had not made 
 man to know there is a God, there is nothing that 
 God could have demanded of him, nothing wherein 
 He might have challenged him, nothing that He 
 could have expected man should have received of 
 Him\" As it is "the truth of the first inscription," 
 as Whichcote calls it; "the light of God's creation;" 
 "the true issue of reason;" the facts that God is; 
 that every fellow-man, as man, claims our respect; 
 that every man must reverence himself ; or, in other 
 words, the three duties of godliness, righteousness, 
 and sobriety, are, he shows, such that you must 
 unmake man if you deny them^ Truth and good- 
 ness, right and justice, are a law with God, unchange- 
 able as He is. The reasons of things are eternal; 
 they are not subject to our power ; we practise not 
 upon them. " They are as much our rule as sense is 
 
 1 Sermons, iii. 144. 
 
 2 Ibid. iii. 22 ff.; 120 f. Aphorisms, 630, 126, 211, 989. 
 Sermons, iii. 422. 
 
880 
 
 to sensitives, or the impetus of nature to inanimates.'* 
 It is our wisdom to observe them, and our uprightness 
 to comply with them. If we think otherwise than 
 they require, we live in a lie'. 
 
 So far we remain as we were created. For the 
 Fall has not altered the destination of man nor ob- 
 literated his knowledge of it. " The idolatry of the 
 world," as Whichcote profoundly remarks, "hath been 
 about the medium of worship, not about the object of 
 worship ^" The testimony of conscience — our "home- 
 GoD," as he calls it* — still remains. Great hopes and 
 great aspirations contend in the human heart with 
 the sense of weakness and failure. Sin, however 
 familiar, is " unnatural," " contrary to the reason of 
 the mind which is our governor, and contrary to the 
 reason of things which is our law." Wrong- doing is 
 evil, not only because God has forbidden it, but by 
 its intrinsic malignity*. 
 
 These truths involve, as it is evident, conse- 
 quences of infinite moment. The results of actions 
 are like the actions themselves. Sin carries with it 
 inevitably the seeds of misery; virtue the seeds of 
 joy. For happiness and misery hereafter are not 
 simple effects of Divine power and pleasure ; they 
 
 1 Sermons, i. G8, 71. Aphorisms, 258. Comp. 116, 257, 
 333, 455, 456. Sermons, iii. 92; i. 149, 386, 253; ii. 397. 
 Aphorisms, 157, 797. Sei-mons, iii. 91, 372, 387 f. 
 
 2 Sermons, iii. 202, 3 jji^. i, 40. Comp. Aphorisms, 1092. 
 ^ Sermons, i. 212; iv. 192. Aphorisms, 212, 523. Sermons, 
 
 ii. 397. Aphorisms, 918. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 381 
 
 have a foundation in nature \ It is impossible to 
 make a man happy by putting him into a happy 
 place unless he be first in a happy stated "Heaven," 
 as he tersely says, "is first a temper and then a 
 place ^." "Heaven present is our resemblance to 
 God ; " and " men deceive themselves grossly when 
 they flatter themselves with the hopes of a future 
 heaven, and yet, by wickedness of heart and life, do 
 contradict heaven present*." So far therefore as man 
 has lost the Divine image, happiness for him is in- 
 herently impossible. 
 
 Here, then, by the contemplation of the original 
 facts of nature, we are brought face to face with the 
 great enigma of life. How can man, fallen, sin- 
 stained, estranged from God, gain his true end ? The 
 "truth of first inscription" witnesses inexorably 
 against him. Whichcote points to the answer which 
 lies in the "truth of after revelation." This is 
 "the soul's cure'." By this we are assured of for- 
 giveness upon repentance and faith in Christ, and of 
 needful help in the struggle of life ; things credible 
 indeed, yet such that nothing short of the Mission of 
 the Son of God could have established them solidly. 
 
 By this Mission, God has re-established His loving 
 purpose. The light of reason is supplemented by the 
 light of Scripture". To use the former is to do no 
 disservice to grace, for God is acknowledged in both; 
 
 1 Sermons, ii. 198. 2 Aphorisms, 216. » 75^-^^ 454 
 
 * Sermons, ii. 196. Comp. iv. 255. » j^^-^ jj^ 20. 
 
 « Aphorisms, 109, 778, 920. 
 
382 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 I 
 
 in the former, as laying the groundwork of His crea- 
 tion ; in the latter, as restoring it^ And this second 
 gift is as universal and as real as the first. " When 
 God commands the sinner to repent, this supposes 
 either that he is able, or that God will make him so^" 
 Revealed truth, as Whichcote holds, differs from 
 natural truth "in a way of descent to us" but is 
 equally " connatural" to manl " Though they [revealed 
 truths] be not of reason's invention, yet they are of 
 the prepared mind readily entertained and received \" 
 . . . "For men are disposed and qualified by reason for 
 the entertaining those matters of faith that are pro- 
 posed by God\" So false is it that the matter of our 
 faith is unaccountable, or that there is anything un- 
 reasonable in religion, that there is no such matter of 
 credit in the world as the matters of faith; nothing more 
 intelligible ^ " Nowhere is a man's reason so much 
 satisfied'." If he be "once in a true state of religion, 
 he cannot distinguish between religion and the reason 
 of his mind ; -so that his religion is the reason of his 
 mind, and the reason of his mind is his religion.... 
 His reason is sanctified by his religion and his religion 
 helps and makes use of his reason." Reason and 
 religion in the subject are but one thing ^ 
 
 1 Sermons, i. 371. ^ Aphorisms, 516, 811. 
 
 3 Sermons, iii. 20. Aphorisms, 444. Sermons, iii. 213, 388. 
 Letters, p. 47. ■* Sermons, iii. 23. 
 
 5 Aphorisms, 644. Comp. 99. 
 
 6 Sermons, iii. 23 f.; i. 71, 74. 7 Apliorisms, 943. 
 8 Sermons, iv. 147. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 383 
 
 "Truth is so near to the soul, so much the very 
 image and form of it, that it may be said of truth that 
 as the soul is by derivation from God, so truth by 
 communication. No sooner doth the truth of God 
 come into the soul's sight, but the soul knows her to 
 be her first and old acquaintance. Though they have 
 been by some accident unhappily parted a great 
 while, yet, having now through the Divine Providence 
 happily met they greet one another, and renew their 
 acquaintance as those that were first and ancient 
 friends .... Nothing is more natural to man's soul 
 than to receive truth \ . . ." 
 
 Our reason, therefore, "is not laid aside nor dis- 
 charged, much less is it confounded by any of the 
 materials of religion ; but awakened, excited, employ- 
 ed, directed, and improved by it ; for the .... under- 
 standing is that faculty whereby man is made capable 
 of God and apprehensive of Him, receptive from Him 
 and able to make returns upon Him^ ..." Religion 
 is the living sum of these manifold activities. It is 
 not "made up of ignorant well-meanings or . . . slight 
 imaginations, credulous suspicion or fond conceit;" 
 that is superstition; "but of deliberate resolutions 
 and diligent searches into the reason of things, and 
 into the rational sense of Holy Scripture ^" We must 
 then study it till the reason of our minds receives 
 satisfaction; for till then we cannot count it our own, 
 
 ^ Sermons, iii, 17 f. Comp. i. 353. 
 
 2 Jbid. iv. 139 f. » jijia, iv. 151. 
 
384 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 nor has it security and settlement \ We must have 
 a reason for that which we believe above our reason^. 
 It is the peculiarity of human nature that man, 
 through the reason of his mind, can come to under- 
 stand the reason of things ; and there is no coming to 
 religion but this way*. The riches of earth can be 
 left and inherited; the wealth of the soul must be 
 won^ 
 
 Thus there is laid upon every one, according to 
 the measure of his opportunity, the duty of personal 
 inquiry. To neglect this is to incur the guilt of 
 superstition, or insincerity, or self-conceit ^ The use 
 of private judgment requires, no doubt, far more pre- 
 paration and diligence than men commonly suppose, 
 a larger comprehension of facts, a more patient weigh- 
 ing of deductions; but it is a fundamental duty^ 
 "If you see not well," Whichcote writes, "hear the 
 better : if you see not far, hear the more. The con- 
 sequence of truth is great: therefore the judgment of 
 it must not be negligent^." "He that believes what 
 God saith without evidence that God says it, doth 
 not believe God, while he believes the thing which 
 comes from God''." By a natural re-action, "he that 
 is light of belief will be as light of unbelief^;" and 
 
 ^ Sermons, iv. 149. Aphorisms, 1089. Sermons, iv. 292. 
 
 2 Aphorisms, 771. ^ Sermons, iv. 142. 
 
 * Sermons, iv. 141. ^ j^i^ y^ 337. j^ 337 g^ 
 
 6 Ibid. ii. 38. Aphorisms, 622. Sermons, iii. 416. 
 
 7 Aphorisms, 1090. « m^ 977^ 
 » Ibid, 292. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 385 
 
 "of all impotences in the world credulity in religion 
 is the greatest \" *'It doth not, then, become a 
 Christian to be credulous ^" 
 
 In virtue of this continuous obligation we work 
 from first to last, and God also works. Belief and 
 repentance are vital acts^. The selfsame thing that 
 is in us called virtue, as it refers to God, is grace*. 
 **It is far from true that man hath nothing to do upon 
 supposition that God hath done all*." Nay, rathei 
 by the appropriation of His gifts our noblest powers 
 find their noblest exercise; and it ill becomes us 
 to make our intellectual faculties "Gibeonites" — in 
 Whichcote's picturesque phrase — mere drudges for 
 the meanest services of the world ^. The rule of their 
 employment even now should be their future destiny : 
 the law of heaven should be the law of the world ^ 
 Can any man think, he asks, thai God gave him his 
 immortal spirit as salt, only to keep his body from 
 decay"? Nay, he that is in a good state hath still 
 work to do^ " God, who hath made us what we are, 
 would have us employ and improve what we have. 
 Faculties without any acquired habits witness for 
 God and condemn us^";" and "in spiritual things the 
 paradox is true, that what is not used is not had"." 
 
 In this sense Whichcote held that the grand 
 
 ^ Sermons, iv. 143. * Ibid. iii. 114. 
 
 « Ibid. i. 70 ; iii. 87. ^ Ibid. ii. 205. 
 
 ^ Aphorisms, 179. « Sermons, iii. 186, 220, 323. 
 
 7 Sermons, iv. 435. ^ Ibid. iii. 147. 
 
 » Aphorisms, 564. lo Ibid. 1088. " Ibid. 1111. 
 
 w. E. 25 
 
386 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 articles of the Gospel are as natural as the precepts of 
 the moral law. "I receive," he says, "the truth of 
 Christian religion in a way of illumination, affection 
 and choice. 1 myself am taken with it, as under- 
 standing and knowing it. I retain it as a welcome 
 guest. It is not forced into me, but I let it in ; 
 yet so as taught of God; and I see cause for my 
 continuance to embrace it. Do I dishonour my faith 
 or do any wrong to it, to tell the world that my 
 mind and understanding are satisfied in it? I 
 have no reason against it ; yea the highest and 
 purest reason is for it. What doth God speak to, 
 but my reason? And should not that which is 
 spoken to hear ? Should it not judge, discern, con- 
 ceive what is God's meaning^?" "The reason is the 
 only tool with which we can do man's work^. If God 
 did not make my fi^culties true, I am absolutely dis- 
 charged from all duty to Him^. For a man hath not 
 a sovereignty over his judgment ; he must judge and 
 believe where he sees cause and reason *. The reason 
 of a man's mind must be satisfied ; no man can think 
 against it*." But "they are greatly mistaken," he 
 argues, "who in religion oppose points of reason and 
 matters of faith ; as if nature went one way and the 
 Author of nature went another^." The facts and the 
 commands of the Gospel equally answer to our con- 
 
 1 Correspondence, p. 48. ^ Sermons, ii. 407. 
 
 3 Ibid. I 170. ■* Ibid, iii. 216. 
 
 5 Ibid. iv. 201 ; ii. 29. Aphorisms, 942. 
 ^' Aphorisms, S73, 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 387 
 
 stitution. ''When the revelation of faith comes, the 
 inward sense, awakened to the entertainment thereof, 
 saith Evp-qKa : it is as I imagined : the thing expected 
 proves: Christ the desire of all nations: that is the 
 desire of their state : at least the necessity of their 
 state \" 
 
 "Sir," he writes to Tuckney with unusual warmth, 
 " this I would not write to you — this assertion of the 
 office of reason in dealing with religious truth — did I 
 not think the honour of God and truth engaged, the 
 interest of souls concerned ; and were not I myself so 
 assured as that thereto, if called to it, I must give 
 attestation with my life. Therefore, Sir, though I 
 dearly love you in my relation to you, and highly 
 honour you for your own worth, yet cannot I out of 
 respect to you give up so noble, so choice a truth, so 
 antidotical against temptation, so satisfactory, so 
 convictive, so quietive ; in so full confirmation to my 
 mind of the truth of Christian religion. Sir, this 
 knowledge, God being merciful to me, I will keep till 
 I die, not out of worldly design but out of love to my 
 souP." 
 
 Truth, Whichcote tells us, is natural to us : it is 
 one: and it is also practical. "I have always found," 
 he writes, ''such preaching of others hath most com- 
 manded my heart which hath most illuminated my 
 head I" True knowledge involves of necessity a right 
 affection towards the things known; for knowledge 
 
 * Correspondence, p. 102. 2 jj^^. p, loo. 
 
 8 Aphorisms, 393. 
 
 25-2 
 
388 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 unfulfilled is the most troublesome guest that can be 
 entertained \ Or, to take another figure : Truth is a 
 seminal principle in the mind which must bring forth 
 fruit unless it be killed ^ Therefore, he says, to give 
 one application, as thou art a Christian, take up this 
 resolution, that it shall be better for every one with 
 whom thou hast to do, because Christ died for thee 
 and for him^. And to sum up all in one pregnant 
 sentence: "When the doctrine of the Gospel becomes 
 the reason of our mind, it will be the principle of our 
 life*." A man "cannot be at peace within liimself 
 while he lives in disobedience to known truth*." 
 ** Reason and argument are transforming principles 
 in intellectual natures ; and it is not possible, where 
 men are informed and satisfied with good reason and 
 argument, but it should work upon them^" So it 
 is by action answering to knowledge that character is 
 slowly shaped according to an inevitable law. That 
 which is worldly in respect of the matter can be 
 made spiritual through the intention of the agents 
 For religion is able to possess and affect the whole 
 man, and bring that unity to his conflicting powers 
 whereby he gains the chiefest of good things that 
 he is himself, his true self^ In this respect "we 
 have ourselves as we use ourselves ^" "We are not 
 born with habits, but only with faculties." "We 
 
 1 Sermons, iii. 61. 2 ma, iii. 21I. » jfcid. iv. 45. 
 - ■* Aphorisms, 94. Comp. 132. ^ Sermons, iii. 61. 
 
 6 Sermons, iv. 175. ^ Aphorisms, 520. ^ Ihid. 956. 
 
 9 Ibid. 341. .Sermons, iii. 221. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 389 
 
 are so in act as we are in habit, and so in habit as 
 we are in act^" Thoughts of God and things divine 
 mightily enlarge the parts of men : on the contrary, 
 men's parts wither away if they be not excited and 
 called forth to nobler acts by higher objects. The 
 mind as a glass receives all images; and the soul 
 becomes that with which it is in conjunction. 
 
 This law of correspondence is universal, and of 
 immediate efficacy ; but in our present state the true 
 issues of action are often obscured or hidden. Here- 
 after, however, all will be made plain. Judgment is a 
 revelation of character : punishment is the unchecked 
 stream of consequence. Every man may estimate his 
 future state by his present. He will then be more of 
 the same, or the same more intensely. Therefore 
 ''there must be salvation of grace as antecedent to 
 that of glory. . . . otherwise there is no salvation." 
 "The unrighteous are condemned by themselves 
 before they are condemned of God." A guilty con- 
 science hath hell within itself ^ 
 
 Such a line of argument throws light upon the 
 w^amings of the Gospels. It shows that impenitence 
 in its very essence is not compassionable. Repent- 
 ance is the moral correlative to forgiveness. An 
 impenitent sinner cannot be pardoned, because God 
 cannot contradict Himself ^ He cannot be reconciled 
 
 1 Sermons, iii. 339; iv. 317; i. 43. 
 
 2 Aphorisms, 188. Sermans, i. 321, 2U. Aphorisms, 232. 
 Sermx)nB, ii. 198. 
 
 * AplwrismSj 810. 
 
390 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. m 
 
 to unrighteousness; and the impenitent will not be 
 reconciled to righteousness \ "Though God should 
 tell me my sins were pardoned," Whichcote boldly 
 says, "I would not believe it, unless I repent and 
 deprecate His displeasure '^Z' For this reason he main- 
 tained with energetic distinctness that the work of 
 Christ must be wrought not only /or us but in us^ 
 "All the world," he writes, ''will not secure that man I 
 that is not in reconciliation with the reason of his 
 own mind\" "It is not possible we should be made 
 happ)^ by God Himself if not reconciled to Him. ... If 
 
 we through the Spirit of God be not naturalized to 
 
 Him, we shall glory but in an ineffectual Saviour*." 
 
 The application of the same moral law confirms 
 also man's expectations of future happiness. The 
 feeble strivings after God which have been made on 
 earth gain their consummation in heaven. When we 
 are born into time, that makes a great difference*; 
 but born out of time into eternity makes a far greater. 
 In our present state it is through the thought of God 
 that we come to know the powers of our souls. He, 
 their one proper object, calls them into activity. The 
 soul of man is to God as the flower to the sun: it 
 opens at His approach and shuts when He withdraws ^ 
 And "I am apt to think," Whichcote adds, "that in 
 the heavenly state hereafter, when God shall other- 
 wise declare Himself to ns than now He doth, those 
 
 ^ Aphorisms, 1025. ^ Sermo7is, iii. 40. ^ Letters, p. 13. 
 4 Sermons, i. 95. ^ Ihid. ii. 263. 
 
 « Ihid. ii. 120. , 7 Ihid. iii. 104. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 391 
 
 latent powers which now we have may open and 
 unfold themselves, and thereby we may be made able 
 to act in a far higher way. . . \" The nearer approach 
 to God will give us more use of ourselves. "Oh 
 God/' he exclaims elsewhere, with an unconscious 
 recollection of Augustine, "Thou hast made us for 
 Thyself, our souls are unsatisfied and are unquiet in 
 us, there is emptiness till Thou dost communicate 
 Thyself, till we return unto Thee. . . .'." "Self-denial, 
 self-surrender, devotion are Thy injunctions upon us, 
 not for Thy sake, but that we who are empty, shallow, 
 insufficient, may go out of ourselves, and find in Thee 
 fulness, satisfaction, abundance." 
 
 It was a necessary consequence of Whichcote's 
 conception of the Gospel, that he regarded the moral 
 element in it as supreme. In spite of his power to 
 deal with the widest thoughts, he constantly checks 
 himself that he may come to the analysis of homely 
 duties. He regards the positive institutions of reli- 
 gion as absolutely subservient to moral ends. Men 
 may not multiply them as binding^ "There is no 
 Shekinah," he says, with a noble figure, "but by 
 Divine assignation^" In the same spirit he pleads, 
 again and again, against subtleties of definition, or 
 the imposition upon others of words not found in the 
 Bible\ "Where the doctrine," he says, "is necessary 
 
 1 Sermons, iv. 196. ^ jj^-^^ jy, 314, 
 
 3 Ihid. iv. 187. Aphorisms, 835. 
 ^ Aphorisms, 648. Sermons, iii. 200. 
 * Sermons, ii. 390. Aphorisms, 573. 
 
392 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 and important, the Scripture is clear and full:" we 
 need not attempt to determine things more particu- 
 larly than God hath determined them'. "Such de- 
 terminations," he adds, sadly, "have indeed enlarged 
 faith, but [they have] lessened charity and multiplied 
 divisions." For our greatest zeal is in things doubtful 
 and questionable ^ We are more concerned for that 
 which is our own in religion than for that which 
 is God's^ But true teachers are not masters, but 
 helpers; they are not to make religion, but to shew 
 it*. And while men are what they are, different in 
 constitution and circumstances, there must be differ- 
 ences of opinion ; but these, Whichcote argues, vanish 
 in the light of common allegiance to Christ, and con- 
 tribute to a fuller apprehension of the truth ^ In 
 things rational as in things natural, motion is required 
 to avert the corruption of unbroken stillness ^ 
 
 There is therefore, he concludes, "nothing des- 
 perate in the condition of good men .... The sun 
 having broken through the thickest cloud will after 
 that scatter the less." 
 
 Anyone who has followed this outline of Whicli- 
 cote's teaching, which I have given as far as possible 
 in his own words, will, I think, have been struck by 
 
 ^ Aphorisvis, 1188; 152; 175. Sermons, ii. 24:1. 
 2 Aphorisms, 981] 1036; 1054. 
 
 * Aphorisms, 499. Sermons, ii. 2fil. 
 
 * Sermons, i. 178. 
 
 5 Ibid. iv. 204 f.; 378 f. ; 380 &. Aphorisms, 712. 
 
 * Sermons, i. 84. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 393 
 
 its modern type. It represents much that is most 
 generous and noblest in the "moral divinity" of 
 to-day. It anticipates language which we hear on 
 many sides. It rightly affirms in the name of Christ- 
 ianity much that is said to be in antagonism with it. 
 It brings faith into harmony with moral law, both in 
 its object and in its issues. It enables us to under- 
 stand how aU that we can learn of the true, the 
 beautiful, the good, the holy, through observation 
 and thought and revelation, is contributory to the 
 right fulfilment of the duties of life. 
 
 Yet in spite of these characteristics of his line of 
 thought, which are doubly attractive in a teacher 
 singularly pure and lofty, Whichcote failed to in- 
 fluence English speculation permanently. It would 
 be interesting to discover the origin of Shaftesbury's 
 admiration for him ; for his power seems to have been 
 practically confined to those with whom he came into 
 personal contact. He inspired his hearers, men of 
 great and varied power. Smith and More, Worthington 
 and Cudworth, Patrick and Tillotson ; but he founded 
 no school, and left no successors in a third generation. 
 
 The transitoriness of Whichcote's influence may 
 be due in some degree to political causes; but it is 
 not difficult, I think, to indicate defects in his teaching 
 which contributed to his partial failure. He had an 
 imperfect conception of the corporate character of 
 the Church, and of the Divine life of the Christian 
 Society. The abstractions of Plotinus had begun to 
 produce in his case the injurious efiects which were 
 
394 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 more conspicuous in his followers. He had little or 
 no sense of the historic growth of the Church. His 
 teaching on the Sacraments is vague and infrequent. 
 
 But these defects are not inherent in his principles. 
 On the contrary, the full recognition of the Divine 
 office of history, the full recognition of the Divine 
 gifts of the Sacraments, present Christianity as most 
 rational, most completely answering to the reason of 
 things, to the whole nature of humanity and to the 
 whole nature of man. Whichcote's principles do not 
 require to be modified at the present day, but to be 
 applied more widely. We can easily imagine ^vith 
 what enthusiasm he would have welcomed now "the 
 infinite desire of knowledge which has broken forth in 
 the world," to use the phrase of Patrick'; how he 
 would again have warned us "that it is not possible 
 to free religion from scorn and contempt if her priests 
 be not as well skilled in nature as her people, and hei 
 champions furnished with as good artillery as her ad- 
 versaries^;" how he would have reiterated the burden 
 of his lesson that "there is nothing true in divinity 
 which is false in philosophy, or the contrary^;" how 
 he would have called us back from our tithings of 
 cumin to the weightier matters of the law, judgment, 
 mercy, and faith ; how he would have constrained us 
 with loving persuasiveness to take account of the 
 proportion of things by the measure of life. With 
 larger knowledge and on an ampler field we are then 
 called upon to exercise his faith, to claim for religion, 
 
 1 Phenix, ii. p. 316. » Ibid. p. 317. » Ibid. l. c. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 395 
 
 in the name of the Son of Man, all things graceful, 
 beautiful, and lovely'; to shew that there is nothing 
 in it but what is sincere and solid, consonant to 
 reason and issuing in freedom'^. The one sure evi- 
 dence of Christianity is, that to which he appealed, 
 the power of the Christian life. If the Gospel were 
 a soul to believers, they would be miraculous in the 
 eyes of the world, and bring all men in to give their 
 testimony for religion". 
 
 Thus Whichcote's S)rmpathy extends beyond the 
 limits of that one Church ''which," as he says, "grows 
 not old." " Some there are," he writes, ''that are mere 
 
 naturalists I do not blame these men as the world 
 
 blames them. I do not blame them that they were 
 very slow of faith, that they will not believe farther 
 than they see reason .... A man cannot dishonour 
 God and abuse himself more than to be light of faith. 
 Such persons one would compassionate as soon as any 
 men in the world. I would say to them, ' You do well 
 as far as you go : you do well to entertain all that God 
 hath laid the foundation for: you do well to follow 
 the light of reason : but do you think that God can 
 do no more? do you think that God did all at once?* 
 Nay rather your own experience, if you give heed to 
 it, will in due time reveal to you the wants which the 
 Gospel meets ^" 
 
 This splendid hope of growing knowledge, this 
 certainty of the vision of God by the pure in heart, 
 
 1 Semiom, i. 59. 2 j^^-^. m 253. 
 
 3 Ibid. iii. 45, 251. * Ibid. ii. 313 f. 
 
396 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 11 
 
 leads me to the last passage which I wish to quote. 
 If Whichcote failed to understand and to give due 
 honour to the past, he had that rarer and more 
 elevating faith in the present which is the support of 
 generous effort. "I give much," he writes in answer 
 to the charge of innovation, "to the Spirit of God 
 breathing in good men, with whom I converse, in the 
 present world, in the University and other where; 
 and think that, if I may learn much by the writings 
 of good men in former ages, which you advise me to, 
 and, I hope, I do not neglect, that by the actings of 
 the Divine Spirit in the minds of good men now alive 
 I may learn more ; and I must not shut my eyes 
 against any manifestations of God in the times in 
 which I live. The times wherein 1 live are more to 
 me than any else. The works of God in them which 
 I am to discern direct in me both principle, affection 
 and action. And I dare not blaspheme free and 
 noble spirits in religion who search after truth with 
 indifference and ingenuity, lest in so doing I should 
 degenerate into a spirit of persecution. . . . And I do 
 believe that the destroying this spirit out of the 
 Church is a piece of the Reformation which God in 
 these times of changes aims at. . .\" 
 
 We shall all, I believe, gladly take the words to 
 ourselves. In this confidence lies our strength. In 
 such writings of the Spirit manifested in many 
 strange ways and in unexpected quarters lies our 
 guidance. The light of reason is not yet burnt out. 
 * Correspondence, p. 115. 
 
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE. 
 
 397 
 
 The last 
 
 The power of faith is not yet exhausted, 
 word of God is not yet spoken. 
 
 In this Lecture-room, as we trust, men will here- 
 after see truths which have not been made known to 
 us, truths brought from many fresh springs, iroXvfieptJk 
 Koi iroX-vrpoTTUi^, truths through which life shall be 
 made brighter, purer, nobler. KaXov to aOkov koI t^ 
 
 cXttis [XiydX.7]. 
 
Wisdom is more mobile tlian any motion ; 
 
 Yea, she pervadeth and penetrateth all things by 
 
 reason of her pureness. 
 For she is a breath of the power of God, 
 And a clear effluence of the glory of the Almighty ; 
 Therefore can nothing defiled find entrance into her. 
 For she is an effulgence from everlasting light. 
 And an unspotted mirror of the working of God, 
 And an image of His goodness. 
 And she, being one, can do all things ; 
 And remaining in herself, reneweth all things : 
 And from generation to generation passing into holy 
 
 souls 
 She maketh them friends of God and prophets. 
 For nothing doth God love save him that dwelleth 
 
 with Wisdom. 
 
 Wisdom, vii. 24—28 (R. V.). 
 
noAyMepcSc kaI noAyTponwc ttIKm 6 Geoc AaAh- 
 CAC TOTC nATp&CIN BN ToTc npo<t>HTAic CH ecx^TOY 
 tc5n HMepcoN TOYTCON eAAAHCCN hmTn cn y'^- 
 
 Hebr. i. 1, 2. 
 
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