[". Paut, at Athens. Shelf. ^ PRINCETON. N. J. BX 5133 .S42 1878 Shakspeare, Charles St. Paul at Athens: spiritual Christianity in ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. ST. PAUL AT ATHENS: SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO SOME ASPECTS OF MODERN THOUGHT. NINE SEEMONS PREACHED IN ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH, WESTBOURNE PARK. CHARLES ""SHAKSPEARE, B. A. ASSISTANT CURATE. WITH A PREFACE BY THE REV. CANON FARRAR, D.D. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 743 and 745 Broadway. Grant, Faiees & Rodgees, Peintees, 52 & 54 North Sixth Street, Philadelphia, Pa. PREFACE. A VERY few pages of the following volume will suffice to convince tlie thouglitful reader that Mr. Shakspeare stands in need of no other introduction than such as is furnished by his own ability and eloquence. It is not through any presumption of mine that I am induced to write these few words of preface, nor am I so vain as to suppose that the Sermons will gain in any way by my recommendation. My connection with them is simply as follows : — Having heard them very highly spoken of, and feeling a deep interest in the subject of which they treat, I obtained from Mr. Shakspeare s ready kindness the pleasure of reading them in manu- script; and when I had read them I could not but think it a great pity that discourses of such high merit, and on which so much thought and labor had been expended, should be of no advantage beyond the narrow circle of those that heard them. I therefore suggested to the author that he should publish them, and it is only in compliance with an earnest request that I take the liberty of detaining the reader from the volume itself. vi PREFACE. One of the many advantages of the ordinance of preaching is its wonderful elasticity ; the great variety of subjects which sermons may embrace, and the wide diversities of treatment which they permit. It is obvious that the following Sermons would be ill- adapted to a miscellaneous and uneducated congrega- tion ; but they were found to be deeply interesting and extremely useful to the comparatively small but highly cultivated audience to which they were addressed. Those who have watched the current of recent English literature, — those who are often thrown into the com- pany of men of letters and men of science, — can hardly be unaware of the deep dissatisfaction with which sermons are often regarded, and of the utter scorn with which they are denounced. The reason is obvious. The many whose faith has been shaken by the contradiction between the assertions of the pulpit on the one hand, and the equally confident assertions of science and criticism on the other, and who, from the nature of the case, cannot often hear from the pulpit a single word of sympathy with them in their vague bewilderment, or a single serious attempt to overthrow, by research and reasoning, the difficulties by which they are constantly disturbed, are apt to declare that the clergy either wilfully ignore the opinions and reason- ings of all but their own circles, or have nothing worth notice to ofier in alleviation of their doubts. It is there- fore erroneously asserted that the clergy are living by choice in a fool's paradise of assumed infallibility, and that they think to escape their adversaries by simply burying their heads in the sand. I need not say that PREFACE. Vll sucti complaints seem to me to be founded in miscon- ception. It cannot, I think, be alleged with any truth that the clergy have refused to enter into the field of historic and textual criticism, or that they have omitted to show what they conceive to be the correla- tion between the truths of the Catholic religion and the certain discoveries of philosophy and science. And there are surely men among the ranks both of Angli- can and Nonconformist divines whose wealth of know- ledge, and power of intellect, and unquestioned sin- cerity, and frank willingness to give their reasons for the faith that is in them, are a sufficient proof that they are not likely as a body to follow the cheap and contemptible method of getting rid of all controversy by simply ignoring its existence. Yet even such thinkers as these, soon find by experience that ordi- nary sermons to ordinary congregations are not by any means desirable vehicles for those controversies which deal with the most fundamental verities of the Chris- tian faith. The sceptical metaphysician, the scientific doubter, the Positivist, the Secularist, the Agnostic, should remember that the thoughts which might be well suited to meet their arguments, and that the dis- cussion, — if not the perfect refutation, — which they have a right to demand from those to whom has been intrusted, in a more special manner the sacred deposit ol Christian doctrine, would be wholly unsuited to the poor, the ignorant, the sufi'ering, the uneducated, the dull ; to those who would not even understand the technicalities of an argument ; to those who have never known the agony of a doubt ; to those who derive the viii PREFACE. continuance of their spiritual life from faithful worship and the Holy Communion; to those who have found in the truths of Christianity their sole support and their sole consolation during many weary years. What to the sceptic might seem to be weighty thoughts and in- teresting suggestions, would sound to simple worship- pers like the vain babblings of scholastic disputation. What the former might repudiate as the dogmatism of ignorance, or despise as the commonplaces of exhortation may come to the latter like the music of heaven. The former might be inclined to turn with an almost con- temptuous weariness from discourses which are often to the latter the very bread of life. Even if it were right for a Christian minister to forget for a moment that the vast majority of his audience is composed of believing Christians, — even if it were right for him to trouble and becloud their minds with objections to which he himself attaches no importance, and of which they have never even heard, — yet all the conditions under which sermons are ordinarily preached in our parish churches, while most admirably adapted for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, are sin- gularly adverse to sustained argument or intricate inquiry. Those, therefore, who really wish to see how the clergy meet the opposition of scepticism, will, find many books written with this purpose, but can hardly expect to hear sermons addressed to them on topics such as these. But, for this very reason, it is desirable that those of the clergy who have the requisite know- ledge and ability should not miss the opportunity for PREFACE. ix Christian apologetics, when it is fairly presented to them in the ordinary course of their ministry. Such Was the opportunity which occurred to Mr. Shakspeare in some afternoon sermons at St. Stephen's, Westbourne Park, and which he utilised to the best of his power, by the effort to counteract — not by angry denunciation, but by thoughtful argument — the prevalent tendency to Agnosticism. It was one of his objects to endeavour to demonstrate, as Professor Max Mtiller has also shown in his recent Hibbert Lectures, that the elements of faith and duty, even apart from external revelation, are immanent in the consciousness of mankind; but with this difference, that Professor Max Mtiller was speak- ing in a secular place,* to a secular audience, whereas Mr. Shakspeare, preaching in the pulpit of a church, might fairly start with the assumption that those whom he was addressing were more than willing to grant far wider premises than could be assumed in an argument which was purely scientific, and in which it was neces- sary to prove, or at the very least to show the absolute reasonableness of, the most elementary principles of faith. There are some so-called religious critics who — being utterly unconscious of everything that is going on in the world of secular literature — have so little either of the wisdom of the serpent, or the harmlessness of the dove, that with unreasoning fury they attack their best friends as though they were their deadliest ene- * The Chapter House of Westminster Abbey belongs to the Government, and leave to use it has to be obtained, not from the Dean and Chapter, but from the First Commissioner of the Board of Works. X PREFACE. mies. To such persons a writer immediately becomes an object of suspicion if he so much as quotes a senti- ment, however noble, from a known skeptic, without flinging a stone, or fulminating an anathema. To such critics a writer like Mr. Shakspeare does not appeal. To them he might fairly say — " Sis BUS, sis divus, sum caltha et non tibi spiro." The subjects with which he is dealing are far too solemn to admit of their being made turbid by the wretched pettinesses of party controversy. He well knew that those whom he wished to influence would be simply repelled by an assumed right to silence them with current conventionalities, and by the afiec- tation either of a serene unconsciousness of their difficulties, or a pious terror of their opinions. If it be true — as is so constantly asserted and so loudly be- wailed — that men of the highest intellect and the profoundest thought are getting more and more alie- nated from Christianity — at any rate, in the forms under which it is most often presented to them — then it is at least certain that they will never attend to any argument which shows an entire unacquaintance with their position, or with the literature in which it is set forth, and that they will never listen to any voice which does not address them in the language of manly frankness, and respectful sympathy. This is the tone of the following sermons. They are the work of one who is competent by learning and culture to deal with the subjects of which he speaks; and of one who in the fairness and moderation of his tone has tried to catch PREFACE. xi something of the spirit of that great Apostle of whom he is writing. St. Paul at Ephesus was not a blas- phemer of the goddess Artemis;* at Athens he uttered no fierce denunciation even of a decadent and despair- ing philosophy. He strove to overthrow the monstrous complications of Paganism, by preaching with all love and forbearance the Kevelation of God in Jesus Christ ; and he tried to meet the noblest instincts of the Stoic and the Epicurean, by showing them that the God who had sent him forth to preach Jesus and the Kesurrection, was the Unknown God of their unsuc- cessful search, and of their unconscious praise. Mr. Shakspeare has the very highest authority for his fear- lessness and for his sympathy; and in days when so many volumes of sermons find a favourable reception even when they are very thin in substance and unori- ginal in expression, I cannot doubt that readers will be found to welcome discourses which have a special object, and which are so well adapted as these are to repay a thoughtful perusal. On whatever grounds any may object to them, no one, I think, can possibly say that they are nothing more than ''another wave on the Dead Sea of Commonplace." I will only add that I must, of course, disclaim all responsibility for special phrases and sentiments which occur in the following sermons. They contain some things with which I disagree, and many expressions which I could not myself have used. The same might probably be said by the readers of almost any religious • Acts xix. 37. Xll PREFACE. work which showed the faintest gleam of independence and originality. On many questions, and possibly even on some points of deep importance, I differ from the author. The gratitude which I have ventured to express for the general design of the sermons, and for the way in which the design has been worked out, will not, of course, be interpreted to mean an identity of my own opinions with those of the writer, or an un- qualified acceptance of all that he has said. F. W. FAEEAE. SwANAGE, September, 1878. TO JAMES SWIFT DICKSON, ES(2., THE DEAR AND BELOVED FRIEND OF YOUTH, TO WHOSE SYMPATHY, ENCOURAGEMENT, AND AID IS DUE A BOUNDLESS DEBT OF GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. **0 mihi prceteritos referat si yiipiter annosT — Virgil {ALti. viii. 560). 2 CONTENTS. CHAP. INTRODUCTION I. THE CITY AND THE APOSTLE n. CULTURE AND FAITH III. SENSUOUS AND SPIRITUAL RELIGION IV. PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY : FIRST CENTURY A. D. . V. PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY : FIRST CENTURY A. D. VI. ANCIENT AND MODERN SCEPTICISM VII. THE EPICUREANS AND MODERN LIFE VIII. THE STOICS AND MODERN THOUGHT IX. HUMANITY AND GOD . . . . . " One adequate support For the calamities of mortal life Exists — one only ; an assured belief That the procession of our fate, howe'er Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being Of infinite benevolence and power; Whose everlasting purposes embrace All accidents, converting them to good." — Wordsworth {The Excursion). " "Ei jlOL ^VVSLTj (pepOVTL Moipa rap evaenTov dyvduv 16} ov "Ep-yuf re Trdrrwi^, (Lv vojuoi npoKEivrat 'TipiTrodeg, ovpav'iav Al aldepa reicvudevTEg, uv "OlviinoQ Uarf/p juSvog, ov6e viv Qvard (pvoLQ dvipov "'EriKTEv. ovSe fiT/7T0Te lada KaTaKoijudari Meyag kv rovToig Qebg, ovSej yr^pdaKec." —Sophocles {CEdip. Tyrann., v. 863-871). "Unsere Welt wird noch so fein werden, dass es ebenso lacherlich sein wird, einen Gott zu glauben, als heut zu Tage Gespenster." — LiCHTENBERG [apud Tholuck, Die Glauhvourdigkeit der Evangelischen Geschichte, S. 24, 25). " There is a superstition approaching to weakness or worse in be- ing over-afraid of superstition," — Palgrave {Hist, of Normandy and England, i. 137). "Opinionum enim commenta delet dies: Naturae judicia confir- mat." — Cicero {De Natura Deorum, ii. 2, 5). INTRODUCTION. This course of Sermons was delivered with a view of assisting, if possible, minds perplexed by prevalent modes of agnostic tliouglit. In every congregation of educated people there are some who have by no means thrown off their reverence for religion, but who are harassed by the schism between their intellectual attitude and their devotional feelings. In the church in which I have ministered for many years, I was well aware that there were hearers of this kind, and these sermons were an attempt to help them in their difficulties. On mentioning to my dear friend and vicar, the Picv. T. J. Eowsell, my purpose of trying to deal with this state of mind, he not only expressed approval, but gave me his w^arm sympathy, and his presence at the delivery of the Sermons. I felt myself that, in a church in which two earnest pastoral discourses were preached every Sunday, it was permissible to employ the third (afternoon) service, at least occasionally, in speaking upon subjects somewhat remote from ordinary 2 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. congregational needs, yet possibly helpful to special types of mind. The work is now published in compliance with a wish expressed by many hearers, and; in particular, at the request of my vicar, and of the Eev. Canon Farrar, who, with much kindness, has written, from his own point of view, a preface to the series. In submitting these Discourses to the public, I must request the reader to bear in mind the special aim with which they were composed and preached. This was to suggest that the attitude of what is called Nescience towards spiritual religion can only justify itself by dropping out of sight a large class of facts exhibited in the development of our race, or by refusing to these facts what appears to me the only adequate interpretation. A striking chapter in this history is the contact of Hellenism and Christianity in the first and second centuries of our era. Greek speculation in its ethical aspects and Hebrew religiousness are both phenomena of a kind which cannot be dismissed as wholly illusory, as having no ground in ultimate reality, and no meaning beyond themselves. I wished to suggest to hearers to whom, often in their own despite, religion in this world appears a mere dream, evolved under purely human conditions by the mis- reading of the phenomena of nature, that such an interpretation is too narrow for the facts and too little INTRODUCTION. 3 in harmony with the deepest roots of our own being to hold its ground. I tried to show that the Socratic and Platonic/ as well as the Hebrew and Christian faith requires another and a higher view of the world and of man, and that the idea of a living God would be found to harmonise, when allowance is made for the necessary limits of our faculties, with the teaching of experience, if experience be understood to include spiritual experience. I hoped that minds far from insensible to the force of religious sentiment might perceive that it was no way irrational to believe in a transcendental object of that sentiment — in an ador- able Being whom it was neither superstition nor fanaticism to endeavour to make consciously, as He is really, the indwelling presence of our souls and of our lives. In a word, the fundamental idea of the Sermons is, that the very existence of the spiritual faculty in man, so persistent and so vigorous, is ground of faith in a supersensuous reality corresponding to this faculty and creating it. As we — " Hear the mighty stream of tendency Uttering, for elevation of our thought, A clear sonorous voice," ^ 1 It is instructive to observe that Socrates and Plato are objects of the in- tense dislike of some modern schools of thought. See Draper, " History of Intellectual Development in Europe," vol. i. c. v., and Robert Lewin, M.D., " Life and Mind," pp. 5, 6, note. 2 This famous phrase, "stream of tendency," is that of Wordsworth (Ex- cursion, Book ix.). 4 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS'. we find the witness for God and the justification of worship. The nine Sermons in this volume are accordingly variations on this theme. I set out with endeavouring to show that there is no rational ground for placing the intellectual and aesthetic side of our beins; in antagonism with the religious side of it, and that religion, essentially spiritual in its character, though it clothes itself in form, is the soul and principle of all forms. The power of a spiritual faith in history to triumph over unbelief and superstition is illustrated by the contrast between Gentile rituals and Christian worship. The preparation for Christianity in the Eoman Empire through philosophy become devout, exhibits in two distinct and independent manifestations the spiritual forces which sway the souls of men. The sixth discourse is an attempt to vindicate both the rights of inquiry and the rights of faith — in technical terms, the rights of the subject and the rights of the object; the seventh, to bring out the disastrous influence of the too self-regarding scheme of life which excludes all relation to the Infinite. The sermon on the Stoics and Modern Thought dwells upon the persist- ence of religious sentiments and religious ideas under unfavourable conditions, and on the testimony thus afi'orded to the reality from which they spring. I have, finally, summed up the case as presented in the INTRODUCTION. 5 previous discourses, and indicated some aspects of Christianity which confirm our faith in a living Lord of all, and help us to live as seeing Him who is invisible. The form of the sermon must, of course, render this line of thouglit unsystematic, and has compelled me to give a sketch, not a full exposition. But, per- suaded as I am that we reach spiritual verities not through intellect only, but through conscience and affection, I shall be satisfied if I shall have induced any hearer, or if I can induce any reader, to seek the highest philosophy of life in the region of religious trusts, and, without abnegating reason, to rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." In fact, the attempt to exclude from the sphere both of thought and conduct all regard to the Infinite, which, whether we will or not, overshadows and colours our lives, can end only in failure. Monistic schemes of philosophy are no doubt wrecked against the dualities of human existence.-^ God and man, 1 " II est impossible, avec un peu d'attention, de ne pas etre frapp6 d'uu ph6nom^;ne que presentent uniformement la science, la vie humaine, et la societe. Chacune de leurs parties, chacune de leurs manifestations met en saillie deux principes opposes et rivaux, egalement vrais Tun et Fautie, egalement imperieax, destines, ce semble, a se limiter, a se modifier mutu- ellement, a produire, par leur combinaison, l'6tat regulier, la verite des choses, mais ne parvenant jamais a I'aceomodement desire, et perpetuant dans les differentes spli^res que nous avons indiquees ees dualites incura- bles et desesperantes qui finissent par nous sembler les conditions fatales de la pens6e et de I'existence hiimaincs."— Vinet, " Essais de Philosophic Morale," Introduction, p. ii. 6 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. Divine destination and human freedom, reign of law and providence, eternal order and prayer, perfect good- ness and possibility of sin, unchanging purpose and forgiveness, cannot be grasped under one complete and consistent conception. We can conceive the Infinite in relation only to our finite consciousness. We can indeed make the Infinite a subject of thought, but we can only represent it to our minds under some image that is drawn from oar finite experience. Thus, while in the realm of speculation it is permissible, and indeed inevitable, that we recognise the existence of unity as a unity which transcends all finite modes of think- ing,^ the moral and practical danger of monistic thought is the hazard of letting go our foothold on this earth in futile attempts to scale heaven. We may lose sight of the sacredness of duty, of the imperative claims of conscience, of the need of worshipping the Father of spirits, while striving vainly to grasp a conception of the Infinite Power for wliich we refuse to allow our sensible and spiritual experience to furnish any illus- trative symbol. Conscious of the inadequacy and of the purely relative truth of all symbols, we may lose ourselves in empty space, and forget that the symbol, inadequate as it is, is truth, which is not the less real because it is relative to ourselves. 1 8ee the Sermon on the Stoics and Modern Thought, p. 128. INTRODUCTION. 7 This is not, however, the clanger to which the minds of Englishmen are most exposed. The danger lies for us in the other direction — that of pronouncing the Infinite a mere chimera, because it necessarily tran- scends intelligence, and is not fully presentable to imagination, and so of resolutely shutting it out from all influence upon thought and life. The Positive philosophy, though originating in France, has a natural affinity for ourselves. The policy of wholly letting alone subjects which lie beyond the range of sensible observation and experiment commends itself to many of us as the height of practical wisdom. The matter- of-fact philosophy of Locke^ contains, indeed, the germ of the system of Auguste Comte, and good upon the whole as the influence of Locke on English thought has been, that good has been counterbalanced by some evil. Certainly we shall not escape mental perplexity or practical difficulty by giving the lie direct to the sense of the Infinite which " besets us behind and before, and lays its hand upon us." "Were it possible to rid ourselves of its haunting presence, every hue of poetry, every hue of devotion, all that sufi'uses our being with ideal beauty, all that impels it to noble ends, would be washed out of our souls, and life would 1 See, for example, Human Understanding, Book IV., cc. xviii. and xix., on " Faith and Reason " and " Enthusiasm," where, amidst much good sense, he wholly misses the real grounds of faith and of certitude. 8 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. speedily become in theory that which^ as it is, it too easily tends to become, in fact, colourless and ignoble. So far as our relation to this world of things and persons is concerned, we have to order our lives by what we know. Yet it is the light that comes from the source of all being which clothes what we know with its investiture of spiritual glory, and gives it its power over conduct. Like the peasant-poet, Clare, who in his childhood set out from his father's cottage to touch, if he might, the point where earth and sky meet, we are drawn on towards far horizons ''clad in colours of the air/' by the impulse and sentiment which comes from the Father of Lights. In this series of Sermons, therefore, I have kept in view these two blended elements of our being, which we may imperfectly designate as knowledge and faith. Christianity is the recognition of both these elements. It leads us upwards from experience to that which transcends experience. In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, we have piinciples of conduct which are most surely verified in the experience of all who have attempted to guide their lives by them. Even what may be called the negative and temporary aspects of Christ's law of the kingdom will only disappear because their work is done, while the positive and permanent spirit which that law breathes will suffuse the world which it has regenerated with an atmo- INTRODrCTION. 9 sphere of heaven. The realisation of the law of love would annihilate the precepts by which that realisation was attained, as the scafiblding is taken down when the building is finished. Yet all this is strictly within the limits of verifiable experience. It is not the less true that the power by which the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount translate themselves into fact comes from a source which is beyond all experience. This law of love, verifiable in experience, rests upon faith in an Infinite Father and in the life of the world to come. Experience verifies the rule; the hue of thought and tone of feeling w^hicli make the rule efi'ective are derived from the consciousness which has risen to communion with God. With the aim which I have thus indicated, I am com- pelled, of course, to pass by many veins of Christian thought which find their appropriate place in sermons addressed to belief rather than to doubt. The rich mine of doctrine and ethics contained in St. Paul's Epistles is, so far as this series of discourses is con- cerned, almost wholly unworked. Nor have I thought it needful to encumber the course of thought with ques- tions of historical criticism. The date of the Acts of the Apostles — the design and purpose with which it was written — do not seriously afi'ect my subject. The ideas contained in this masterpiece of Christian oratory (of which, however, we have probably only a sketch) — St. 10 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. Paul's speech on the Areopagus — find support in his letters.-^ Discussions, therefore, which have no direct bearing on my aim in this series I studiously avoid, whatever value they may have in their own place. As I have wished not to distract the reader's atten- tion from the text by crowding the margin with foot- notes, although I have not been able to exclude them entirely, it is all the more incumbent upon me to express my obligation to some of the books which have been most helpful. I can indeed profess only a limited acquaintance with the rich literature of the subject, though I have done what I could in the scanty leisure left from the exacting toil of two professions. In exe- gesis I have found Meyer and De Wette invaluable. In the higher criticism I owe much to Baur, " Paul us der Apostel Jesu Christi," Mr. Jowett's Epistles of St. Paul, Dr Stanley on the Corinthians, and Dr. Light- foot on the Galatians. For historical illustration, both of thought and of event, I am greatly indebted to Dr. Merivale's "History of the Eomans under the Empire" and his Boyle Lectures for 1864, "The Conversion of the Eoman Empire;" to Conybeare and Howson's '^Life and Letters of St. Paul;" to Eenan, ^'St. Paul;" to Ewald, " Geschichte des Volkes Israel," B. vi., ''Ges- chichte des Apostolischen Zeitalters;" to Grote's ''Pla- 1 See Renan, •' Saint Paul," pp. 194, 195, note. On the other hand, Pfleide- rer, " Paulinism," ii. 248, 249 (Eng. tr.). INTRODUCTION. 11 to," and his " History of Greece," as well as to Jowett's Dialogues of Plato; " to Havet, ^'Le Christianisme et ses Origines;" Aiibertin, "Sen^que; " Boissier, *' Le Christianisme de Sen^que" in the ''Eevne des Deux Mondes," prem. livr. March 1871 ; Denis, " Histoire des Theories et des Idees morales dans I'Antiquite." In the sixth sermon I am under special obligations to Mr. Levin's small but masterly book on the Philo- sophical Writings of Cicero." I am also indebted to Mr. LI. Davies' article on St. Paul " in Smith's Dic- tionary of the Bible," and to various articles in Herzog's " Real Encyklopadie fur Protestantische Theologie und Kirche," and in Schenkel's ^' Bibel-Lexicon." Among books which I have read since composing the Sermons, but which came in my way too late to be of essential service, I may mention Dr. Lightfoot's Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians ; " Dr. Farrar's " Witness of History to Christ," Hulsean Lectures for 1870; Mr. Capes' University Life of Ancient Athens; " Baur's ''Sokrates und Christus," and "Seneca und Paulus," which, buried in the " Tiibinger Zeitschrift " and Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift." were beyond my reach until Zeller edited in a separate form Drei Abhand- lungen zur Geschichte der alten Philosophic und Ihres Yerhaltnisses zum Christenthum." This book of Baur's, and the excellent work of Constant Martha, " Les Moralistes sous I'Empire Romain," v/ould have been of 12 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. the greatest assistance to me had I met with them earher. I ought to mention that I had read Dr. Stan- ley's article on Socrates in the " Quarterly Eeview " before its re-publication in the third series of " Lectures on the Jewish Church," as well as some extracts from his contributions to the " Classical Museum/^ in Dr. William Smith's article Athense," in the Dictionary of Classical Geography." I notice this because I find that some passages in my first sermon were coloured, even in their language, by unconscious reminiscence. But obligations of this kind I am unable to acknow- ledge in every case, as I cannot always recall the sources. I may add, that I have written this introduction before seeing Dr. Farrar's preface. It is not, perhaps, necessary for me to say that his general sympathy with my aim by no means implies entire approval on his part either of my method of treatment or of particular sentiments, for which I am myself exclu- sively responsible. 4 St. Stephen's Road, VVe.stboukxe Park. L THE CITY AND THE APOSTLE. "Divine and human influences are so twisted and knit together that it is hard to sever them." — Barrow ( Works, i. 102). " 'Ev ToiCLV tooTe^dvoig oIkeI rair apxaiciiOLV 'Adr/vaig.'' — Aristophanes {Equit. v. 1323). " 'EpExdEtdat TO TralaLov d?^(3ioiy Kai 6ec)V TraldEg /LLandpuv^ 'updg Xupag dnopOrjrov r' dKO(pEpl36^uEvot 'K?i£ivoTdTav aocp'iav, AeI did "kafnTpordrov 'Baivovreg d(5pC)g aWepog, ivda iroO' dyvdg ''Epvla IliEpidag Movaag Tih/ovat Aavddv 'Apfioviav (j)VT£V(jai.^^ —Euripides {3fed. v. 824-834). "Unde humanitas, doctrina, religio, fruges, jura, leges, artes in omnes terras distributse putantur." — Cicero (Orat. pro Flaceo, xxvi. 62). " Ei Tig doKsi d7Jiog TreTvoidevai ev capKiy kyi) fj.d?J.ov' JlEpiTOfi?/ oic- Ta^fiepng, en yevovg 'laparj\ (^vkrjg BEviai^'iv, 'Ej3paiog 'E^paiuv, kuto. vdfiov ^apiaaiog, kutq ^rfkov diuKov TTjV kKKATjo'iav, Ka-d diKaioc'vvTjv T^v ev v6ju(f) yevoutvog d/iE/xivTog. 'AA/l' ciTiva 7]v fioi Kept^r], Tavra 7jy?}/iiai did tov XpiGTov l^Tj/ulav." — St. Paul {Ep. ad Philip., iii. 4-7). I. " And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens." Acts xvii. 15. The resolution of St. Paul to preach the Gospel in Eu- rope — one of those sudden inspirations which outstrip with the insight of intuition the slower processes of the understanding — was perhaps the boldest and the most momentous step ever taken in the spiritual history of mankind. It was a step from which an enthusiasm less ardent and a purpose less steadfast than his might well have shrunk, for it was nothing less than the attempt to overthrow, by the simple power of an appeal to the human heart and conscience, the religions of the civili- sations of Greece and Eome — religions rooted in the traditions and entwined with the national life of six centuries of actual history, and beyond that, again, resting on the background of an immemorial past. It was an attempt which might well have seemed certain of failure, and yet it was a success. It was St. Paul's second missionary tour, in the year of our Lord 51. From Alexandria Troas, where the 15 16 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. thoughts which possessed him had shaped themselves into the vision of a man of the West stretching forth ''lame hands of faith" towards the East for spiritual succour, every stage of his progress towards Athens and Corinth was '' haunted, holy ground," planted with the mightiest memories of the past. Behind him was the plain of the Troad, consecrated by '' the tale of Troy divine," bright with the fame of Homer and of Alexander, and associated with the legendary origin of Rome. He sailed past Samothrace, the holy isle of worships and mysteries lost in hoar antiquity. Upon the horizon rose Athos, with crowdins; memories of the might of Persia wrecked against the heroic resistance of free Hellas. Landing near the famous battle- field of Philippi, where the deathblow Was given to the Eoman Commonwealth — the battlefield which the genius of the greatest of English poets has made classic ground to Englishmen — he passed through Amphi- polis, once the brightest jewel in the crown of imperial Athens; through Thessalonica and Bersea, monuments of the vanished empire of Alexander; then onward by sea past ''the snowy top of cold Olympus,'^ home of the gods of Greece; past the peak of Ossa and the swelling ridge of Pel ion, until, leaving in the distance on his right hand Thermopylae and Marathon, he reached Athens, came through dismantled Piraeus, by the ruins of the long walls, to the noblest city of the THE CITY AND THE APOSTLE. 17 ancient world, tlie centre of Hellenic culture, the uni- versity of the West. It was a strange meeting this — the meeting of such a city and of such a man, both so great in their own order, and yet that order so diverse and so apparently antagonistic. Athens was not then, at the time of St. Paul's visit, what she had been in the past, and yet the life of the past quickened her, the beauty of the past clothed her still. The words with which the Apostle began his discourse on the Areopagus, Ye men of Athens," fall upon our ears with a strangely familiar sound. They awaken the memories of her bygone days — of " the high actions and of the high passions" of which she was the scene. They take us back in thought to those ^'famous orators" in the period of her freedom and of her greatness — " Whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democracy, Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne." We see the city of the vanished ages pass as in a bright panorama before us. We see rising out of the abyss — " Her men of might, her grand in soul : Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were, First in the race that led to glory's goal, They won and passed away." 18 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. We see once more the day when the barbarian ranks went down before the levelled spears of the soldiers of Marathon, or the day when off her shores her sons sank the Persian armada in the waters of Salamis. We behold rising under the statesmanship of Pericles and the genius of Pheidias the temples and statues which clothed her with her imperial mantle : we watch her festal multitudes thronging to her theatre to listen to strains of immortal poetry, or the angry crowds, chafing under the restraint of inaction, gathering in her streets, as men beheld from her walls their villas and homesteads wrapped in flames by the Peloponne- sian invader. There rise before us the scenes of that terrible plague when doorways and temple steps and fountains were choked with corpses and her great statesman broke into a passion of tears as he placed the funeral chaplet on the dead face of his last son. We picture to ourselves the anguish and terror which smote every bosom when the tidings came that her generals and armies were lost, and her ships sunk in the harbour of Syracuse : we realise the silent despair which fell like death upon her when the news reached her that her last fleet was in the hands of Lysander, and that she was at the mercy of her enemies : or we imagine to ourselves that other day — precursor of 'Hhat dishonest victory " which laid Hellas prostrate at the feet of Macedon — the day when Athens heard THE CITY AND THE APOSTLE. 19 that Philip was on his march to Attica; and we see her citizens firing the booths in the market-place to make speedy room for almost the last free assembly that ever met within her walls. And the vision of all that greatness touches us with a sense of pain as we think how shortlived it was. For all was now gone when St. Paul stood or walked in the streets where Socrates had so often gathered around him the tanners and smiths and drovers, who laughed at his homely jests, or were thrilled by the magic of his matchless speech. All that glorious past was gone — fleets and armies, imperial supremacy, political freedom — all were gone. Her long walls were sinking slowly into ruins. Piraeus was dismantled, and St. Paul landed where only a few mean houses clustered around a solitary temple. The Athens of the past was no more. Overshadowing alike the Greek and the Latin world was the imperial despotism of Rome. Well, all this was gone — but national life dies hard, and something was left still. Still — " On the ^gean shore a city stands — Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil — Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits, Or hospitable in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades." Still was she in the days of St. Paul, as in those of 20 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. Aristophanes, ''the bright, the violet-crowned city." Still, as in the days of Euripides, her citizens ''were ever delicately marching through the most pellucid air." Still "were her skies as blue, her crags as wild." The glory of her sunsets still bathed in a flood of fire, of purple and of gold, her marble columns, her inves- titure of mountains, and her sea. Still was the too dazzling whiteness of her limestone rocks shaded by her wide-spreading plane-trees. Her temples were yet, for the most part, untouched by the hand of the spoiler or by the efi'acing finger of Time. Nero had not yet robbed Greece of its masterpieces of art. The Parthenon still stood upon the Acropolis without rent or stain, and the Athena of Pheidias still glittered in ivory and gold,^ as the tutelary goddess who watched over the city. Here the schools of philosophy had their seat — " The olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trilled her thick-warbled notes the summer long," — Lyceum, and *'the painted Stoa," and the garden of Epicurus; and all "the eloquent air burned and breathed " with the accents of wisdom. A fallen city she was, but a city glorious in her fall — a museum, a sanctuary, a university — redeemed by her intellectual 1 Gilding, however, had replaced the inlaid gold. — " Diet, of Class. Biog.," s. V. " Pheidias," iii. 2rjl. THE CITY AND THE APOSTLE. 21 force from her political nullity — looked up to with reverence by her former rivals, Sparta and Thebes, involved with her in the common doom of foreign conquest. Here Cicero had studied and Atticus lived. Hither came the young Eoman nobility in search of culture or of pleasure. Strangers, drawn by 'Hhe remnants of her splendour past/^ as well as by her present influence, thronged her streets, ^^and spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing," — "the true character," as Hobbes drily remarks, ''of politicians without employment." The last scandalous story from Eome, or the latest phase of philosophy, nothing came amiss. A bright, pleasant, garrulous city was Athens in these days of St. Paul, where seekers for truth and lovers of wisdom jostled men of wit and fashion — where the sceptic and the devotee, the frivolous and the earnest, gazed on the same bright spectacle of festive rites and gay proces- sions — where keen intellects were asking what is truth, and aching hearts were yearning for an unknown God. To such a city came St. Paul. He, too, has a his- tory, and stands there, in the market-place and the Areopagus, the heir of past ages, gathering up in his own soul the spiritual experiences of a race and country which were separated from Athens and the Athenian by ''an interval which no geometry can express." He is the inheritor of that Hebrew faith in the One Living 3 22 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. God, the Lord of heaven and earth, which had grown up and become firmly rooted in Palestine, only after ages of conflict with sun-worships, with dark idola- tries of Molech, and Ashera, and Baal, with sensual orgies and sanguinary devilries. But the battle of monotheism in Judaea had been fought and won. For the possession of that faith in the One God St. Paul has needed to pass through, in his own person, no mental conflict. He owed it to the men who had gone before him — to prophets who had witnessed and died for it when Israel inflamed himself under every green tree, and Judah filled the land with pollution and with blood — to priests and scribes who taught it in synagogue, and school, and book — to the Maccabees, who rescued the nation from the power of Greek idolatry. Into the inheritance of the spiritual fruits of {^11 these past labours St. Paul entered; and just as, in the Hellenic world, Socrates prepared the way for Christianity by the stimulus which he gave to the religious and ethical self-consciousness,^ so on Hebrew soil the work of the prophets was the necessary pre- paration for St. Paul. But St. Paul, too, had his own personal discipline — must be baptized with the baptism with which his Master had been baptized before he could do his 1 See Baur, " Sokrates und Christus, Abhandlungen," s. 247, et seq. THE CITY AND THE APOSTLE. 23 Master's work' in the world. Through great search- ings of heart" must he pass before he could preach the unity of God in that Pagan city. Truly has it been said that every man who strives to learn for himself finds that his hardest task lies, not in what he has to learn, but in what he has to unlearn. And it was so with St. Paul. According to the straitest sect of his religion, he had lived a Pharisee. His mind — naturally ardent, enthusiastic, impatient of trammels, on which, in Tarsus, some chance seeds of Greek cul- ture had fallen, who had been unconsciously influenced, too, by the more mild and tolerant principles of Ga- maliel, and all these things were in secret preparing him for his future work — had yet been swathed in the bands of Eabbinical formalism. He seemed to have to unlearn all that he had held as most indubitable and most sacred when he gave up Gamaliel for JeBiis and began to preach the faith which he had striven to destroy. Yet this was but a single step in his fresh spiritual career. It was not long before he saw with clearer insight than the Church of Jeru- salem, or than even the twelve saw, the true spirit and genius, the real tendencies of the new faith. As the vision of the Man of Nazareth, crowned with thorns and pierced by the nails of the cross, entered into his soul, the scales fell from his eyes, and he felt rather than reasoned that this trust and love to- 24 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. wards the Invisible Father of all, which the Christ had taught him, in truth swept aside all Hebrew na- tionality, all sacredness of outward rites. And at this period, when he was preaching Christ in Philippi, in Thessalonica, in Bersea, and in Athens, Christianity had already entered on its second phase, was passing from the condition of a Jewish sect into a Church, catholic in the best sense of the term, — into a world- wide religion. Much had the Apostle yet to learn, much yet to unlearn ; but one thing he had grasped, the very life and centre of all his teaching — the uni- versality of the faith of Christ, recognising no distinc- tion between Jew or Gentile, Greek or barbarian, bond or free, male or female, and breaking down the middle wall of partition between the different sections of mankind by the rushing tide of an all-comprehending creed of heart and conscience, of trust and love. This creed Paul preached in Athens — a creed broader than Hebrew faiths or than Greek philosophies — a universal Father, a Divine life of filial offering and brotherly love, such as the world had never seen or Jew or Greek known. And thus the city and the Apostle met — the glory of human culture, and the enthusiasm of Divine faith. Many lessons touching the thought and life of our own day, suggested by this singular contrast, I propose to draw out, to the best of my power, in succeeding sermons. THE CITY AND THE APOSTLE. 25 One only, in conclusion, will I now note. It is this : God has a place and w^ork in the world for Athens as well as for St. Paul, for St. Paul as well as for Athens. It did not seem so then ; there are some, on either side, who do not believe it now : it is true notwithstanding. Neither the Athenian philosopher nor the Jewish apostle understood it, and yet it has come to pass. Alike for the influence of the city in which Pericles ruled, in which Socrates lived and died, and for the influence of the preacher of His Christ has God made room in His own world. Very strange to each other were the Athenian and St. Paul. ''What will this babbler say?"— this Jew with his foreign garb, with his quaint language and his uncouth accent, retailing to us scraps of knowledge picked up here and there, which he evidently does not understand, — this eager disputant, who talks in the market-place like another Socrates, and, like Socrates, seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods." What does it all mean? The apostle^ too, could even he understand Athens ? Marvelling at the idolatry around him, he saw, in the tumult of his spirit, little more than the idolatry. What Athenian listening in that crowd could dream that the day would come when the creed preached by St. Paul would dethrone the goddess of the Parthenon and the lords of Olympus, close the schools of philosophy, seat itself in the palace of the 26 ST. PAUL AT ATHENS. Caesars, transmute tlie temple of the virgin goddess into the church of the Virgin Mother, and create a new civilisation out of the ruins of the old? But neither did St. Paul foresee, when he looked upon the city wholly given up to idolatry, that the spirit of Socrates, of Plato, and of Aristotle, — names of which he had probably just heard and no more, — would here- after profoundly penetrate the theology of the Church, an4 mould and tincture the Christendom of the future. Greece," it has been said, " arose from the dead with the New Testament in her hand," ^ and, I may add, has leavened with her culture, her art, her subtle in- tellectual force, the world which the New Testament has created. Ah, yes ! God's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor our ways His. Athens and St. Paul alike saw but a little way into the future ; both being dead yet speak. As God lifts His world age by age to higher and nobler levels, He brings from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, men who sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in His kingdom, and who are helping to make one bright and perfect thing out of the sundered elements of human life. iGoldwin Smith. 11. CULTURE ^AND FAITH. "'AdE?i(po'i, fj.y Tvatdia ytveade rai^ cppenlv dA/ia ttj Kada vjjtt takers ^ Taig 6e (ppeci Te?.Eioi y'lveade." — St. Paul (1 Ep. ad Corinth, xiv. 20). "There have been attempts in all ages to separate Christianity from Judaism and Hellenism ; but to carry out such an attempt is not to interpret Christianity, but to construct a new religion. Chris- tianity has not only affinities with Judaism and Hellenism, but it includes in itself all the permanent truths to which both witness." — Westcott {The Gospel of the Resurrection, pp. 60, 61). "When Providence would make a revelation, He does not begin anew, but uses the existing system ; He does not visibly send an an- gel, but He commissions or inspires one of our own fellows. When He would bless us. He makes a man His priest. When He would consecrate or quicken us, He takes the elements of this world as the means of real but unseen spiritual influences." — John Henry Newman {Essays, Critical and Historical, ii. 194). "T'tveade ovv